2.11.2019

So I'll start this review off by saying that the first few days of heavy FPU/CPU stress testing and general average workload for my needs beats my previous AIO cooler. As mentioned on the title.Unboxing experience: I'm a box keeper. I love to keep boxes that have an exceptional unboxing experience and that allow me to keep spare parts (screws, mounting plates etc) in there without worrying about where I've put them. Corsair has never failed to provide their high-end/premium products with a luxurious and amazing experience when it comes to unboxing. All the parts are in their own dividers unlike some companies who throw them on top or below the main product.Or who pull an Apple and hide additional parts right under the main holding area.Installation process: If this is your first AIO purchase, then be prepared for a little more than you bargain for. While everything is mostly labeled, the instructions are not the best. They do not cover the entire process but cover the rough installation. But once you get everything connected the only problem I had was securing it to my Ryzen socket. This was true on my previous AIO and my guess is its a general AM4 nightmare so your mileage may vary if you're team blue. It does not feel right to have to apply a lot of mounting pressure when securing it to the AM4 mounts. Not only that but trying to get it clipped in might trouble some new people. If you're new to AIO cooling then don't try to rush it. Take your time and be patient and careful - my advice from experience is to make sure the little hook things are as loose as possible just before the screws fall off. This will make it slightly easier to install. With that said, it still makes me nervous every time it comes to installing a cooler to my chip. But once all of that sweating and anxiety is over. It becomes so much easier! (extra optional advice: have a large-ish room fan blowing cool air on you and have a lot of light so you can see what you're doing). The 2 included RGB fans are straight forward to install. I saw on some comments on YouTube for reviews where the uploaded forgot to mention whether you need an additional fan/RGB controller. This is not true. Everything connects to the motherboard with no need for a controller.Performance: So after installing the cooler and mounting it. The first thing I did after booting into Windows was. Stress test. (Software used - Aida 64 Extreme). I hit the FPU first and let it run for a few minutes just to see what stock speeds would be like, after coming back from getting a bowl of cereal, my computer was not powered on anymore. Turns out, the pesky BIOS has a temperature threshold in which if exceeded for a period of time, causes the system to turn off. After messing about and trying to disable it or increase the threshold. I eventually gave up and thought sod it, close enough. Then tried the test again. Temps spiked to 90c+ which at first made me panic but then they slowly dropped but had a few moments where they peaked up in the 100's. I let it run for 10 minutes and although I cannot provide with an average stable temperature, I can say that despite a heavy stress test, I was and am happy with the temps it balanced at. I then OC'd to 4.1GHz @ 1.55v (the max voltage and frequency my Zen 7 2700 can go to) and did another FPU test after letting the cooler reach roughly room temperature again. Instantly (relatively speaking) after clicking on start, the temps spiked to 120c~. Before you ask, yes, I did panic again but after letting them drop a little, for the frequency and voltage, they were surprisingly within margin of error. Bear in mind that all of my fans were at max speed. Needless to say, I am certainly happy with these results.Noise: I'll make this one short and simple. If you've got 2 GPU's, 2 rad fans, 3 case fans all at max speed. My system is extremely loud. As for everything else but the rad fans at their quietest and lowest speeds, they still make one heck of a noise. If there's a way to change to different cooling profiles on the fly, this would help greatly but at the moment because of my laziness, manual control of all fans to slow them down is something I don't bother doing anymore.RGB: A person's greatest addiction. RGB. The fans and pump colours fan be controlled through iCue. Individual lighting for all parts of the pump and fans makes for a tiny personal disco. Rainbow vomit I call it. Or if you want to be boring, they can all be turned off by clicking on 'Instant Lighting' and then clicking black.General thoughts: Living in Britain has its perks. Mainly the naturally cold weather, meaning that your temps will be a lot cooler if you have your window open overnight which I do. It also means your whole room is ice cold so the fans don't need to run as fast and admittedly, I should take them all off 100%. Regardless, the sexy RGB, massive rad and overall performance is something I absolutely love! An AIO cooler is definitely the way to go if air cooling isn't doing you any good but you don't want to deal with custom loops (although I would recommend a custom loop).TL;DR. Great cooler, price is fair and you get sick RGB bling. What more could you want?

8.8.2019

Ok, the cooler is well reviewed here, but I add my experience and some (I hope useful) tips at the end.I use it to cool an Intel i7 9700K.I can summarize the usual things: it does keep the CPU nice and cool, I never get above 50degC (CPU temperature) even when the CPU is under constant load. The fluid temperature depends on the room temperature, it is just a few degrees over the room temperature (which makes sense, temperature difference and flow rate make the heat transfer possible).Even under load and with the room being warm, this is quite a large cooler so the large fans tend to keep to a relative average/low speed. You can tune pump and fans speeds using the Corsair software.Also the RGB lights can be personalized to do...pretty much anything you want. I don't have a "christmas tree" setup, so I tend to keep it simple.On a note, at the time of review the Amazon page states the fans are dual 120mm. Of course they are not, as the radiator is a 280mm. The fans (from the Corsair spec page) are "dual 140mm ML PRO Series RGB magnetic levitation PWM fans".When overclocking the CPU it gets hotter, but I didn't invest much time on overclocking properly, I just used the motherboard settings which are known to not overclock in the best way. Despite that, the CPU speed went to just over 5Ghz and it was working stable. The temperature on the CPU at the time was maintained at about 70/75degC under 100% constant load. But again, proper overclock and proper test should be made on this.Now, the advises (based on my direct experience).1) do not just fix the fan screws as tight as possible to the radiator. The screws are holding from the external "flaps" of the fan frame, so if you tight them too much the frame will bend slightly and the fan become noisy. Just get them tight enough to hold the fan firmly in place and nothing more, they will be ultra silent2) make sure you have decent case fans extracting how air from the case. The cooler exhausts air just slightly above room temperature inside the case, but if you have a powerful graphic card, that will most likely exhaust A LOT of hot air (mine you can feel the heat on the sides on the glass, planning on mounting it vertically). The large fans of the cooler pushing in don't mean you will have the correct air flow to dissipate the heat of the GPU. You need decent fans pulling the hot air out as well. If the case fans are not great (mine weren't), buy good ones. My GPU under 100% constant load was holding 70degC set-point with the GPU fans at almost full speed with the standard case fans, it now holds 70degC set-point with the fans running at 50% even in summer.3) I prefer fans to "pull" aut from the radiator than "pushing" air through the radiator. The exhaust of a fan will be a turbulent flow, whether the inlet is usually a lot more laminar. It should improve the efficacy of the the radiator. Ok ok, there are different opinions here. But I just base this on what I know from work that's all. And I would add that a laminar flow hitting a surface should also be less noisy... but haven't tried that4) the fans are large and fast. If you ramp them up at full speed they are noisy (of course). Don't go heavy on the fans, you don't need to. Being large they move a lot of air without having to spin fast, that's the beauty of it. You will notice that at a normal speed the fluid temperature will be maintained just above room temperature with no issue

26.2.2020

I was recently upgrading my PC which included a new motherboard, CPU and RAM. I decided to go down the water-cooling path for the new CPU. Although more expensive than some other manufacturers, I went with Corsair as they have a good reputation.The new CPU is the OctalCore Intel Core i9-9900K, 4700 MHz (47 x 100) which should fulfil my needs for a few years. The motherboard is an Asus Prime Z390-A and the RAM is two Corsair 3600 RGB 8GB giving 16GB of RAM. Both the motherboard and RAM are RGB devices. So, the choice of this water-cooler, with its RGB fans, seemed a logical choice.When I first unpacked the cooler, the task ahead seemed a little daunting.There are lots of components to assemble and a pile of wires that have to connected to the system. This is a multiplatform cooler so it comes with parts for Intel and AMD processors. Fortunately, by default it’s setup for Intel which saved a bit of work. The instructions are okay but they can leave you wondering if you are using the right parts.I set up the fans in a pull format when I fitted them to the radiator. As I was fitting the radiator at the bottom of the case, this seemed the logical way to do it. This will then draw cool air through the radiator. There are two leads coming from each fan, one for power and the other for the LED lights. These have to be connected to the corresponding leads coming off the heatsink pump.Fitting the heatsink pump on the processor was pretty straight forward. There is thermal paste on the heatsink already but be careful not to disturb it prior to fitting. Was clamped into place you have a couple of other wires to connect. One has to be connected to a SATA power socket which will then supply the power to the pump and fans. The other single wire should be connected to the CPU fan connector on the motherboard, so that the motherboard doesn’t complain that there’s no CPU fan. There is just one more connection to be made, the supplied USB lead has to be connected to the side of the pump with the other end connecting to a spare USB2 header on your motherboard. This allows software to control the RGB lights.As you can see, the job isn’t easy but the rewards are well worth the effort. While I am typing this review, the CPU is running at around 25ᵒC. If I ramp up the processor cores to 100%, the temperature gets up to 68ᵒC for a few seconds and then drops down to around 50ᵒC. This is so much better than air cooling where I’ve had temperatures as high as 80ᵒC and static. What’s more it’s virtually silent.On the downside, I had to send the first one back as the fan lights weren’t working properly. A minor problem but frustrating. Theirs is always the possibility of failures and it’s not always a quality issue. While probably tested fine in the factory, the units have undergone the rigours of travelling to their final destination. The main thing though, is that it was replaced without question.Overall, I am very pleased with the quality and functionality of this water-cooler.

29.6.2019

While installation for me wasn't quite as easy as it should have been, I can't fault the cooler for that, instead the Corsair 460x I was installing it in. Considering there is space for fans at the top, Corsair really should have added some extra space up top in order to fit a radiator there. I instead ended up installing the radiator on the exterior of the case, at the top. Regardless, this isn't the fault of the cooler, and when I initially attempted to install it with the motherboard out of the case it went very smoothly, far easier than installing a high end air cooler. The included instructions were sufficient, but nothing special. Not everything was as clear as it could have been,however the installation itself is pretty intuitive and so this is a non-issue.When I initially powered on my computer for the first time after installing it I was shocked at how quiet it was. I actually ended up peering into my case to ensure that the two included ML140 fans had been connected properly. It really is dead silent, even on the default profile, and my three Corsair SP120 RGB case fans make significantly more noise than this cooler. After tweaking the fan profiles of everything and leaving the pump on the 'balanced' preset I cannot hear my computer (~0.75 metres away from me on my desk) when gaming with my speakers.With my 8600k on stock settings idle temperatures, while insignificant, were sitting around 32C in my room with an ambient temperature of 19C. What was really impressive was the temperatures I was seeing under load - in Aida64 Extreme on stock settings temperatures barely exceeded 60C after half an hour on the stress test, and all the while my system remained dead silent. After over-clocking my i5 8600k to 5Ghz at 1.350V I reach 68C under the same test. This is all with the included thermal paste on the cooler, and on a non-delidded processor. This performance is really impressive to me coming from air cooling.In terms of negatives, the only thing I can think of is the USB cable coming from the cooler. To control the RGB this must be plugged in, however the way that it comes out of the cooler can make it somewhat difficult to cable manage. I tried to route it underneath the VRM heatsink, however it comes out some distance from the motherboard, meaning that it is still very visible from the exterior of my case. An integrated solution for this would be more appealing than the mini USB cable utilised here, as it would make it easier to hide the cable coming out from the waterblock. On the plus side this cable is black, and so does not stand out too badly.Overall this cooler is superb, and does everything it needs to very well. The mix of performance and aesthetics cannot be faulted, and the 360mm offerings from both Corsair and other brands do not pose a significant enough bump in performance to justify the increase in performance in my opinion. This is a five star product.

27.5.2020

For disclosure I have been building computers for over twenty years. I have worked on them professionally and personally in that time. Although I found it an easy install I imagine a novice might struggle and would be better starting out with something a bit simpler.Firstly mounting the block and the radiator was mostly very simple. The Intel bracket is in place by default and it is quite stiff to remove. I double checked I was actually doing what they wanted as it did take a bit of force to come loose. However once that was done it was simple to remove my air cooler and mount the Corsair (thermal paste is pre-applied) in its place.The Rad gave me a little bit more of a headache.I was building in a MicroATX case and I wanted to mount it in the front. My case isn't fantastic and unfortunately the top drive bays are riveted and not easily removable. However I know from experience that most AIO cooler rads will fit in the gap no problem. The Corsair one was slightly thicker and no amount of force could make it go in. I ended up mounting it in the top and sadly lost my 140mm dust filters. However it was easy to fit in that spot and it does look nice.There is actually quite a lot to connect when putting this system together. Each fan has an RGB and power header that need to be connected to the leads coming off the block. The block itself has a USB connector that needs to be run to a USB header on your mmotherboard. It's fairly self explanatory but you do need to make sure you connect your fans to the pump cables not onto the RGB/fan headers on your board like you might with a normal case fan. I had a read of the manual and I thought it was actually pretty poor on this front. I don't know if Corsair just assume people building with this know what they're doing. Though reading it over I felt the descriptions were likely to mislead less experienced builders.Once booted I was impressed with the results. My case is inside a desk so airflow isn't always that great especially at the top and back. However the CPU was idle at around 30C (about 15C cooler than with air) and while gaming it was mainly between 50 and 60C. The noise level from the cooler and its fans were low (in fact I couldn't tell they were running over the GPU) so I am very happy with the new setup.ICue is actually a really good bit of software. I own a Corsair wireless mouse, headset and now cooler and I have never had a problem using the software. My kids love the RGB and I love the temps/acoustics so everyone has won.A great product and the only mark down I have given is for the poor manual and instructions. I actually feel like you could use it for something like a HTPC as it really is quiet enough that I reckon it could live in a living room PC. In fact I am impressed enough I have just ordered a commander and three case fans as I feel like the basic ones in the case are letting the side down.

27.10.2016

Having owned this for about a week now, I thought I might leave a review and give some advice to those looking at getting a AIO liquid cooler. First let me say that this is my first water-cooler that I have ever installed, so with that in mind I want to highlight the following.1. For those of you building a PC on a tight budget with not much care for aesthetics, I would go with an air cooler with a big heat-sink (e.g. Hyper Evo 212 or ARCTIC Freezer 7 Pro) because if you stick a Noctua fan on there you'll have a far quieter and probably better experience, for far less. However if you are like me and love the aesthetic that a water-cooler provides and hate big heat-sinks getting in the way of your RAM sticks and motherboard,then water-cooling is definitely the way to go.2. The noise. These fans are very noisy at anything over 50% speed, and are small vacuum cleaner level at 100%. Corsair tell you in the manual to plug both fans into the cable coming off the pump housing, and then the cable that comes off that into the cpu fan header. This didn't work for me because while running basic tasks the fans would ramp up to 100% sporadically which became very distracting. I started looking on forums and people were having similar issues. I read somewhere that the pump should stay at 100%, because this provides the best cooling and means less wear and tear on the pump (a changing load is much worse for it). To fix this I simply plugged the main cable that comes off the pump housing into the 3 pin water pump header on my motherboard (this stays at 100% all the time), and plugged in the two fans into CPU_FAN and CPU_OPT on my motherboard. Then I controlled them all using the fan controller in my UEFI BIOS to keep them both below 50% as much as possible.3. With all that being said it really does keep my processor very cool - my core i7-6700k clocked at 4.7 GHz wasn't going above 70*C and at idle it sits around 20 - 25*C depending on room temperature. I also like the RGB control of the corsair logo, which can be changed with corsair link software and configured to changed based on CPU temperature. I have mine on white most of the time and set to change to red when it goes over 70*C.All in all a very good all in one closed loop cooler, but I have to knock off a star for the fan design. While they may be high static pressure fans and work well at pushing air through the radiators, they far too noisy at anything above 50%. Those who have their hearts set on this you have two options: A) Do what I outlined above, if your motherboard allows it -enough fan headers, fan control in UEFI BIOS- or B)You can swap the fans out for some quieter 120mm fans. Noctua NF-P12 PWM fans would probably be a good option, though brown doesn't look too great in most builds.

18.7.2020

.. a vast improvement over any 'stock' cooler or many aftermarket passive or active air coolers. Please note that I can't comment on Intel mainboards, but I've added these to a few AMD machines and they all work wonderfully.To install this on an existing machine, you may need to disconnect and remove *everything*, as the mainboard needs to be removed from the case (unless the case has a removable right/lower panel). The plastic heatsink then needs to be removed (crosshead screw) and the metal retaining plate will then come away from the rear of the mainboard.It starts to be tricky here. The radiator unit needs to be screwed to the (normally) back of the case,

15.11.2018

I used this to replace an existing Cooler Master - Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler, (so this Corsair cooler is about 3 times the price) in a Fractal Design - Define R5 w/Window (White) ATX Mid Tower Case on a i7-6700K processor which is mildly over-clocked.It comes well packaged and protected, with the large radiator already connected to the sealed CPU cooler. You need to put the fans on yourself.The Fractal case comes with removable panels to allow the radiator to be mounted on the top of the case, one thing to note is that by installing this radiator in this (and I assume other cases) the radiator does not span the entire width of the case so what was a sealed case at the top is now one which has open holes so dust can fall in.

3.1.2019

Once upon a time, the idea of water-cooling your computer seemed alien and daunting - after all who would want to run the risk of damaging your components for a cooler operating conditions? Times have changed and water cooling kits like this Corsair Hydro H100 brings the option to all levels of builders.This "all-in-one" cooler features a 240mm high density radiator, two 120mm fans with adjustable speed, mounting kits for most CPU sockets and fitting screws. Installation is reasonably easy if you are using this in a new build system, however if you are upgrading your current CPU cooler then the chances are you will have to take your system apart to allow correct installation.

29.8.2019

I was fed up having my Windows machine crash with heat issues when transcoding video using Handbrake so I decided to upgrade my Noctua fan to this water cooler. Glad I did.The unit is easy to install as long as you have a basic understanding of your case and motherboard. Carefully check which risers you need for your board (Have a look in your motherboard manual if unsure on type to use).Comes with pre applied thermal paste which is great although I suggest you make sure of position over the cpu so as to avoid moving it about after fitting and smearing the paste.Under normal load the pump and fans are barely audible provided you download and configure the iCUE software from Corsair.

27.11.2019

I purchased this as an upgrade from a MasterLiquid Lite 120 that was on its way out, and to cool a Ryzen R7 2700X at 4.2GHz on all cores, with a 1.43v vcore, on a ASUS Prime X470 Pro. I'm also running a few LL120/140 fans, with a Gigabyte GTX 1080 8GB Windforce OC. First impressions, after using it for a day (almost).Installation:I installed this in a Phanteks Eclipse P350X case, which is supposed to support 280mm radiators, but the power switch and circuit board/box gets in the way. I knew this beforehand, after doing some research. The modding required was a little more extreme that I was led to believe, but I did it.Furthermore, I ran into an issue that others have in the reviews with the radiator itself.

13.12.2018

This hardware was purchased to replace my old (2012) H60 cooler. Whoever put together this package did not consider the likelihood of someone having a slightly thicker casing than usual as the short bolts provided did not reach the radiator! Therefore I had to use the ones from my old H60 and even then they proved too long so they had to be packed out to ensure a tight fit to the casing. It took me a lot longer to fit the fan and radiator than I had anticipated and this was exacerbated by the difficulty of getting the bolts into the thread on the radiator- I assume because of enamel on the threads. My advice is to try the bolts into the rad' before placing it inside the casing just to ease the process.

14.11.2018

The H100x is basically an excellent AIO cooler. Performance is very good in terms of cooling (i5-8500 in a micro ATX case with MSI Mortar motherboard) - though with heavy loading on the system the fans can ramp up somewhat - but not to levels which are too distracting. In the main things run quietly. Fitting in the case is pretty straightforward - though you should obviously check size versus case for compatibility. In terms of fitting the CPU cooler itself - this is basically a doddle - easier also with an AIO than with an air cooler - mainly because you're not wrestling with something of the size and weight of most air coolers. From my reading the H100x supports pretty much all of the Intel and AMD sockets of recent years.

15.5.2020

The looks of this set up are stunning. All white radiator and coolant lines and plenty of illumination from the centre of the pump and around the outside of the pump. Fans have two rings of LED's (LL120 has 16 per fan), not quite as many as the Corsair QL120 (34 per fan) but lighting effects are still very good when using the iCue software. Custom fan curves are easy to set up on the software and fans can be completely stopped when not under load making them silent. At medium speeds they are very quiet but running at max under stress testing they are obviously quite loud which is expected at 2200 RPM. I'm not entirely sure on the cooling performance as standard as I already had 2 corsair fans so I set my cooler up as push pull (with 4 fans)

3.12.2016

I originally bought this product after a pre-order for the new NZXT Kraken X62 failed to arrive on the promised date, and I was unable to complete my new build without a CPU cooler. I read some reviews and comparisons online and found that this AIO unit was a leading competitor, checked Amazon and found that it was £25 cheaper, so I cancelled my pre-order and purchased this. I'm so pleased I did.It was very easy to install the pump/waterblock with clear instructions, the only minor improvement that I thought could be made to the process would have been to label and bag the different Intel socket and AMD pump mount stands separately. I had no issues with the included thermal compound,

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