Aerocool Aero-500 Windowed Mid-Tower Chassis Review
Peter Donnell / 9 years ago
Interior
The interior is quite spacious, which is always a good thing. The chassis is quite slim, so you may want to steer clear of particularly large CPU cooling towers; be sure to check dimensions before you order one. The powder black paint job of the exterior continues throughout too, giving the whole thing a uniform appearance and there’s also a lot of cable routing holes and cut-outs to help keep things neat and tidy.
In the back, a pre-installed 120mm Aerocool fan, which comes fitted with both 3-pin PWM and a Molex power connector for maximum compatibility. The top expansion slot has a removable cover, but the bottom six are a snap-off design.
At the bottom, you’ll find a pair of rubber pads for the PSU mount, and the option to mount the PSU normal or inverted.
A pair of 5.25″ drive bays, as well as room for more 2.5″ drives just below it.
There’s no bays in the mid-section, allowing a huge amount of room for a graphics card; even the biggest GPU on the market should fit with ease.
Three hard drive trays at the base, each with a tool-free slide out tray, although you can also mount 2.5″ drives with the included screws.
There’s just enough room at the top for a slim 240mm cooler, which should be ideal for a standard AIO cooler, or you can fit 2 x 120mm fans if you felt the need.
There’s a little bit of room behind the motherboard for routing cables, but keep in mind that there’s a raised section on the side panel that will more than double the space available.
Another 2.5″ drive bay is found right behind the motherboard, giving you even more room for storage drives.
And finally, to help with that cable management, there are loads of handy cable tie loops, as well as cable ties in the box, so getting a clean-looking build should be fairly straight forward.
Behind the front panel, you’ll find a built-in foam filter; these can be tricky to clean, but a quick blast with a hose from your vacuum cleaner should do the job nicely. There’s room for two more 120mm fans here too, so lots of cooling potential. Just keep in mind, these fans aren’t pre-installed, so it may be worth ordering a single 120mm, at least, before starting your build.
