Cooler Master Announces HAF 500 Case

Peter_Brosdahl

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Cooler Master has brought back its renowned HAF series PC chassis. Sometimes jokingly referred to as fans with a case, the series is known for providing maximum airflow for demanding builds and ease of access for components with tool-less side panels. The new HAF 500 series will be available in black or white and comes with a 120 mm fan on top of the HDD cage for dedicated GPU cooling, 2x 200 mm fans on the front, and a 120 mm fan for exhaust. Up to 2x 360 mm radiators can be mounted for additional cooling options. A flagship HAF product is also in development and “set to break records and redefine the PC world as we know it.”



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Image: Cooler...
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You've got to love the marketing speak: "A flagship HAF product is also in development and “set to break records and redefine the PC world as we know it.”

Come on now. It's basically all pretty much been done before. It even looks like half the stuff out there right now that isn't made of glass. Plus, there is only so much you can do with ambient air cooling.
 
Looks almost identical to my Lian Li Lancool 215

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Doesn't tick many of my boxes either; I can see the utility of the case in terms of using tower CPU coolers and GPUs with open-air coolers in terms of being a fairly straightforward 'quiet' build with the large fans providing a competitive airflow to noise ratio.

Still, since @Dan_D mentioned glass, I do like my Lian Li 011 XL for both not looking terrible and for being absurdly easy to work in with said glass removed.
 
I've had a HAF935, it was quite good, I could put the watercooling radiators in the small compartment separating the heat from the main box.
But this is not a stacker, so it doesn't have such utility. This is just a basic case with an ugly front bezel and slighty more vents on the top than usual.
 
For me, it's too little, too late and I simply don't need one. I sort of feel sorry for Cooler Master with these. At one point they were at the forefront but over the years began to focus more on fashion than function and meantime many other companies have cropped up to provide major competition. I am curious what the 'game changing' model will be.

On the flip side, I own both a HAF 932 and HAF X. I mostly retired my old 4930K rig that was in a HAF 932. In turn, I swapped the side panel from it to the HAF X and use 4 x 120mm fans versus the 360mm one it came with it and have them connected to a controller. Those older HAF cases are easy to mod and I've heavily done so with the HAF X. I've got a pair of fans that came with my old Trident sticks mounted on the rear for added exhaust, added a 2nd 200mm on top, and a high 120 mm rpm front fan above the 200mm one that is there and it too is connected to the controller. Thanks to the controller I can keep things fairly quiet for work or casual gaming or crank it all up to get performance from the 3700x and 3090 close to what liquid cooling can achieve(albeit loudly).
 
I'm starting to think we've hit a wall with case development and innovation. You can only do so much regarding thermals and air cooling and that's probably part of it. The main issue is that no one has really come up with anything special in terms of aesthetics, design, ease of maintenance, etc. Right now it seems everyone is trying to either make some sort of cheap mesh case or some glass case to chase the PC O11 Dynamic.
 
To be honest - it’s a box, how much innovation can there be?

Apart from some new aesthetic style that catches hold, it still boils down to being a box.
 
Brian_B said:
To be honest - it’s a box, how much innovation can there be?

Apart from some new aesthetic style that catches hold, it still boils down to being a box.
Click to expand...
Plenty. Unfortunately it's cheaper to just reuse the same manufacturing line over and over again. Re-tooling is expensive. That's why basically most cases are the same box with a different plastic bezel, or the holes cut a bit differently.

I use a Silverstone FT05 now, that is quite different than any other case, and I doubt I'll ever replace it. It has the same utility as any mid sized ATX tower, except it's depth is less, it has no connections at the back so it can be pushed against the wall or furniture, so basically it has almost as little of a footprint as a barebone or microatx case, plus the cooling solution is as efficient as it gets with bottom intakes and top exhaust.
 
Brian_B said:
To be honest - it’s a box, how much innovation can there be?

Apart from some new aesthetic style that catches hold, it still boils down to being a box.
Click to expand...

Go back and look at the beige AT or early ATX cases of the 1990's. Then compare those to a Lian-Li PC O11 Dynamic or just about any other modern case and you'll have answered your own question. Today's cases can accommodate larger video cards, cooling systems and have far better air flow than they did back then. They tend to be quieter than a lot of what we had back in the day. Leaving aesthetics out of it, a lot has changed and its generally been for the better.

Older cases used to have removable motherboard trays to make installation of the motherboard easier. Well, that's no longer necessary and even works against you in terms of wire management, structural rigidity and for doing things like mounting water pumps and a res. We no longer have ****ty punch out blanks in the back of the cases for expansion ports or serial port dongles. Hot swap drive cages are more common, and the list goes on and on.

When you really look at it, there is a lot more innovation in case designs than we'd like to think. Old cases were awful. Poor air flow, excessive amounts of drive cages that often weren't ever utilized. Several of them also had limitations for power supply length and GPU's as well. Some of these innovations were by necessity, but many of them just make for a more pleasant experience. Tool-less designs, etc. Also, anyone who used Lian-Li's old school ****ty stand offs will appreciate the fact that the O11 Dynamic doesn't have those in it.
 
I actually preferred having lots of drive cages, current cases despite their enormous size come with absolutely pathetic amounts of drive cages. I always had lots of drives, at one point my main rig had 4 optical drives and 6 or 7 hdds. Back in the early 2000s. The only reason I "just" have 5 drives now is that I moved my long term storage to another PC and the optical drive is an external one.
 
MadMummy76 said:
I actually preferred having lots of drive cages, current cases despite their enormous size come with absolutely pathetic amounts of drive cages. I always had lots of drives, at one point my main rig had 4 optical drives and 6 or 7 hdds. Back in the early 2000s. The only reason I "just" have 5 drives now is that I moved my long term storage to another PC and the optical drive is an external one.
Click to expand...
Yep, that's a part of my love for the HAF 932 I've had for about ten years. At one point, with my x79 board, it had 2 x HDD raids, 3 or 4 more drives, two optical drives, and space for more. Not to mention it once housed 3 GPUS(SLI+physX). Over years I've simplified the overall design(1 GPU now, a few SSDs and down to 2 lg HDD drives). Times have changed.
 
Between NASs for storage, multi-GPU becoming unworkable, optical media going away almost completely, and SSDs becoming small and then just straight mounted to the motherboard, the need for all that space has decreased quite a bit.

Case in point: Fractal Design Node 202. Bare minimum in terms of quality (my opinion), but far from unworkable, and houses my wife's system quite well for what it cost. Currently have a slot-powered 1050Ti in there and an Intel six-core CPU but it could handle more of both; as it stands, it's silent under any load she uses for work.

Another way to look at it is this - all the extra size gets you now is higher TDPs for higher-performance gear and more connectivity.
 
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