Corsair One i500 review: more than a pretty face

The Corsair One i500 is a work of art, and I don’t say that lightly. I haven’t seen such a tightly, purposefully designed PC since the Falcon Northwest Tiki a few years ago. Everything has a place, and Corsair wraps up the flagship hardware inside a beautiful case with plenty of quality-of-life features.

You’ll probably be familiar with the external design of the One i500. It hasn’t changed much in its overall form, but Corsair now includes a lovely wooden finish on the front. You have the option between a light or dark finish (my review unit came with a dark finish), both of which are surrounded by LED strips on the sides that light up the front of the case.

Turning on the Corsair One i500 feels like powering up some futuristic piece of tech. The large metal Corsair logo in the middle of the wooden front is the power button, and it lights up alongside the LED strips. Combined with some underglow provided by LED strips on the sides of the One i500, the PC manages to mash old and new designs together in a way that shockingly works.

The Corsair One i500 is more than just a pretty face externally. Around the sides, you’ll find two cloth grates that cover the full sides of the chassis. These magnetically snap to the metal frame that the One i500 is constructed out of, and you can easily remove them to clean out dust and other grime that they block from getting inside the case.

The back is where the real magic is. Corsair includes a string of lights above the ports at the back of the case that automatically light up when they detect your fingers. This little bit of light does wonders when you’re reaching behind the PC to plug in your cables. The sensor doesn’t work perfectly, and it occasionally missed my fingers when I reached around the PC. It worked more often than not, though, and it’s a great touch.

Everything is tightly compacted inside the Corsair One i500, and it’s clearly not built for easy servicing. Under the magnetic dust filters, you’ll find a series of screws that open up the side panels, which reveal even more screws for fans mounted on nearly every edge of the PC. Corsair wastes no space inside the One i500, and that means getting inside is tough.

It’s not any more difficult than a typical small form factor PC, however, and I’d argue it’s a bit easier. In the main chamber, Corsair includes three 120mm fans. One is used for a 120mm all-in-one liquid cooler for the CPU, while the other two serve as additional intakes. Corsair has all of the fans mounted to brackets, so you don’t need to worry about rebuilding the PC for some routine maintenance.

Surprisingly, there’s room to upgrade here. I mean, there isn’t physically room to upgrade, but Corsair is using all standard-sized components, including an SFX power supply and a mini-ITX motherboard. Upgrading the One i500 will take some work because of its small form factor design, but it’s possible.

The Corsair One i500 sacrifices some performance. There’s no way around that. It’s a small form factor design, and it’s packing the most powerful hardware money can buy. The performance compromises aren’t severe, though. The fact that Corsair is able to manage the monstrous performance that the One i500 offers in such a small design is mighty impressive, in fact.

Corsair packs the most powerful hardware money can buy in one of the smallest cases available with the One i500, so it’s no surprise that thermals are important. The PC has the heat these parts can generate under control, and in a way that doesn’t cause undue fan noise. But you’ll still hit a performance wall in some situations.

That mostly comes down to the CPU. As I covered in the previous section, the Core i9-14900K underperforms compared to a stock Core i9-14900K in a larger case with a larger cooler. In a Cinebench R24 multi-core run, the Core i9-14900K hit its thermal limit of 100 degrees Celsius in the Corsair One i500, which isn’t surprising. I’ve seen this chip creep toward its thermal limit even with a 360mm all-in-one liquid cooler.

There’s less of an issue with the Corsair One i500 and more of an issue with the Core i9-14900K. I’m not sure why Corsair chose such a notoriously hot, power-hungry CPU in its small form factor design, and why that’s the only option across configurations. It’s astounding that tiny Corsair is getting most of the performance of the Core i9-14900K given the size of the One i500. However, there should be an option for a more efficient CPU.

Thankfully, you’ll only hit the thermal limit under a full CPU load. I played about 45 minutes of Ghost of Tsushima on the PC, and the Core i9-14900K peaked at 86 degrees with an average of 66 degrees. That’s totally acceptable. The GPU temperatures were more impressive, though.

After 45 minutes, the RTX 4090 peaked at just 55 degrees and averaged about 48 degrees throughout the gameplay session. That’s because the GPU is liquid-cooled along with the CPU. It’s a showcase of what an efficient piece of hardware looks like when combined with liquid cooling. I can’t imagine how the Corsair One i500 would look with a more efficient CPU.

One of the big benefits of the Corsair One i500 over more mainstream options is that it’s ready to go out of the box. There’s little bloatware, and the BIOS is configured properly to get the best performance right away. Corsair is using an MSI motherboard, too, so you don’t have to deal with any funky, OEM-only BIOS screen.

You have two main utilities. One is a diagnostics tool that shows you information about your PC, where you can run a scan or even stress test your individual components to troubleshoot issues. The other gives you access to system vitals, and it allows you to customize the lighting that’s placed around the PC. I never saw a pop-up pestering me to open these apps, nor any intrusive bundled software begging me to spend more money.

Corsair has made something special with the One i500. I don’t agree with the choice of Intel’s more high-end — and power-hungry — CPU, and the price of the One i500 will make you wince. But I can’t deny that Corsair manages to make it work. The One i500 offers competitive performance, and it manages to handle the immense heat that its components put out, all without devolving into a noisy mess.

Further, the One i500 feels as premium as its price tag would suggest. The beautiful wooden finish, premium trimmings, and additions like the I/O port light give the One i500 a unique spot among the endless prebuilt PCs you could buy. Although the Corsair One i500 is expensive, it’s the PC you should buy if you’re in the market for a high-end behemoth.

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