With the 501, Be Quiet! is now also giving the Pure Base series a well-deserved update at the end of the year. Read on to find out how the insulated case performs in everyday use. After all, Be Quiet doesn’t want to leave its customers in the dark. Or maybe they do?
Here it is, the long-awaited “insulated case without glass panel and RGB” that our silent friends have been wishing for so long. Although Be Quiet! has recently been increasingly jumping on the show-and-shine bandwagon, the company has remained true to itself with the compact Pure Base series and is now finally launching a fully insulated case without frills on the market with the 501, whose test was also a refreshing change for me. But before we get to the technical details, let’s first unpack the case.
Unboxing
The outer box has the classic charm of the 2020s, without any colorful prints or illustrations.
Let it sink in first: A case completely WITHOUT glass!
Brushed anodized aluminium on the front? You’ve fallen for it! It’s actually plastic. But I also had to look very closely and touch it to determine the material.
The rear is sleek and uncluttered. The external screw connection for expansion cards is probably due to the red pencil – personally, I’m not a fan of it at all. However, we will take a closer look at the mechanism itself later.
At the bottom we find a dust filter that can be pulled out to the front and generously perforated sheet metal so that the power supply unit can breathe properly.
The plastic feet are screwed on and could be replaced if damaged.
The front I/O has everything you need today: 2 x USB 3.2 type A, 1 x USB 3.2 type C, 3.5mm combo jack, power and reset button, as well as HDD and power LED.
Even if the front of the 501 is removed, the front I/O remains in place. So there’s no need to worry about tangled cables or torn contacts.
The closed front panel of this housing variant is insulated and only offers air inlets on the sides for breathing.
Under the cover we also find a dust filter and one of the two pre-installed 140mm Pure Wings 3 PWM fans.
The lid is also fitted with a (magnetic) dust filter:
Under the dust filter, however, the lid is completely open, which might be a little annoying for the real silent freaks. However, the open top is useful for dissipating the warm air.
Let’s take a look at the rear part of the case. Both side panels are insulated, by the way.
Everything is very tidy here, with the many slots for 2.5″ HDDs/SSDs immediately catching the eye.
At the bottom we also find an HDD cage that can hold two 3.5″ disks.
The 3.5″ HDDs are decoupled from the cage by thick rubber buffers and special screws, which can reduce the transmission of vibrations.
The power supply unit is well bedded in the Pure Base 501 and can sit on four rubber buffers. There is also a foam rubber seal on the back – I like that.
I still measure a respectable 2.5 cm of space for cable management in the narrower areas.
Finally, let’s take a look at the main chamber of the compact case.
To install a radiator (or an AIO water cooling system), the HDD cage just shown in the base would have to give way, otherwise there would be a collision here:
There would be space for two 140mm or three 120mm fans (or a 280/360mm radiator respectively) at the front.
After all, Be Quiet! has also thought of the centering hub in the Pure Base.
In the rear we find the second of the two pre-installed 140mm Pure Wings 3 PWM fans. I would recommend inexperienced PC builders to remove this fan (as well as the cable cover of the center cable outlet) to install the mainboard, as it can be a bit fiddly here.
There is also very little space above the board, so it is advisable to plug in the CPU supply cables during the installation of the mainboard before you can no longer reach the sockets when the board is installed.
Finally, let’s talk about the expansion slots with the external screw connection.
I was initially annoyed that you supposedly can’t install your graphics card vertically here, even though there are no bars between the individual slots.
But Be Quiet! wouldn’t be Be Quiet! if they hadn’t thought about this shortcoming long ago. So they include three very simple sheet metal parts with which you can turn the horizontal slots into vertical slots. In view of the closed side panel, however, I didn’t bother with this visual conversion in the end. In addition to the parts for the conversion, the accessories box also contains a proper instruction manual and the necessary mounting material.
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