Final Thoughts
I’ve been a fan of Cooler Master’s MAX series of products since they were introduced. One of the biggest reasons is that it takes a lot of the guess-work out of selecting parts for your build. These parts are already installed in the system so you know they are going to fit and of course that saves you the time of installing them yourself. While this is really great for smaller form factor systems, does that really translate to a large system here like the TD500 MAX?
Well for one you have your fans, radiator, and power supply all installed for you. On top of that everything is all wired up and connected to the fan / ARGB controller too. Connecting fans and RGB cables can be daunting and just annoying, even for a seasoned builder. I really like how Cooler Master even embedded the power connectors into the motherboard tray so all you have to do is use the included extensions to connect everything up. So all you are left to do is slot in your motherboard, graphics card, install the AiO block, and your storage. This is going to cut your install time by a lot and take a lot of a headaches out of a typical PC build.
The TD500 MAX is essentially the TD500 Mesh V2 case with a special edition of their ML360 Atmos 360mm all-in-one liquid CPU cooler, GX II Gold 850W ATX 3.0 power supply, and a fourth 120mm ARGB exhaust fan. I really like that Cooler Master did not just slap the normal ML360 Atmos AiO on this case. The “MAX Version” comes with a much thicker radiator at 38mm and Cooler Master’s flagship Mobius 120P fans. In our testing this cooler did a great job keeping our Core i7-14700K nice and cool. It is good to see Cooler Master use a ATX 3.0 power supply here, but you do have to keep in mind that the 12VHPWR power cable is only a 450W cable and they only give you a single 8-pin PCI-Express power cable if you were going to use an older graphics card. This will limit the types of graphics cards that you can use with this card, especially if you card does not use a 12VHPWR power cable.
While it was nice that Cooler Master routed all of the cables for you it would have been really nice to see some velcro straps on the backside of the case and rubber inserts in the cable routing holes.
Cooler Master will be selling the TD500 MAX for $399.99. If we price out a TD500 Mesh V2 ($99), GX II 850W Power Supply ($143), a standard ML360 Atmos ($159.99) we are already at $401.99 and you have to remember the ML360 Atmos in this system has the thicker radiator and the Mobius 120p fans. You also can’t forget that that read 120mm ARGB fan as well. So I think you are getting a pretty good deal if you pick up this case. While this sort of half-prebuilt might not be for everyone I can see it working for a lot of people. Overall ThinkComputers gives the Cooler Master TD500 MAX a 9 out of 10 score.
Pros:
– Exclusive colorway
– Saves a lot of time and headaches
– Custom ML360 Atmos
– Good overall value
– All four fans wired to the controller for you
– Most of the power supply cables routed for you
– Good cooling performance
Cons:
– No velcro straps on the backside of the case
– They removed the rubber inserts from the cable routing holes
– Only a single PCI-Express 8-pin connector
