ASUS TUF Gaming GT501 E-ATX Gaming Chassis Review

A Closer Look – Exterior

This is certainly a bold looking chassis, finished in dark colours, with smoked glass, and two massive handles stuck on the top. It’s obviously aggressive and quite gaming focused. Of course, that’s not a bad thing, if you have a massive PC you want to build, but you also need it to look epic and be somewhat portable, the TUF has both bases covered.

The side panels are mounted with two thumbscrews at the top, while the bottom edge uses a lipped edge to hold it in place. Here you can see the strap mountings too. They’re very thick velcro, so they can be removed if you really need to do so.

TUF Handles

The straps say TUF Gaming on them, which should look tacky, but honestly, I think it looks really cool.

I don’t doubt their 30KG capabilities either, they’re pretty robust. They have a little padding too, not much, but enough to make it more comfortable when dragging your PC from the boot of your car to the LAN gaming hall.

The magnetic dust filter is massive on the top panel too. It’s hard to see, but in the right light, it has the TUF Gaming Alliance digital camo effect, but it’s really subtle here.

The paint has some detail to it too, it’s more of a dark great with a darker grey metal flake. You can feel the texture to it too, it feels like the kind of armour paint you would put on off-road vehicles. However, the metal flake gives it a great look too, breaking up what would otherwise be a big grey slab of metal.

TUF Cooling

Remove the top filter, and you’ll find a plethora of fan and radiator mounts. You can fit 120 and 140mm fans and up to 360mm radiators depending on your requirements.

The front panel is drop dead gorgeous too. No big chunk of nasty plastic here either, those huge fins are all metal like the rest of the chassis. They’re perforated for massive airflow too. More than anything though, I love the aggressive angles, it really gives the front panel some presence.

Towards the top, you’ll find the I/O panel, which comes with audio jacks, USB 3.0 ports, and a massive power button. No USB Type-C though, which is a shame, but hardly a deal breaker.

The right side panel is just a thick slab of metal, but mounts in the same way as the tempered glass panel on the left side.

Around the back, it’s business as usual, with all the usual mounts.

There’s a 140mm fan pre-installed, but it’ll also support 120mm fittings too. Most importantly, the screw holes are elongated, allowing for height adjustment of your fan or radiator to improve compatibility.

Vertical GPU Mount

The chassis supports ATX motherboards, so you’ll find the usual seven expansion slots. Each are fitted with reusable metal covers too. If you want to use a riser cable, you can also use the two vertical expansion slots to show off your GPU through the window too.

There’s even a slide out dust filter in the base, allowing you to keep your PSU airflow nice and clean.

The ground clearance for the TUF is pretty impressive too, ensuring that PSU filter gets plenty of cool air.