It was assembled in entrance of us on this meeting line once we toured the manufacturing facility in China.
Whereas we have been there, we requested Cooler Grasp if we may choose one from the road after which signal throughout the packing seals and panels to make completely sure it wasn’t tampered with.
That’s type of cool. Perhaps this can kickstart the brand new approach to make sure no overview pattern tampering. It’s type of excessive effort and Cooler Grasp thought we have been joking once we first pitched going to their manufacturing facility to hand-pick a overview unit, however they agreed.
This case is attention-grabbing: It’s designed with a variety of mechanical freedom in thoughts for the person, which means help for almost any fan dimension as much as 200mm.
Utilizing its rails system with 1cm spacing. It additionally has help to invert the case, maintain normal orientation however transfer the ability provide to the highest, flip the I/O to the highest of the case, and use the 1cm-spaced holes for quite a lot of rails, tabs, followers, and cages. The case is constructed of sturdy, high-quality aluminum and metal elements in all places.
It’s assembled of simply corners and columns, which permits modularity; though, it was a letdown that the chassis itself is riveted collectively on the corners in a approach that’s restrictive. The construct high quality is superb and, though (like all case) it falls brief in some areas, we like the place this case sequence goes.
The MasterFrame had a disappointing launch in 2021 with the MasterFrame 700. This one is healthier.
It’s constructed from modular components like an Erector Set (or Meccano when you’re British or do not like saying the phrase “Erector”), they usually’re meant to be extraordinarily reconfigurable as a part of the “FreeForm 2.0” mission. The MasterFrame 500 is $150 on Amazon proper now, although it does change worth rather a lot. We noticed it change worth 3 instances in a single month and ranged from $150 to $190, which is a variety.
MasterFrame 500 Mesh Specs
| Coloration(s) | Black/Silver |
| Supplies – Exterior | SGCC Metal, Aluminum |
| Supplies – Facet panel (Proper / Left) | Tempered Glass |
| Dimensions (L x W x H) | 471 x 261 x 544mm (Incl. Protrusions), 471 x 244 x 514mm (Excl. Protrusions) |
| Quantity | 60.9 L (Excl. Protrusions) |
| Motherboard Assist | Mini-ITX, Mini-DTX, Micro-ATX, ATX , E-ATX*, SSI-CEB* (*Conditional Assist) |
| Energy Provide Assist | ATX |
| PCI Enlargement Slots | 8 |
| 3.5″ Drive Bays | 0 |
| 2.5″ / 3.5″ Drive Bays (Combo) | 1 (Backside) |
| Preinstalled Drive Bays – 3.5″ / 2.5″ Drive Bay (or SSD) (comment Toolfree amount) | 1x 2.5 or 1x 3.5 |
| I/O Panel – USB Ports | 2x USB 3.2 Gen 1 Kind A, 1x USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 Kind C |
| I/O Panel – Audio In / Out | 1x 3.5mm Headset Jack (Audio+Mic) |
| Pre-installed Followers – Entrance | ARGB: 2x SickleFlow 200mm ARGB, Non-ARGB: 2x SickleFlow 200mm |
| Pre-installed Followers – Rear | ARGB: 1x 120mm ARGB, Non-ARGB: 1x 120mm |
| Fan Assist – Entrance | 3x 120mm, 2x 140mm, 2x 180mm, 2x 200mm |
| Fan Assist – Prime | 3x 120mm, 2x 140mm, 2x 180mm, 2x 200mm |
| Fan Assist – Rear | 1x 120mm |
| Fan Assist – Backside | 1x 120mm |
| Radiator Assist – Entrance | 120 / 140 / 240 / 280 / 360mm |
| Radiator Assist – Prime | 120 / 140 / 240 / 280 / 360mm |
| Radiator Assist – Rear | 120 mm |
| Mud Filters | Mesh Solely (Detachable Filters) |
| Clearance – CPU Cooler | 190 mm |
| Clearance – PSU | 235 mm |
| Clearance – Graphics Card | 390 mm |
| Included Equipment | GPU Assist Bracket |
| Cable Routing – Behind Motherboard Tray | 43 mm |
| Guarantee | 2 years |
| Dimension | Mid Tower |
| Sequence | MasterFrame Sequence |
Specs copied from producer supplies, please learn overview for our personal measurements and opinions
The Construct
Because it ships, the MF500 Mesh has 2x 200mm entrance consumption followers and 1x 120mm rear exhaust. Cooler Grasp has had each a few of the most profitable and a few of the worst implementations of 200mm followers, however lately, all of their 200mm fan options we’ve examined have handed testing. These followers work nice in the event that they’re unobstructed: They don’t have a lot static strain efficiency, however do nicely with open movement whereas sustaining decrease noise ranges.
Apart from the dimensions of the entrance followers, it is a totally typical structure: the PSU shroud is on the backside, there’s a traditional motherboard orientation, and it has typical airflow paths.
The handbook describes two most important alternate configurations, that are transferring the PSU to the highest of the case and inverting the case.
There are smaller objects that may be moved round, just like the entrance I/O and the drive mount, however these are essentially the most transformative choices. Cooler Grasp’s future growth on this sequence hopes so as to add much more modularity, however we don’t overview future guarantees. We overview what’s truly delivery.
The present DIY-style MasterFrame circumstances really feel nearer to the QUBE 500 Flatpack than they do to the MasterFrame 700.
And that’s good, as a result of the MasterFrame 700 kind of sucked.
Not like the Flatpack, although, the MF 500 ships preassembled, and the pillars and corners that make up the “Exo-Construction” of the case are riveted, which can come as a shock when you’ve been following the advertising and marketing.
Cooler Grasp knowledgeable us that its short-term purpose is to work with companions to fabricate circumstances in dimensions that the companions need, and the mid-term purpose is to permit finish customers themselves to order customized case dimensions instantly from Cooler Grasp. That is doable because it’s all simply aluminum rods and corners. Lengthy-term, it is doable that Cooler Grasp will promote Exo-Construction items for residence meeting, however we have been informed it is determined by price.
Presently, the quantity of rivets means even changing them with screws would make it a nightmare — one thing we witnessed first-hand once we noticed a hand-assembled mannequin get taken aside at Computex over the span of 10-20 minutes.
However the ambitions are good and we see a transparent pathway to creating this occur. Cooler Grasp desires to finally take customized orders to assemble in its new California-based facility.
The MF 500 additionally reminds us of the outdated CaseLabs designs, which had an identical ring of holes across the perimeter. For a case with a modular DIY focus, beginning with a CaseLabs comparability is an effective signal for Cooler Grasp.
Case reconfiguration can take some time when you take the James Might strategy.
The handbook describes a 17-step course of for transferring the PSU to the highest of the case, after which an additional 10 steps for inverting the entire case, not together with the non-compulsory 7 steps for inverting the entrance I/O. It is not as dangerous because the Darkish Base Professional 900 (learn our overview), however unbuilding the system, inverting the case for the primary time, rebuilding, after which working checks took most of a piece day.
It could have sped issues up a little bit if the case did not use a mixture of M4 and 6-32 screws that look related at a look. It could have additionally sped issues up if we took the Jeremy Clarkson strategy.
One of many main upsides of the case design is that fan mounting choices are versatile.
Followers can both be centered by utilizing tabs that connect to the perimeters of the case, or put in off-center utilizing a protracted rail. The rails are sized to suit the edges/backside/prime and the tabs match the entrance/backside/prime. We might have appreciated a few further tabs to work with. Cooler Grasp lists compatibility with 120, 140, 180, and 200mm followers, however as a result of the holes alongside the case perimeter are spaced 1cm aside, the rails particularly are appropriate with any fan dimension below 200mm.
That is fairly cool and means, when you needed, you may throw a bizarre dimension like a 150mm or 160mm fan in there.
The assorted case components are constituted of surprisingly thick steel; for instance, the tabs are 2mm thick and the lengthy rails are 3mm thick.
The results of that could be a excessive construct high quality with good rigidity of the construction. This case isn’t flimsy.
Assist for 3.5″ and even 2.5″ drives is beginning to wane, however we have been shocked to see that such a modular case affords precisely one drive mount. Two steel “multi-function bars” are included within the accent package, and these can be utilized to both mount one fan, one SSD, OR one HDD.
Cooler Grasp may promote extras, and it is probably somebody will provide you with a 3D-printed various, however the case would have extra DIY cred if it included simply two extra of the fundamental metal strips. The case is about up completely to help extra drives with its rail system and it simply doesn’t.
Because the sticker on the case and directions within the handbook state, panel removing is TOOL FREE. Cooler Grasp has made a compromise right here; the panels do not screw down, however the magnets that maintain them on are extraordinarily robust to compensate. There are additionally no apparent handles on the panels, so you may very well discover it simpler to pry the panels off with a instrument. That is higher than circumstances and not using a securing screw and an simply eliminated panel, nevertheless it’d nonetheless be good to have a screw level to safe the glass.
One other level that might use work is the cable administration house.
That is a type of circumstances the place it’s important to keep in mind to route cables below helps or else the facet panel cannot shut. The cutouts that the ability cables should be routed by means of aren’t all lined up with one another, both, so it takes some oblique routing. The motherboard tray is structured in order that when the PSU shroud is moved to its secondary location, it’s important to take away the tip of the shroud and route cables by means of that path somewhat than behind the motherboard tray, making it considerably tougher to cover cables.
As a constructive, the cable bar was formed completely for our motherboard, sitting degree with the SATA ports and USB header alongside the sting of the motherboard so that they are hidden (though some SATA ports have been blocked on our motherboard).
The cable bar sits on two rails that run the total size of the case, so it may be moved up, down, again, and forth to suit flush in opposition to varied motherboards.
There are stone and wooden veneer entrance panel choices, however that is the least thrilling facet of the case’s modularity to us, and not one of the alternate panels that we have seen are ventilated, in order that they’d fully seal the entrance of the case, and we’d strongly advise in opposition to them.
Lastly, there is a strong GPU help included within the accent package that may both stand below the GPU or dangle from the roof of the case if it is inverted.
MasterFrame 500 Mesh Thermals
Time to get into thermal and acoustic benchmarking.
Thermal testing was accomplished with a mixture of configurations. First was a typical structure with the inventory configuration, adopted by a inventory configuration with the motherboard shifted down and the ability provide mounted up prime, and at last adopted by the inverted configuration.
We moved the ability provide as a part of the inversion, as that’s the meant use within the handbook.
In all configurations, we saved the PSU fan oriented to drag air from the outside of the case (dealing with away from the PSU shroud). The GPU help was not put in for any thermal checks.
The direct head-to-head competitor for the MasterFrame 500 Mesh is the Corsair Body 5000D RS: it has the identical deal with modularity, and it is roughly the identical worth as nicely ($190).
The Body 5000D RS is not on our charts but, so we’ll make do with the Body 4000D RS (learn our overview) with the caveat that it is smaller and considerably cheaper.
In any other case, the MF 500’s worth places it up in opposition to the Fractal Torrent (watch our overview), some variants of the Meshify 3 (learn our overview), the Antec Flux Professional (watch our overview), and Arctic’s model new Xtender, though none of these circumstances have the identical DIY advertising and marketing that the Corsair and Cooler Grasp circumstances do.
CPU Full Load Thermals – Noise-Normalized
We’ll begin with noise normalized testing, the place we step down case fan speeds inside our hemi-anechoic chamber till we hit our 27 dBA SPL goal, measured one meter from the entrance of the case. We printed a video exhibiting our course of to construct this chamber beforehand and have gotten common use out of it because it was constructed. This permits us to manage our acoustic setting in order that exterior noise doesn’t have an effect on our outcomes. Check {hardware} like that is made doable by means of your help on retailer.gamersnexus.internet.
The MF 500 landed in the course of the chart at 46 levels Celsius above ambient averaged throughout all cores and 49 levels on the P-Cores. The Body 4000D RS was cooler at 43 levels all core, and the mesh-fronted circumstances nearer to the MF 500’s unique $180-$190 worth did even higher, with the Torrent at 42, Flux Professional at 41, and Meshify 3 at 40. That is not dangerous, nevertheless it’s additionally not spectacular given that we would count on the 200mm inventory followers to shine in noise-normalized testing particularly since they’re quieter. $150 to $200 can get you a variety of efficiency from different producers, and Cooler Grasp could also be hoping that the modularity of the MF 500 will assist stability issues out.
GPU Full Load Thermals – Noise-Normalized
Shifting to GPU thermals in the identical take a look at, the typical GPU temperature within the MF 500 was 48 levels Celsius above ambient and 53 levels on the VRAM. That is behind the competitors once more, with the Body 4000D RS averaging 45 levels above ambient, the Meshify 3 averaging 43, the Flux Professional 41, and the Torrent 40. The MF500 can be crushed by the conventional, cheaper Antec Flux.
These outcomes might be altered by tweaking the structure of the MF 500 in plenty of methods, although, so let’s cowl the opposite configurations subsequent.
CPU Full Load Thermals – Full Pace
With all case followers at full velocity, the all core CPU common dropped to 42 levels above ambient and the P-Core common dropped to 46. Shifting the PSU to the highest of the case dropped each averages by about two levels, which is definitely a noteworthy enchancment and past simply error. This transformation would additionally have an effect on flow-through conduct, which we’ll take a look at within the GPU chart.
Flipping all the case along with that did not trigger any additional change. Shifting the PSU to the opposite facet of the case means transferring the PSU shroud and the motherboard tray as nicely, which alters airflow patterns and modifications how the CPU cooler traces up with the entrance consumption followers.
For the given CPU efficiency, the MasterFrame 500 at 39.4 dBA is louder than its quick neighbors on the chart, just like the Lancool 215 (learn our overview) (which additionally makes use of 200mm followers) at 31.1 dBA. The Body 4000D RS and Torrent are each louder and cooler, which is why we deal with noise-normalized checks for evaluating circumstances, however the Flux Professional averaged 38 levels all core and the Meshify 3 averaged 39 at roughly equal noise ranges to the MF 500. Broadly talking, the height efficiency of the MF 500 utilizing inventory followers alone is underwhelming.
GPU Full Load Thermals – Full Pace
GPU thermals inform a special story: the inventory case configuration averaged 47 levels above ambient, however top-mounting the PSU triggered no change, whereas inverting the case elevated the typical to 48. This is not a lot of a change, although: we count on that transferring or including followers would have a higher impact than both of the case reconfigurations did.
The GPU thermal outcomes are weaker compared to the remainder of the chart than the CPU thermals have been, with the Body 4000D RS at 42 levels for common GPU temperature, the Meshify 3 at 41, the Torrent at 39, and the Flux Professional at 38.
VRM & RAM Full Load Thermals – Full Pace
We sometimes study VRM and RAM thermals from the noise-normalized outcomes, however on this occasion it is extra attention-grabbing to check the totally different case configurations (which have been examined with the case followers at full velocity). The inverted case was finest for VRM thermals with a mean of 26 levels Celsius above ambient, with the inventory configuration and the top-mounted PSU configuration tied at 27. The inverted configuration was additionally finest for RAM thermals with a 19 diploma common, however the top-mount PSU structure beat the inventory structure by one diploma at 20 versus 21.
MasterFrame 500 Mesh Conclusion
The MasterFrame 500 is a promising starting for the brand new MasterFrame lineup. Cooler Grasp appears to undergo cycles much like Corsair the place it executes excellently after which goes silent for some time or fumbles. We expect the present sequence is well-built and has good panel construct high quality, has some good ambitions for its modularity, and is mostly a well-executed however easy case. It’s kind of a utilitarian reverse to the extra fanciful innovation Hyte is doing in its panel design or Fractal is doing with woods.
This can be a case that’ll be at its finest within the palms of modders that need to reduce, print, and drill their very own components, which is not one thing that will get proven in by-the-books testing.
That mentioned, we want some points have been extra modular: particularly, it would be cool to have the ability to disassemble the corners and edges that make up the fundamental construction of the case. We might additionally prefer to have some spare multi-function bars, fan mounting tabs, and possibly a few of the longer steel rails as nicely.
The direct competitor for this case is the Corsair Body 5000D (watch our overview). Modular components for the brand new Corsair Body circumstances nonetheless have not actually appeared but, though Corsair has supplied us a motherboard tray for testing, so the 2 circumstances are in a race to see which can have helpful non-compulsory components accessible first. Cooler Grasp is already publicly internet hosting 3D information for the most important elements of the MasterFrame 500 Mesh (and MasterFrame 600) and it maintains a Printables web page for equipment. Corsair started providing some 3D printing information throughout Computex however is total behind on this facet. The MF 500 additionally has heavier, extra solid-feeling development than Corsair’s Body circumstances, if that is one thing that appeals to you.
By way of thermals, there are simply higher-performance circumstances accessible for $200. Every of the high-end mesh fronted circumstances we in comparison with (particularly the Meshify 3, Torrent, and Flux Professional) outperformed the MF 500, and the smaller, cheaper, and theoretically modular Corsair Body 4000D RS ARGB (learn our overview) additionally usually carried out higher, however it’s smaller. With the MF 500, you are paying for the power to simply customise it (and the sturdy development).
Finally, at $150, that is considerably extra aggressive than at its $180 worth regardless of its thermal deficiency versus different circumstances. It performs okay thermally in our benchmarks, nevertheless it is not anyplace close to pretty much as good as a number of different $180 and $200 circumstances, which is the place this was priced once we began reviewing it. Happily, if it stays at $150, it drops to a lower cost class, and that compensates rather a lot for the middling thermal efficiency. Additionally, at $150, we expect the construct high quality is atypically good. Now, at $180 or $190, it is nonetheless good construct high quality. It is simply there’s different competitors at that worth level because you’re stepping into the type of that higher echelon of circumstances.
It is robust to nail down a suggestion since we do not know why the worth retains altering or the place it’s going to keep. But when it stays at $150 and also you’re okay with having one thing that is not one of the best thermal performer however has this kind of modular mechanical strategy to issues that it is positively value contemplating. At $180 continues to be value contemplating, nevertheless it’s additionally value contemplating a variety of the opposite competitors that we named going by means of the thermal part.
