Cooler Master MasterBox 520 Mesh Case Review
Peter Donnell / 2 years ago
Complete System
The MB520 is a wonderful case to work with, as there is ample room on all sides of your hardware, allowing for easy installation and cable routing. Having the lift-off top panel is a huge benefit too, I can really get my arms in there to hook up fan headers, adjust the CPU cooler, change the RAM, etc.
The inclusion of cable grommets is very welcome too, I always liked them, but as I said before, most brands have simply stopped using them. It’s not a big deal I know, but they do smarten things up just a little more.
There’s room in the front for some pretty serious hardware. Sure, the stock fans are already throwing a lot of airflow into the case, but the large cutaways allow for 140mm fans, or a thick radiator configuration if you so desire.
There’s plenty of room for a larger CPU air cooler, even the bigger Noctua NH-D15 would fit, but for me, the U12 is plenty! There’s also good clearance above the motherboard, so fans and even a slim radiator will fit with ease.
The case holds an ATX motherboard just fine. An E-ATX board would likely fit too, but you would cover up the cable routing holes.
One thing I would like to see is a vertical pass-through on the PSU shroud, honestly, I’m baffled when all brands aren’t adding on already as it makes routing the GPU cables much easier.
The fans in the front look great, sitting just behind the mesh you get a nice bit of light diffusion that gives the whole panel a nice glow.
While there’s a header to hook up the ARGB control to your motherboard or other compatible hardware, it’s not required. The reset button on the front I/O is wired to the ARGB hub, so tap that and you can cycle through various colours and effects easily enough.
The colours are gorgeous though, with plenty of rich colours and good brightness, and all the usual effects like strobing, fades, transitions, spirals, and plenty more.
They’re all addressable though, so while the built-in PCB can throw on some nice effects, you could customise them all more extensively with compatible software.
