Cooler Master Sileo 500 Case Review

Introduction

Cooler Master Sileo 500 is a mid-tower case with aluminum front panel designed to provide a very quiet computer. It has several noise-absorbing pads in its interior and its two 120 mm fans rotate at a very low speed (800 rpm) and thus producing almost no noise. You also have the option to buy this case with a Cooler Master eXtreme Power Plus 500 W power supply already installed. Let’s see what you should expect from this case.

The model without the power supply is called RC-500-KKN1-GP, while the model with the power supply is called RC-500-KKR3-GP. The price difference between them is of USD 30. Black is the only available color.

We’ve just reviewed Cooler Master eXtreme Power Plus 500 W power supply, so you may want to read this other review as well.

Figure 1: Cooler Master Sileo 500 case.

Figure 2: Cooler Master Sileo 500 case.

This is a steel case with an aluminum front panel, giving it a very sober looks. As you can see in Figure 3, Sileo 500 has five 5.25” and two 3.5” external bays, with the bottom one used to hold two USB ports, one eSATA port and microphone and headphones jacks. The addition of an eSATA port was really nice, although it is too close to the right USB port and maybe you won’t be able to install an eSATA cable if you have a “fat” USB device installed on this port. On the other hand the left USB port is located far away, so you will be able to install two “fat” USB devices at the same time. The standby and reset buttons available on the front panel are transparent and glow blue when the system is turned on.

Figure 3: Front panel.

There is a 120 mm fan behind the front case. The air intake is made through holes available on the junction between the front panel and the side panels (see Figures 1 and 2). The two fans available rotate at a low speed (800 rpm) – so they are quiet – and they use a three-pin connector, so you can install them directly on the motherboard in order to monitor their speed. The case comes with adapters if you want to attach them directly to the power supply.

In Figure 4, you can see the rear panel, which has the traditional ATX configuration, with the power supply on the top and seven expansion slots. This case has a mesh above the expansion slots, which surely helps improving airflow. As mentioned, this case has a 120 mm fan on the rear panel. There are no holes for water coolers.

Figure 4: Rear panel.

Now let’s take a look inside Sileo 500.