Corsair Hydro Series H50 Review

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Current high-end x86 processors are hot, hot beasties. AMD and Intel's best chips are manufactured on a 45nm process and need up to 125W and 130W, respectively, of cooling power to keep them chugging along within tolerances. The ever-increasing TDPs have lead to both companies bundling in larger, more efficient air coolers with retail chips, to the extent that they can be considered enthusiast-class.

A well-designed PIB cooler is good enough to keep the chip(s) running at their native speeds, obviously, but the enthusiast who wants to extract more 'free' performance from their system may well indulge in some robust overclocking, usually by adding voltage as the frequency tops out. That's why there's a whole raft of aftermarket air coolers for Intel's LGA775/1,366 and AMD's AM2+/AM3 CPUs, ranging from anywhere between £10 to £60.

Air cooling has the inevitable drawback of being limited by the ambient temperature, no matter how efficient the transfer from chip to fan. The next step up is to use a liquid-cooled setup that is better at absorbing and dissipating the heat produced by the CPU. This is where budget all-in-one, easy-fit systems come in, costing around £50 and purporting to have better cooling credentials.

Corsair recently teamed up with Asetek and launched such a cooler last month. Dubbed the Hydro Series H50 and currently etailing at £59, the memory specialist is aiming to destroy the high-end air-cooling market.

Is it better than a Thermalright Ultra-120 eXtreme when tasked to cool a near-4.0GHz-clocked Core i7 chip. Read on to find out.

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http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=19073&page=1

That's a decent performance over the TRUE, but I bet it won't stay long on the market. Yup, beaten the TRUE but not that much. And most that used water-cooling have full fledged water-cooling systems. The price is a bit tempting though.

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Originally Posted by labs23

That's a decent performance over the TRUE, but I bet it won't stay long on the market. Yup, beaten the TRUE but not that much. And most that used water-cooling have full fledged water-cooling systems. The price is a bit tempting though.

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This isn't meent to compete against watercoolers, its meent to compete against air coolers and it does so very well. It outperforms the TRUE enough for me to want it :)

I wonder if the TRUE backplate would hold it so I dont have to remove my motherboard.......

Only real comparison is with the same fan IMO.

I also wonder how it would fare with a silent,slowspinning fan.

Great product for all those TRUE owners out there :) You've done well here Corsair.

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Originally Posted by Smartidiot89

This isn't meent to compete against watercoolers, its meent to compete against air coolers and it does so very well. It outperforms the TRUE enough for me to want it :)

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+1!:up:

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Originally Posted by Smartidiot89

This isn't meent to compete against watercoolers, its meent to compete against air coolers and it does so very well. It outperforms the TRUE enough for me to want it :)

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Of course it does, the performance is there. Yet again I was more specific on its place in the watercooling market - since it is an entry level water-cooling product.

The results are predictable. It's doing very well.
On the other hand, looks like heavily tweaked True will beat it. And Megahalem should beat this Corsair unit, too.
I'm curious how it's going to perform with a more silent fan as well. And what about the pump noise? My previous pump annoyed me a lot, and I couldn't control its noise like I could control my fans. The review mentions it's noisy, would be nice to see some db figures.
In any case, I think it's a decent product for the price. Should sell well I believe. :)

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Originally Posted by zalbard

The results are predictable. It's doing very well.
On the other hand, looks like heavily tweaked True will beat it. And Megahalem should beat this Corsair unit, too.
I'm curious how it's going to perform with a more silent fan as well. And what about the pump noise? My previous pump annoyed me a lot, and I couldn't control its noise like I could control my fans. The review mentions it's noisy, would be nice to see some db figures.
In any case, I think it's a decent product for the price. Should sell well I believe. :)

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Funny you mention figures and all I have seen are charts.

Would be nice to see some screens of realtemp (or whatever method is being used) etc to backup these charts, like we see on the forums.

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Originally Posted by Jonny Manc

I wonder if the TRUE backplate would hold it so I dont have to remove my motherboard.......

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The TRUE backplates for 1366 and 775 use the same thread as the screws in the mounting bracket we currently send out, so you can use the same backplate.

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Originally Posted by Redbeard

The TRUE backplates for 1366 and 775 use the same thread as the screws in the mounting bracket we currently send out, so you can use the same backplate.

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Cheers RB.....good to hear :D

It's good for what you get, not a bad product. I won't buy it, I prefer to do my own loops, but it's a good kit.

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Originally Posted by Jonny Manc

Funny you mention figures and all I have seen are charts.

Would be nice to see some screens of realtemp (or whatever method is being used) etc to backup these charts, like we see on the forums.

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Hopefully we'll get lots of feedback once XS users start buying these. Usually better than most reviews. :D

Interesting and food for thought, but the fan differences are kind of glaring, especially since the TRUE is an air cooler that can really take advantage of higher fan speeds.

Doesnt Swiftech have the same thing on the market as well?

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Originally Posted by ILikeCosmosS

Doesnt Swiftech have the same thing on the market as well?

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there's is a lot more pricey iirc

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Originally Posted by ILikeCosmosS

Doesnt Swiftech have the same thing on the market as well?

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Swiftech's offering is technically in a different niche than this. Corsair's solution is all-in-one, while Swiftech's unit has two main parts. On the other hand, Swiftech's offering has a much stronger pump and can easily be expanded with other waterblocks in the future. And while it would be difficult to proper compare them, Swiftech's radiator looks like it would be more efficient as well.

Does the kit come with AM2+ mounting hardware?

Should have compared it to the Noctua P12SE 1366, since thats better than a TRUE, i dont know why everyone thinks the TRUE is still the best, i have both coolers in front of me, after doing some tests, the Noctua is 2-5c better. Push/Pull obviously, the TRUE comes close with a push pull, but Noctua still is the winner. This unit will hamper rear exhaust, the hotter your case gets, the hotter the radiator will get, this is a bad product for people with closed cases.

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Originally Posted by vengance_01

Does the kit come with AM2+ mounting hardware?

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No you need to get it from corsair, its free but you need to ask for it, why it wasnt inclued in the retail kit is unknown.

Thanks for the quick response Gar.

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Originally Posted by GAR

This unit will hamper rear exhaust, the hotter your case gets, the hotter the radiator will get, this is a bad product for people with closed cases.

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:confused:
A rad should NEVER be used with an exhaust fan. Putting case air through a rad is a good way to increase temps. Flip your fans around and problem solved.

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Originally Posted by faster3200

:confused:
A rad should NEVER be used with an exhaust fan. Putting case air through a rad is a good way to increase temps. Flip your fans around and problem solved.

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True. But i still see this kit being an issue for Mid Towers with only 1 exhaust fan in the rear, in a HAF 932 or Antec 1200/900/902 where you have the extra exhaust through the top, this would be a very good performer.

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Originally Posted by Jamesrt2004

there's is a lot more pricey iirc

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http://www.driverheaven.net/reviews/...20/testing.php

For the price it's not even worth it.

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Originally Posted by clayton

http://www.driverheaven.net/reviews/...20/testing.php

For the price it's not even worth it.

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It's designed to beat out air cooling systems and not other water systems. It does that and it does it reliably. It will sell those mainstream folks that want to get something nice and quite that works and isn't going to require at least 1 or 2 high cfm fans which tend to be noisy. I'd consider one myself if I wasn't already looking into doing a CPU/GPU loop and a new Water setup for my case.

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Originally Posted by Bgriffs

It's designed to beat out air cooling systems and not other water systems. It does that and it does it reliably. It will sell those mainstream folks that want to get something nice and quite that works and isn't going to require at least 1 or 2 high cfm fans which tend to be noisy. I'd consider one myself if I wasn't already looking into doing a CPU/GPU loop and a new Water setup for my case.

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I was talking about Swiftech 120 compact.:p:

Good performance, but I would like to see how this compares to a lapped, washer modded TRUE. I would be willing to bet that the results would be a little different.

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Originally Posted by BababooeyHTJ

Good performance, but I would like to see how this compares to a lapped, washer modded TRUE. I would be willing to bet that the results would be a little different.

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what if someone were to try and perfect the base of this one, think it will do any better?

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Originally Posted by Manicdan

what if someone were to try and perfect the base of this one, think it will do any better?

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It could but as we all know a True has alot of room for improvement with both the base and mounting system that I doubt this H50 has which is a good thing.

mine uses the extra washer but pressure via the 1366 socket bracket is already far better than the early 775 models... also keep in midn those that buy this sort of WC kit are far from interested in starting a lap job of a TRUE instead. They want hassle free and quick installation yet get good performance for the buck

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Originally Posted by Leeghoofd

mine uses the extra washer but pressure via the 1366 socket bracket is already far better than the early 775 models... also keep in midn those that buy this sort of WC kit are far from interested in starting a lap job of a TRUE instead. They want hassle free and quick installation yet get good performance for the buck

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And for that this H50 might be the way to go. Did you get your new review sample yet? I can't wait for your results.

Anandtech has the cooler. Inside their review of the ASRock X58 Extreme they mention using the H50 for cooling. They don't give temps or whether it was tested inside a case, but there is this little interesting bit of info.

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Our maximum 24/7 overclock using our cooler selection with the i7 920 D0 resulted in a 4.62GHz clock speed at a respectable 220 Bclk. The 6GB Patriot memory kit is set to DDR3-1760 at 7-8-7-20 1T timings. The primary voltage settings were 1.38V Core VID, 1.41V VTT, 1.85V PLL, 1.65V VDimm, and PCIe at 105MHz. We tried to enable basic power management options (SpeedStep/CState) so idle Core VID voltages could be reduced to the 1.18V range, but we just could not do it and maintain stability at this setting compared to other boards we have tested.

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Screens and details at the link below.
http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=3593

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Originally Posted by Leeghoofd

mine uses the extra washer but pressure via the 1366 socket bracket is already far better than the early 775 models... also keep in midn those that buy this sort of WC kit are far from interested in starting a lap job of a TRUE instead. They want hassle free and quick installation yet get good performance for the buck

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My thoughts exactly.

Even though cause of the weird temps i get with my Q6600 i m going to lap both the True Black and the cpu which is a hassle!

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Originally Posted by TheDeliverator

Anandtech has the cooler. Inside their review of the ASRock X58 Extreme they mention using the H50 for cooling. They don't give temps or whether it was tested inside a case, but there is this little interesting bit of info.




Screens and details at the link below.
http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=3593

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Maybe there is a typo,not 4,6 but 3,6?:shrug:

Cause if these speed is true it would be awesome! :up:

4.6 stable ? pretty hard to believe, as those CPU's are rare, 4.2-4.4 range is doable, more, I still have to see myself with some good screenshots...not everest benchmarks, those can be achieved on a very unstable platform with ease... Give me some Superpi 32mb or even better Hyperpi... let's talk again then...