Thermaltake Tower 500 Review

Storage drives are mounted across the back panel with support for up to 8 3.5” drives or 8 2.5” SSDs in the removeable drive cages and mounted to the bottom of the main compartment.

The bottom shelf is divided into two removeable panels.  Each can be removed separately to mount those extra physical drives.  These shelves will most likely become the mounting location for your pump and reservoir setup in a water-cooling setup.

Each window lifts out once the top panel is removed providing unprecedented access to your components. The right side is reversable giving the option of swapping the glass and venting positions to match your cooling setup.

Case controls and the IO ports are located across the top front.  From left to right: USB 3.0 x 2, USB 3.2 (Gen 2) Type-C x 1, Reset, Power, HD Audio x 1 and another USB 3.0 x 2.  The Power button also lights up as a power and HDD activity light.

There is quite a bit of open space up top for hiding cables or adding another radiator up to 2 x 140mm.  even with the top and sides off, the build quality is impressive with no noticeable flex to the chassis.

With one of the panels off you can see the additional space available. This makes basement of this three-chamber design quite roomy. The added venting between these chambers increases airflow without needing to provide more dedicated cooling, which would ruin the look of the Tower 500.

Here is a closer look at the removable bottom panels. On the back side there are slots to run all the necessary cables keeping as much of the cabling hidden from view as possible.

With all the panels removed you can see the mother board mounting location. Here shown with the case lying on its back.  It does look a lot like a traditional cube design in this orientation!