Supermicro GS50-000R – a “gaming” chassis

Introducing the Supermicro SuperChassis GS50-000R

The Supermicro SuperChassis GS50-000R is an attempt by Supermicro to expand to retail home-user market. This midi-tower case comes in two versions, our model is only black-painted on the visible sides (the remaining sides and internals only are transparent-painted over the basic SECC; well at least I hope there is some transparent finish, hopefully SM would not dare to sell you only bare SECC for such price). The other one, GS5B-000R, comes with complete black painting, inside and outside. The GS50-000R has several different names (SuperChassis GS50-000R, SCGS50-000R, CSE-GS50-000R) and it is also listed both under S5 series of midi-tower cases and also under Gaming series of products. Similar situation is with the black version, this one however is not even listed under “Gaming” products, whatever that actually is. So at first this looks like a giant mess, kinda like Antec (several names of the mostly same products for different regions, obsolete website), though it is not so bad, yet. You can also get complete configurations with Supermicro motherboards and these cases, optimised for gaming.

The GS50-000R midi-tower is slightly narrower than the last-time reviewed SilentiumPC Aquarius M60W, however it is somewhat taller and deeper, much like the Zalman Z9 Neo. There is no plastic panel on the top, however, which means with the same skelet size, the GS50-000R has slightly more room inside than the Zalman. After our review, the M60W has been put on discount on Czech market. The GS50-000R is priced at aprox. 2900 CZK (101 Eur in Germany, 100 USD in the US, in Australia it is only listed for a crazy 347 AUD). So it costs pretty much double the current price of the M60W. So all three cases have the same size, though from the price it is clear Supermicro aims for the mainstream/high-end border. But we can still compare, is this new case from Supermicro at least 50% better for double the price? It definitely has more fan and drive positions, so let’s check it out closer!

Packaging and accessories

The front side of the box shows us a drawing of the case from the front and side, nothing more here.

The rear side however shows a drawing of all the case parts you get with it, this is very nice. If only Supermicro provided something like that on their website, now you have to buy it to see that, not that wise.

There are drawings on the sides, this one shows us with all the fan position possibilities. This is nice, only pity that you will not find such even in the 17MB manual. Actually, it does not even list that you can put fan(s) to the bottom while there are two positions. The second is somewhat restricted, maybe that is why Supermicro only lists one here.

The packaging is strange. This GS50-000R model has very large box, one of the largest I have seen so far, only to find there are just huge foam blocks in there, with the accessories package on its top. The GS5B-000R however has more normal size of the box, while the case itself is pretty much the same. Why have two so different boxes just for different color?

When we open the accessories package however, we find it is mostly empty for its huge size. There is the manual, screws, 10 zip ties, a buzzer and some motherboard header cabling with adapter. Plus also two rubber plugs for the water-cooling hose positions, in case you break out the metal blinds on the case so you can cover them again. Nice! But still could have easily been put into a bag inside the case itself.

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