Cooler MasterElite 301 Micro-ATX High Airflow Minimalist PC Case, 365mm GPU Max, Compatible RTX 5080|RX 7090 XT, 280mm AIO Max, Type C, Tempered Glass, Triple 120mm aRGB PWM Fan, Intakes Grill

I love the ability to start my assembly by installing the motherboard on the mb tray. This leaves plenty of room to start plugging in cables. Especially with a tall tower style air cooler it is difficult with most mb's to plug in the cpu power and cpu fan cables if the top is already on.For most people that is the most frustrating part of a pc assembly.The case came together in less than an hour. I watched a couple videos and cooler master has done a great job showing how to put the case together. Links on the box via QR code. Also the pieces come out of the box in order.The instruction pamphlet is confusing as the numbering of the steps is not very clear and is not intuitive. It goes 1,2,3,1,1,2,1,2, etc. WHY.. EVERYTHING ELSE IS FANTASTICBut CM has videos as well as other users and reviewers. The front panel connections (power, power led, hdd led and reset) are combined into one 5x2 plastic block that goes into the left half of the front panel header on the mb. I never saw this done before and figuring out that simple change was the longest part of this build.I ran 3d mark and the temperature of my cpu went DOWN. The concern others have about the dust filters blocking air flow did not apply in my case, but I have an AMD cpu not Intel as one concerned reviewer did. I did not overclock.I would not be concerned about temperatures.Noise is not an issue either. I barely hear it and if anything else is on the noise from the fans is completely masked by the noise in my apartment.I do not think a 360 mm radiator is a good choice for this case, CM doesn't say it would even fit, due to the placement of the power supply. A 280 or 240 supposedly fits, but I put in an air cooler: the ThermalRight Assassination Warrior Ninja Killer had plenty of room despite the need for the front fan to rise 3-5 mm above the cooling tower due to tall rgb memory.You can exchange the side panels to allow room for fans in the side bracket.Cooling and noise is not an issue in my build which contains a 9900x and a 7900xt with 650 watt Silversmith G style ps all running at stock.Size is fantastic, it is about as compact as one could reasonable ask with these components and air cooling.I take great satisfaction in knowing that I can still assemble my own computer from parts researched by myself.It's nice to be environmentally correct and support companies trying to green up their businesses.QUBE 500 has a great compact size without the difficulty such small builds usually entail. The handle makes moving the case safe and secure.The problems: if you have larger than ATX power supply and a long graphics card you will have difficulties.I put my power supply at the highest spot and routed the fixed cpu, gpu and mb cables around and behind my 335 mm graphics card. Cable management is a B or B+ with my ATX power supply. An SFX ps would give cable management an A with plenty of room in the rear for more.It looks ok, but the cables are bent to their maximum safe bending angle. Depending on the exact size and location of your ps cables getting around a long gpu could be an issue.I did not install sata style hard drives as I bought my first NVME stick and I love it. There is room in back to place more drives, and also in the front if you don't want to put fans in the bottom.I am wait and see on adding fans, the one it comes with and the 2 from my ThermalRight tower plus the 3 in my CPU and the 1 in the power supply seem to be enough right now. I may add 2 x 140mm in the bottom and/or a 240/280 mm CPU radiator in the top.If you don't have a power supply yet consider a fully modular and perhaps an SFX form factor AND PERHAPS fanless just to reduce possible noise.Cleaning dust filters seems straight forward, the front and top panels do snap off and on so no screwdrivers are required to clean them. The bottom filter is magnetic and easy to place on and off.

This is case is very good case. If you like putting together beyond typical installing CPU, mounting motherboard, DRAM, storage devices, screwing in fans etc., this case should let you have more fun putting case together in addition to those. The case also lets you choose different configuration that you feel suitable to your liking.The case is easy to put together as long as you follow the steps from the Cooler Master's videos. The videos are divided for each building section of the case. It is easy to follow and and each section is short. It is good if you watch all first although it is not necessary so that you have overall view how you like to layout case at the end.The case fits together well, all screw holes alignment are good. There is no situation that you have to press or hold tight for screw holes to align properly.Case performance in term of provide good air flow and keeping noise low is good in my opinion and with my setup and usages. In typical workload using work related application, the case is silent with one front fan, one rear fan (stock), a fan based CPU cooler and front mounted ATX power supply. Since the case is design to be compact and has rear fan is in line and close to CPU cooler's fan, this arrangement lets the rear fan draw the heat directly from the CPU. I can feel pretty steady warm air flows out of the rear fan all the time. That is a good thing.The front fan position that is available is near the bottom, thus it should generally help more toward GPU card than the CPU as the air flow isn't a straight line to CPU cooler. The front fan may not be completely needed but if the fan is good noise normalized then it should help provide more cool are for other components on motherboard better.I can't not attest to heavy gaming workload but for office or relative light gaming, the case should be just fine.Another thing that I like the about the case is its front IO panel, it provides two female USB type A ports and one female USB type C port. This provision is good if you typically needs to plugin USB-type A devices and yet once in a while you happen to use high speed USB-C device. I personally use two USB-B together quite frequent. In addition, two USB-B ports provide redundancy as sometimes one port hang, you can use the other.The case isn't a true small form factor in my opinion. However, it fits well under the desk and its front panel can be position at the top facing slight up in angle, that is perfect for plugging USB stick or USB devices from time to time very conveniently. With slightly bigger case as this, it lets you have more choice of motherboard thus can help with the cost trade-off (ITX motherboard is typically expensive and giving less I/O connections).The case came with extra panels and optional parts with about $100 is a good value in my opinion.

Pros+Good ventilation+Pleasing design and profile whilst supporting large GPUs+Has USB C and a free ventilation fan for less than 60 dollarsCons-The dust filter in the front intake often gets in the way of the lid preventing it from snapping shut fully-The same dust filter likes to stick to the front lid creating a bypass for dust in the space between the lid and intake. You need to poke it with a stick after closing the lid to get it back into place-Cramped design and no removable top panel makes modifying your PC while the mobo is installed fairly difficult especially if you have a large CPU cooler-The side where the cables are stored is cramped and doesn't allow room for thicker cables. The metal panel bends if there are wires sticking outwards making it difficult to properly close.-The audio header cable is not shielded. You will probably need to apply your own shielding to avoid static interference.While there are more cons than pros in this review the cons, aside from the issue with the filter mesh in front, are mostly nickpicks that can be avoided. If they don't bother you then this case is a steal for the price.