be quiet! Light Base 500 LX review: uncompromising aesthetics & customization
Table of Contents
Premium German case brand be quiet! has expanded on its PC case offering, adding more to its selection of aquarium style cases, rather than just the entirely encased silent ones it’s best known for. Nevertheless, these newer aquarium cases, like the Light Base 500 LX we’re reviewing today, still don’t compromise on performance or airflow.
This model utilizes the signature be quiet! reverse RGB fans, which have top notch cooling performance whilst also looking the part. Along with plenty of other mounts for additional fans and a secondary chamber, there are plenty of options for additional cooling and broader customization in its design. So, let’s take a closer look at the design, usability, and performance of the Light Base 500 LX and see how it did in our tests!
- Type: Mid tower
- Motherboard support: ATX/M-ATX/Mini-ATX
- Included fans: 3x Light Wings LX Reverse 120mm (side), 1x Light Wings LX 120mm (rear)
- Fan support: 10x (2/3x top, 3x side,1x rear, 3x bottom)
- Radiator compatibility: Up to 360mm
- Storage bays: 1x 3.5″ HDD, 2x 2.5″ SSD
- CPU cooler clearance: Up to 185mm
- GPU clearance: Up to 400mm
- Expansion slots: 7
- PSU support: Up to 200mm
- Dimensions (LxWxH): 432 x 305 x 436 (410 without feet)mm
- Weight: 10.95kg
- Materials: Steel, Glass, ABS stands
- Front I/O: 1x USB 3.2 Gen. 2 Type C, 2x USB 3.2 Type A, 1x 3.5mm, ARGB button, reset button, power button
be quiet! has once again brought finesse and high-quality design to its product. With thermal efficiency and quiet running as its focus, the angular custom reverse fans provide a great deal of cooling to the main chamber. With glass around the side and front, it shows off your build and internal RGB very nicely. Along with a long fan mount on top and bottom you get plenty of options for expansion.
The secondary chamber provides a convenient place for installing storage and power, then routing those cables around, although it does get quite tight there and lacks rubber grommets in the pass-throughs, so it can still look a bit messy if you’re not careful. In general though, the ease of building and various methods of changing up the setup make the case an excellent pick.
- Easy to follow and thorough instruction manual
- Nice reverse fans included that are angled at the back for improved airflow
- High build quality and very open design
- Versatile mounting options in the back for PSU and SSD sled
- Storage and fans mounted on a sled for ease of use
- Both sleds can be fiddly to remove and disassemble
- A limited amount of space in the back makes cable management difficult
- No integrated GPU support, and hard to add one to the base with a sunken fan space
- Fan hub takes up the slot of a hard drive mount
Main features and specifications
be quiet! touts the Light Base 500 LX as a case with both performance and aesthetics in mind, maximising both accessibility and functionality. Being a mid-tower aquarium-style case, it has an open design with two chambers and angled fans from the side (and none at the front).
So here are the specs for the be quiet! Light Base 500 LX in black that we received. There are also options for a white model and the stock non-LX version that removes the RGB from the build.
| Specification | be quiet! Light Base 500 LX |
|---|---|
| Type | Mid Tower |
| Motherboard support | ATX/M-ATX/Mini-ATX |
| Included fans | 3x Light Wings LX Reverse 120mm (side), 1x Light Wings LX 120mm (rear) |
| Fan support | 10x (2/3x top, 3x side,1x rear, 3x bottom) |
| Radiator compatibility | Up to 360mm |
| Case drive bays | 1x 3.5″ HDD, 2x 2.5″ SSD |
| CPU cooler clearance | Up to 185mm |
| GPU clearance | Up to 400mm |
| Expansion slots | 7 |
| PSU support | Up to 200mm |
| Dimensions | 432 x 305 x 436 (410 without feet)mm |
| Weight | 10.95kg |
| Materials | Steel, Glass, ABS stands |
| Front I/O | 1x USB 3.2 Gen. 2 Type C, 2x USB 3.2 Type A, 1x 3.5mm, ARGB button, reset button, power button |
Pricing
The Light Base 500 LX was released with an MSRP of €144.90 set by the German manufacturer. In other areas, it can be found for $144.90 in the US and for £131.59 in the UK. For a more premium build featuring a full set of fans, this is actually a rather good value.
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In comparison, the Lian Li O11 Vision Compact, without fans and a glass top, costs $124.99. The similar O11D Mini V2 with a mesh top panel, but also lacking fans, costs $89.99, and the Hyte Y70, also barebones but with some extras on top, comes in at $219.99. Something like the Montech XR-B with a simpler design comes in at a lower $69.90, or the NZXT H6 Flow is not far behind at $109.99.
Outside
Taking a look around the outside of the case, we go over and evaluate the main aesthetics of the case and what it has to offer, looks-wise.
Front
Looking at the Light Base 500 LX straight on, it’s a rather wide-looking case. You can see right through the whole case and look down the glass panel on its side. The case is split into a dual-chamber design: on the left, you have the glass panel going through to the main chamber, and on the right, there is an angled filter that hides the fans behind.
Then, on the right ‘pillar’ on the corner of the case, sits the front IO. It has a decent amount of connectivity, including two USB Type-A and a Type-C, a 3.5mm audio jack, and three various buttons for power, reset, and RGB.
At the bottom of the front is a ‘chin’ of metal that holds up the glass and sides, along with some angular feet that hold up the chassis and give it some good clearance for air intake.
be quiet! Light Base 500 LX front angled empty, Image by PC Guide
be quiet! Light Base 500 LX front empty, Image by PC Guide
be quiet! Light Base 500 LX front logo, Image by PC Guide
be quiet! Light Base 500 LX front IO, Image by PC Guide
Rear
At the back of the case, the width of the case is and its two partitions becomes obvious. On the left, the two possible power supply mount options are visible, with the storage sled occupying one of them. There is also the prominent gap next to the side panel that gives you an easier time opening up the left side.
On the right, there is another prominent gap for the motherboard IO, with the rear fan mesh next to it that comes with an included 120mm fan and support for sizes up to 140mm.
At the bottom are the 7 expansion slots and their covers, screwed into place, and with a plate cover next to them covering the sizable gap (since the case comes with a vertical GPU mount conversion, there would be a rather big hole there otherwise).
be quiet! Light Base 500 LX PCIe covers, Image by PC Guide
be quiet! Light Base 500 LX PSU chamber, Image by PC Guide
be quiet! Light Base 500 LX rear empty, Image by PC Guide
Sides
The sides of the case are a lot simpler. There’s a sizable metal lip at the bottom which runs around the front and sides of the case, and the side panels are fixed in place rather tightly by holds within this, along with ball sockets (there are no screws).
On one side is a glass panel showcasing the insides, with the other being a mix of perforated mesh and solid metal that allows airflow to the fans and PSU. The power supply gets its own meshed airflow cover.
be quiet! Light Base 500 LX left side left rear profile built, Image by PC Guide
be quiet! Light Base 500 LX rear empty, Image by PC Guide
be quiet! Light Base 500 LX main chamber empty, Image by PC Guide
Top
On top of the case is another mix of metal mesh and solid panel held in with ball joints. Underneath are the fan mounting rails for the main chamber. At the front is the fan rail and the screws for the glass panel.
be quiet! Light Base 500 LX fan mount screw, Image by PC Guide
be quiet! Light Base 500 LX top mounts, Image by PC Guide
be quiet! Light Base 500 LX top mesh, Image by PC Guide
Bottom
In the rear compartment of the dual-chamber design, the bottom of the case is a solid metal panel with a couple of indents under the PSU. In the main compartment, there is a rather long mesh filter underneath the main chamber for the three fans that the case supports at the bottom – a useful feature to get fresh air directly into your graphics card and enhance its cooling.
Inside
Removing all the panels, we then had a look at what each chamber offers in terms of buildability and performance.
Main chamber
Once you have all the panels removed, the main chamber is very open and surprisingly big, offering up plenty of space to build inside. The main feature is the angled fan rail at the back right, positioned to direct airflow towards the components, which frees the front of the case from obstruction to enhance the viewing experience.
The rear fan stands out as a normal front-facing RGB fan installed high above the expansion slots, with the bottom fan rail sitting in the cut-out, sunken below the main chamber.
The motherboard panel itself has a lot of cut-outs, allowing lots of potential routes to run cables more easily and closely to where they need to go.
be quiet! Light Base 500 LX bottom fan mesh, Image by PC Guide
be quiet! Light Base 500 LX side fans, Image by PC Guide
be quiet! Light Base 500 LX main chamber empty, Image by PC Guide
Back panel
The second chamber is a very segmented area with parts. On the far left, there’s a channel for the front panel IO and channelling the cables from this downward and away. To the right of that is a channel to the front that passes the fan mesh.
Then the main big area is where you do all your PSU and storage installations. There is a bracket that holds up the top power supply installation and the storage bracket that is held in by a single screw on one end and more on the rear. On this, there are cut-outs that work double-sided to support HDD and SSD simultaneously, although the fan controller removes one HDD option on this model.
Down the column on the left is where you can find the main router channelling as be quiet! adds a range of Velcro straps in there for that job, which makes the process of tidying up your cables significantly easier.
be quiet! Light Base 500 LX second chamber empty , Image by PC Guide
be quiet! Light Base 500 LX fan controller, Image by PC Guide
be quiet! Light Base 500 LX second chamber amngled empty, Image by PC Guide
Build experience
Building the case in general was a great experience: it’s a very open design and the included instructions are nice and easy to follow. Important for readers to note when looking at the images of our build – I did miss a key step in the manual: the supported component sizes. The components are used were from my current test bench, which consisted of an MSI Godlke X870E X Edition motherboard and a Seasonic TX-1600 Noctua edition power supply that both certainly exceeded the recommended sizing, making the build a bit tougher than it should have been towards the end, and a bit more cramped looking, but this is entirely my fault!
Unpacking the box was a bit tricky in places due to the weight of the case (though it was easier than the HAVN BF 360 Flow we recently reviewed). The whole package weighs over 14kg, with the case alone at nearly 11kg. Taking off the panels does lighten it significantly, making it easier to handle when building inside of it.
The case comes with a handy booklet that goes through how to build the PC step-by-step, with clear instructions highlighting each feature and how to use it. This is rather handy with a case like this, which comes with a lot of parts that aren’t in a more basic model. It was handy for reminding me that the front panel is secured with screws (given the others are not), and for checking I was taking off the side panels correctly, since they did just snap out on the top, but at the bottom they’re a bit harder to simply pull out; the tolerances were a bit closer on one side, and a strong pull was needed to get each side out. I was worried that, without thumb screws, the side panels might dislodge easily; however, despite me packing in my bad cable behind it, the rear panel did not pop out.
be quiet! Light Base 500 LX turned on build, Image by PC Guide
be quiet! Light Base 500 LX top built, Image by PC Guide
be quiet! Light Base 500 LX built back chamber, Image by PC Guide
be quiet! Light Base 500 LX rear built, Image by PC Guide
be quiet! Light Base 500 LX built back angle open, Image by PC Guide
On the disassembly front, the fan side mount is a bit tougher to remove. There is one big screw on top holding it in place, but even after removing it takes some force to pull out the sled, while also having to be cautious of the fan cabling since the LX model comes with preinstalled fans.
Taking out all the side panels does leave the top sagging in the corners, further exaggerated when an AIO is installed on it, and it starts pulling the corner down. But there is a lot of room up top that makes installation of the radiator rather straightforward and it didn’t interfere with the motherboard, even leaving enough space between the motherboard and case to route the cables.
Motherboard installation was also nice, as the middle standoff is one of the ‘peg’ types without a screw hole. The setup allows you to align the board quickly without having to spend time lining up and screwing in the standoffs, plus it also means I didn’t have to take off the M.2 heatsink to install it
As for the graphics card and expansion slots, those are reusable and screw in with individual screws, with the rest of the gap covered with a plate. That’s necessary since the case does come with a vertical mount conversion, where it uses that same space for mounting your GPU with a riser. The vertical mount lets you show off your graphics card a bit more compared to the standard configuration.
Around the back where the handy mount bracket is located. The second chamber has two cut-outs for mounting your power supply, either the top or the bottom. But one of them (top by default) is taken up by the long bracket that is double-sided with screw holes for installing up to four drives: two of each – SSD and HDD.
be quiet! Light Base 500 LX built profile open, Image by PC Guide
be quiet! Light Base 500 LX profile closed, Image by PC Guide
be quiet! Light Base 500 LX turned on front, Image by PC Guide
be quiet! Light Base 500 LX turned on closed build, Image by PC Guide
be quiet! Light Base 500 LX left side left rear profile built, Image by PC Guide
Annoyingly, one of the HDD spits is taken up by the fan controller in the LX model, so you can’t take advantage of all of the spaces, but then again, how many people will be using two or even one mechanical HDD in their builds in 2026? Taking off the bracket makes installation less fiddly as you move it away from the inside of the case, except for having to unplug the fan controller in the LX model.
The case also pre-routes the front panel and fans in a luxury-feeling sleeve that brings the cables to the back and allows them to be installed into the motherboard or where needed. As for the rest of the cabling, there are plenty of cutouts around the motherboard tray that give you access to plenty of channels to stealthily hide your cables away from the glass you can see through at the front.
The lack of rubber gromets does mean some areas look raw and a bit of an eyesore. With the longer PSU and motherboard than recommended in our build, it was also hard to feed through the cables due to the lack of space, and they were left dangling in front of the fans – I can’t blame the case for my choices, though. Otherwise, it’s a very effective method of routing cables at their shortest distance, as it has plenty of cutouts for them and offers a more stealthy-looking design; all of which was rather straightforward and quick, with helpful guides.
Performance
After building and setting up the PC, I put it through our testing lab to see how it performed. Our test consists of loading up the 9800X3D CPU and RTX 5090 GPU with Furmark 2 and putting them to the maximum stress and temps to see how the case fans handle the load. Although not necessarily how you’d use it every day, it’s an effective way to see what the case is capable of when you push it to the limits.
Ourt test starts with a five-minute idle, followed by a twenty-minute load, and a final 5 minutre cooldown. As shown in the graph above, the CPU temperature peaked and stabilized at 95°C, while the GPU chip sat at around 68°C, and the memory reached 69°C. The MOS temperatures on the motherboard also peaked at 52°C. The CPU reached a peak power of 147W and stabilised at around 142W. In turn, the GPU stayed at a steady 600W with the fan RPM reaching 80% and nearly 2,000 RPM as it heated up. All of this shows the Light Base 500 LX to be an effective option for cooling with the setup we used, plus it has yet more cooling potential should you utilize that empty bottom compartment for all the extra fans you can add in, which should further improve the results.
As far as noise performance goes, at be quiet!, as the name might suggest, they are focused on silence and keeping the sound of your hardware minimal. We certainly found in the review of their keyboards earlier this year, the Dark and Light Mounts, and in the case of the Light Base LX, it does a very good job of keeping sound to a minimum; it’s not silent, but certainly doesn’t grate on the ears. The preinstalled fans that take in from the side/front and exhaust in the rear are well designed to pull in air without making too much noise, meaning there’s plenty of airflow without whooshing or whistling.
- Type: Mid tower
- Motherboard support: ATX/M-ATX/Mini-ATX
- Included fans: 3x Light Wings LX Reverse 120mm (side), 1x Light Wings LX 120mm (rear)
- Fan support: 10x (2/3x top, 3x side,1x rear, 3x bottom)
- Radiator compatibility: Up to 360mm
- Storage bays: 1x 3.5″ HDD, 2x 2.5″ SSD
- CPU cooler clearance: Up to 185mm
- GPU clearance: Up to 400mm
- Expansion slots: 7
- PSU support: Up to 200mm
- Dimensions (LxWxH): 432 x 305 x 436 (410 without feet)mm
- Weight: 10.95kg
- Materials: Steel, Glass, ABS stands
- Front I/O: 1x USB 3.2 Gen. 2 Type C, 2x USB 3.2 Type A, 1x 3.5mm, ARGB button, reset button, power button
Conclusion
Generally, the be quiet! Light Base 500 LX is a great case to build in and enjoy. With plenty of open space, lots of mounting places, and clear instructions, it’s a strong choice as a top chassis to use. Especially with the no compromise of looks and airflow with the included RGB reverse fans, with plenty of glass to show it all off, and a vertical mount for your GPU too. Just be sure to check on the sizing of your hardware (which we failed to do), as it can get a bit cramped in the back.
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