Thermaltake s500

It’s a like a transformer you can build a PC into…

For a while there every case-maker and their dog was trying to be the most aggressive designer on the block. Coloured panels! Inset RGBs! Weird angles that you might expect some Lovecraftian horror to emerge from! It was legitimately getting hard to find “just a case, thanks”, unless you were happy to opt for the classic and rather unchanging lines of the likes of a Lian Li. Thankfully, Thermaltake is bucking the trend, and its S500 case is a reassuringly plain but really quite elegant slab of metal. It plainly means business, but it’s not being showy about it, with a simple front fascia that’s so stark you might expect a tribe of early hominids to worship at it.

There’s no ventilation on the front panel at all. Instead, there’s an elongate grill running down either side just in back of the front panel, and all the usual I/O options are placed along the leading edge of the top panel. Things get more interesting at the S500’s rear, with a rear fan set into a very versatile fan mount, and eight expansion slots complete with removable metal covers. Impressively, this whole panel is designed to swivel 90 degrees in case you want to show off your big bad GPU to maximum effect. It’s not something I’d want to do in a PC build – it’s to game on, not look at – but if interior aesthetics are your thing it’s a nice touch.

Underneath the case you’ve got some lovely rubber feet to keep the whole thing sturdy, and a removable dust filter to keep things clean. Speaking of sturdiness, however, this is one heavy case. It’s technically a mid-tower, but at nearly 15kg, it feels in a bigger league. This is thanks to the S500’s all-steel construction. If you’re not a fan of heavier cases, look elsewhere, but we like the heft.

The mid-tower nomenclature seems out of place again when you peel back the tempered glass sidepanel. There is a LOT of room in here, and you’re not going to run into many build restrictions at all. There’s a PSU enclosure to keep things tidy, though it’s not as obscuring as some, and this shroud also boasts vertical GPU mounts if you want to turn your video card up on its side. Fair warning, though – you’ll need to provide your own cables if you want to go this route, which is a bit annoying. The interior is completed by generous rubber grommets on the cable runs, a removable/adjustable set of HDD bays (handy if you want to go hard with water cooling), and two 120mm fans

It was legitimately getting hard to find “just a case, thanks”, unless you were happy to opt for the classic and rather unchanging lines of the likes of a Lian Li.

– one front, one rear – out of the box. The cooling’s a little on the light side, but if you’re running your hardware at stock it’ll hardly be an issue.

Despite what feel like some oversights, this is a premium-look case at a very impressive price point. And I love that stark design!