[SOLVED] Difference between COOLER MASTER H500M and H500P

[hannanqazi18]

Can anyone please tell me the Difference between COOLER MASTER H500M and H500P, because they both seem so similar ?

 

[Aeacus]

To put it short:
1st there was: H500P, with see-through plastic at front panel (and it's one of the worst cases ever made),
2nd case made was: H500P Mesh, where front panel see-through plastic was replaced with mesh + few fixes as well,
and 3rd case is: H500M, which comes with mesh front panel and TG panel as well, which you can swap if you like + additional fixes.

GamersNexus did a review on that,
youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBaENgmjyrw
article: https://www.gamersnexus.net/hwreviews/3312-cooler-master-h500m-case-review-vs-h500p-mesh

 

[Paperdoc]

Here are the main differences I found.

1. USB ports Front Panel
The M model has four USB3.0 Type A ports plus one USB3.1 Type C port. (Note that you can plug a USB2 cable into a USB3.0 Type A port to make USB2 connection.) To use these, your mobo would have to have TWO USB3.0 headers plus a USB3.1 header so you could plug in the cables from the front panel to use the ports.
The P model has two USB3.0 Type A ports and two USB2 ports, no USB3.1. To use these you would need on your mobo one header each of the USB2 and USB3.0 type.

2. RGB Lighting Support.
There are two incompatible RGB lighting systems in use now for computer cases. The simpler one is called plain RGB and uses a 4-pin connector supplying 12 VDC power to the RGB devices. In these systems there are three colours of LED in the device and mixtures of those can produce many colours. ALL the LED's of one colour in the device are connected together; thus the entire device shows the same colour everywhere in that unit at any moment in time. If your mobo has a 4-pin plain RGB header (or some have two), you can use that plus a software utility supplied by your mobo maker to power and control the RGB lighting devices. You can NOT connect these devices to a mobo 3-pin header (see next). If your mobo has no such header, the devices can be powered and controlled by separate controller boxes. The P model comes with fans that have this type of RGB lighting built into their chassis.
The more advanced system is called Addressable RGB or ADDR RGB or ARGB, and it uses a 3-pin connector supplying 5 VDC power. You can NOT plug these devices into the plain RGB system. In the ADDR RGB system, the lighting device has lots of LED Nodes, each consisting of one LED each of Red, Green and Blue, plus a controller chip that listens to the Control Line and controls only the LED's of that one Node. This system can produce more complex displays like a colour sequence chasing itself along the strip of lights. If your mobo has a ADDR RGB header on it, you can power and control this type of device from that header with a software utility. If no such header, you can do it with a separate ADDR RGB controller box. The M model comes with fans that have this type of lighting system built in. It also comes with a small ADDR RGB controller board that you mount and connect inside your case. See p.22 of the case's manual. It gets power from a PSU SATA power output connector and uses a cable connection to a mobo USB2 header to communicate with the mobo. Then you download and install a software tool from Cooler Master to control this board and its ADDR RGB lighting devices. You do NOT need to use a mobo header to use this controller. However, I THINK it also CAN be connected to a mobo ADDR RGB header if you have one and then you can choose to use the mobo maker's software to send control signals from the mobo header to the controller board, instead of using the Cooler Master tool to do the control. I am not sure about that last bit. I know that feature is included in another different Cooler Master product, a hard-to-find Wired Addressable RGB Controller box used for a similar purpose - see this video for a demo of what displays it can do because I suspect these are quite similar to what can be done by the controller board that comes with the M case.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zN80tUbl4T0https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zN80tUbl4T0

So, To make use of mobo control of the different RGB systems built into the fans of those two cases, your mobo must have the correct RGB header type.

3. Fans
Both cases have two front fans containing RGB lighting devices (as above) and one rear fan with no lighting. All these fans are of the 3-pin design, so your mobo SYS_FAN headers will need to be able to use the older Voltage Control Mode (aka DC Mode) to handle them properly - not usually a problem.

4. Graphics Card items
The M case has a small bracket that you can use to support the end of your graphics card closest to the front of the case (furthest from the rear mounting bracket of the PCIe slot). The P case does not appear to have this, but it does have a system you can use at your option to mount your graphics card turned another way so it shows clearly though the side of the case. This may require a special additional cable to make the connection to the card.

5. SSD Mounting
The M case had six possible places to mount SSD's, whereas the P case has two. This may make not difference to you.

 

[Aeacus]

Here are the main differences I found.

text cut

Another wall of text, another BA steal.

 

[Paperdoc]

Yeah, I include a lot of details. Not trying to steal - when I started I was the first reply, but by the time I finished I saw your reply actually came in before mine. And you got the BA, so good for you.

 

[Aeacus]

Yeah, I include a lot of details. Not trying to steal - when I started I was the first reply, but by the time I finished I saw your reply actually came in before mine. And you got the BA, so good for you.

When i also started my reply, there were 0 replies. That's the issue with in-depth replies, by the time you finish yours, 3-4 other people have already answered and BA is also already selected. Seen that myself quite often.

Though, there's nothing wrong of you getting the BA. Your reply is far more in-depth than mine. By the effort alone you'd deserve BA more than me. Also, i have plenty of BAs and i don't mind giving you another one (by my calculation, this was the 2nd time your wall of text beat me in the topic).

In the end, it's not about BAs but giving good and helpful info to the OP.

 

[Paperdoc]

Your last sentence is dead on!! We all learn from others here, and help others here, often both within the same thread.