be quiet! Pure Base 501 DX Mid-Tower Chassis Review

TweakTown Rating: 91%

Our Verdict

One of the newest cases from be quiet!, the Pure Base 501 DX is a refresh of an already great design. Just take note of the lack of rear or reverse connection motherboard support.

Pros

• Three 140mm Pure Wings 3 PWM fans pre-installed
• Great front mesh ventilation
• Great LED/RGB implementation
• Cable management was a breeze

Cons

• Lacking Rear/Reverse motherboard support
• Front fan filter was a bit flimsy

Should you buy it?

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Buy at Amazon for $110.27 USD

Buy at Amazon for $159.99 CAD

Buy at PC Case Gear for $159

Introduction, Specifications, and Pricing

Today, we will look at a relatively compact case from be quiet! Launching the Pure Base product line a few years back, the 500 series has always been about great value while offering excellent performance. The Pure Base 501 DX is no different; being priced at $150, the Pure Base 501 DX is a bit on the higher side of some builders' budgets.

With the pricing aside, why don't we see what the Pure Base 501 DX is all about, do a build in it, and then come back for a conclusion? Let's go.

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Packaging

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The outside of the packaging that be quiet! uses is pretty standard: a brown cardboard box. It also features a picture of the Pure Base 501 DX.

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Again, in typical be quiet! fashion, the specifications, and the color are printed on the side of the packaging.

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The rear of the packaging shows another staple of be quiet!, is the company's mission statement and a blown out image of the product is shown.

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When we remove the Pure Base 501 DX from its cardboard packaging, we see that be quiet! has shipped it with two closed-cell foam pieces. A piece of open-cell foam was also on the rear, covering the PCIe slots and providing additional support while in transit.

Outside the be quiet! Pure Base 501 DX Case

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We can see its clean lines and mostly mesh front panel once we remove the shipping materials from the Pure Base 501 DX.

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The mesh front panel, which is mostly mesh, allows for good air intake. It also has two ARGB strips that run from the corners, up the middle, and back to the corners again.

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The front I/O starts with a USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C port, two USB 3.2 Type-A ports, a large rectangular power button, a combo HD audio 3.5mm jack, an ARGB control button, and a power reset button.

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The Pure Base 501 DX's rear has the traditional 7 PCIe slot layout, with a two-captive thumbscrew retention plate to help keep heavy GPUs from sagging. The rear supports mounting either a 140mm or 120mm fan. Moving down to the bottom, the PSU mount is not removable, which is another feature I would have liked to see.

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Like many other cases, the rear side panel has little to do. It is held in place with two captive thumbscrews.

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Going to the Pure Base 501 DX underbelly, we first see the full-length slide-out dust filter, which is removable from the front of the case. Four case feet with adequately sized rubber dampeners are in each corner.

Inside the be quiet! Pure Base 501 DX Case

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Going inside the Pure Base 501 DX, we see a compact interior with ample room to accommodate a good-sized GPU. However, I do not see support for BTF or reverse connector motherboards, which will become more of a standard in ATX case design in 2025.

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Inside, we can see the first included 140mm PWM Pure Wings 3 fan, which provides excellent airflow as the front air intake. However, I would have liked to see another fan installed to create a more neutral pressure case scenario. LED strip lighting along the front and top edges helps show off all that hardware inside.

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A Pure Wings 3 140mm PWM fan is pre-installed in the rear and another in the roof, configured as exhaust. I would have liked to see the rear fan installed in the front to add airflow to the entire system. Another thing I noticed was the ventilation on the side of the cable management bar next to the motherboard tray, a very clever way to ensure unimpeded airflow.

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The front intake has a magnetic dust filter that is easily removable for cleaning. To pass the ARGB connection through the case, a small PCB designed to be used with POGO pins that be quiet! has been implemented to ensure that cables aren't ripped out when removing the front panel.

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The backside of the motherboard tray, again with no support for rear connect motherboards, has support for two 2.5" SSD/HDD on the bracket right behind the CPU cutout. Two additional 2.5" SSD/HDDs can be installed on the left wall. Paying attention to detail, be quiet!, has used white front I/O cables to enhance the overall aesthetic. Two 3.5" HDDs in the basement can be installed in the cage and removed if desired. The maximum PSU length is limited to 200mm while using the HDD cage. Cable management also looks quite decent, with many cable tie-down points going around the whole perimeter of the motherboard tray.

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And lastly, before we put the case test system into the Pure Base 501 DX, we have the included accessories:

Black zip Ties

Vertical GPU brackets

Velcro cable ties

Installation screws and motherboard standoffs

User Manual

Test System, Installation, and Finished Product

Case Test System

Final Thoughts

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Building in be quiet!'s Pure Base 501 DX was the same experience I have had with many of be quiet! 's cases; it was pretty much flawless. The only hiccup I encountered while building, or should I say upon completion, was the front intake fan filter. The filter material had some slack in it, causing the filter to be sucked up by the front intake fan, causing some noise. Removing this filter was the easy solution at the cost of air filtration. Running cabling in the Pure Base 501 DX was self-explanatory, with the preset cable raceway running up the middle, using any white velcro cable straps.

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For testing, I would have used Intel's Core i5 12600K CPU on a Z790 Project Zero motherboard from MSI to test be quiet!'s Pure Base 501 DX ATX mid-tower case. However, the Pure Base 501 DX does not support rear/reverse connector motherboards, so we are returning to the Z690 AORUS Pro. Two sticks of Corsair's Dominator Platinum DDR5-7200 RAM were run at DDR5-4800 M/T for memory stability. Zotac's NVIDIA RTX 3090 Trinity GPU was run at its stock power limits and clocks via MSI's Afterburner GPU Overclocking and Monitoring utility for the test GPU. The Intel Core i5 12600K CPU is now being cooled by the Pure Rock Pro 3 heatsink from be quiet!, which has two 120mm fans in a dual tower configuration for optimal cooling performance.

For the fan configuration, be quiet! has configured the Pure Base 501 DX's fans with a single Pure Wings 3 140mm fan mounted as the front air intake and two more of the same Pure Wings 3 140mm fans in both the rear and roof locations. This kind of fan configuration creates a very adverse case pressure scenario. Temperatures for the Intel Core i5 12600K rose to a maximum temperature of 71C but averaged 63C while maintaining a boost clock of around 4.5GHz. Zotac's NVIDIA RTX 3090 Trinity hit a maximum temperature of 81.8C but only lowered the average temperature to 79.5C. Overall, the temperatures were quite good for the CPU and GPU due to the sufficient cool air from the 140mm front intake fan.

All testing was completed using Aida64 Engineer's System Stability Test version v7.60.7300 for over three hours at an ambient temperature of 19C. Other monitoring software used was HWiNFO64 v8.07-5515, TechPowerUp GPU-Z v2.66, and CPU-Z 2.15.0.x64.

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And just like that, we have come to the conclusion of the Pure Base 501 DX, and with mostly good things to say about it, there is just one issue that needs to be addressed: support for rear or reverse connect motherboards. That's it. In all reality, the Pure Base 501 DX is a minor improvement to an already great design, which is pretty much be quiet! in a nutshell. be quiet! for the most part makes good quality cases that are usually priced accordingly.

Wrapping up our review of the Pure Base 501 DX from be quiet!, we can and just like many other be quiet! products, we can thoroughly recommend the Pure Base 501 DX to anyone looking for a compact, well-priced ATX PC case with good build quality.