Corsair Intros the Hydro Series H100 and H80 CPU Water Coolers Review

A little more than a week after the Corsair H80 and H100 water coolers have been listed online by a Swedish retailer, the company decided to make these two high-performance Hydro Series models official.

Both the H80 and the H100 were designed together with CoolIT and use a low-profile cooling unit with a micro-channel copper cold plate and a split-flow manifold.

Right on the CPU block assembly, Corsair has placed a digital fan control button, which allows users to select between three different cooling modes that control the rotation speed of the radiator fans.

Speaking of the radiator, this is the only component to differ between the two Hydro Series coolers, as the H80 comes with an 120mm unit, while the H100 features a 240mm radiator.

This means that the H100 can only be installed in cases with fittings for a standard 240mm radiator, while the H80 is compatible with almost all chassis that feature an 120mm fan mount.

Both the H80 and H100 include a Corsair Link digital connector, which, when combined with the Corsair Link Commander unit and the special Dashboard software, can monitor and control the water cooler'sperformance.

"With the H80 and H100, we've kept our focus on the key features that have made the Hydro Series a success — closed-loop reliability, straightforward installation, and, of course, the best CPU cooling technology available." said Ruben Mookerjee, VP and general manager for Components at Corsair.

"The user-selectable fan control and Corsair Link Digital compatibility gives performance enthusiasts the power to customize their cooling performance and manage fan noise by selecting the amount of cooling they need," concluded the company's rep.

Both the Hydro Series H80 and Hydro Series H100 will be available starting from June, and their recommended retail price is set at $109 and $119, respectively.

Corsair Cooling Hydro Series H50 CPU Cooler

Corsair continues its trend of offering excellent products at decent prices

Corsair is best known for its memory and power supplies, but recently the company has taken to rebadging excellent OEM products for retail. First came a rebadged edition of Samsung’s blazing-fast 256GB MLC solid state drive. Now Corsair is continuing the trend by scooping up Asetek’s all-in-one liquid CPU cooler and rebranding it as the Corsair Cooling Hydro Series H50. It’s not just a straight-up rebadge. According to Corsair, it worked with Asetek to modify the latter’s OEM-only version, adopting a universal design and reportedly improving performance. We can’t verify how Corsair’s H50 compares to the OEM version, as the OEM version isn’t available for consumer purchase.

We were more interested to see how the H50 did against CoolIt’s similarly pricedDomino (reviewed June 2009). Like the Domino, the Corsair H50 consists of a CPU heat exchanger/pump unit that fits atop the CPU and is connected to a radiator, which mounts in place of your case’s rear 12cm fan. The H50 includes its own 12cm fan, which sits between the radiator and the case wall and pulls air through the radiator fins. The pump uses a three-pin power lead, which needs to plug into the CPU fan power port on the motherboard, and the 12cm fan, confusingly, has a four-pin connector, which plugs into any other fan control port. We originally tried running the pump off a direct-power Molex and the fan off the CPU PWM port, but saw miserable performance. Only after reversing the two did we achieve the expected performance.

The Corsair H50 is quiet, classy, maintenance-free, and gets the job done.
The heat exchanger mounts to the mother-board using a backplate/clamp mechanism, which is held on by spring screws. It’s not the easiest install we’ve ever undertaken, and the fact that the pump is permanently attached to the radiator means you’ll be dealing with that bit of inconvenience during the whole process, but it’s not terribly arduous, either.

Once installed, the H50 performed admirably. Unlike the CoolIt Domino, there’s no rpm monitor or adjustable-speed fans (unless you control yours from the motherboard), but the H50 performs extremely well (and quietly) on its single setting. The H50 lowered full-burn temperatures nearly 35 degrees from the stock cooler, and almost five degrees below the Thermalright Ultra-120 eXtreme , our champion air cooler (reviewed July 2009). Idle temps were barely two degrees higher than with the Thermalright, but still nearly 15 degrees cooler than stock.

The Corsair H50 retails for $80—comparable to the CoolIt and most of our favorite air coolers. It’s quiet, classy, and works like a charm.

Corsair Cooling Hydro Series H50

H20

Quiet; great cooling; competitively priced; no-maintenance closed-loop cooling.

H2SO4

Idle temps could be lower; install could be easier.

Corsair

Benchmarks

	Corsair H50	Thermalright U120-E	Stock Cooler
Idle (C)	31.25	29.25	44.75
100% Burn (C)	40	44.5	73.75

Best scores are bolded. Idle temperatures were measured after an hour of inactivity; load temperatures were measured after an hour's worth of CPU Burn-in (four instances). Test system consists of a stock-clock Q6700 processor on an EVGA 680i motherboard inside a Cooler Master ATCS 840 case with stock fans.