Customer Reviews

Corsair Cooling Hydro Series H50 All in One High-performance CPU Cooler CWCH50-1

5 star:		(104)
4 star:		(22)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

As I was researching heatsinks for my new i7 setup, I cam across a few all-in-one water cooling kits. After a short time looking at reviews, it was clear that this was the best of the bunch as far as all-in-one water cooling kits are concerned. What really drew me towards this unit, is the size and weight. After using a TRUE Ultra 120 Extreme in my last setup, I was weary of buying another due to the size and weight. You can actually see the heatsink slightly bending the motherboard when the case is stood up. Not only that, the heatsinks are huge! So big in fact, I had to remove a 120mm fan just to get it to fit in an 830 stacker case. Also, there is much less room to work with when installing one of these huge heatsinks.

So after using the Corsair H50 for a month now, here are my thoughts:

Pros: Very easy to install, light compared to heatsinks, easy to work with in the case since it is smaller than a heastsink, radiator is small enough to work with as well, and great temps(see below for specs & temps)

Cons: Liquid in the case has always scared me, but Corsair gives you a two year warranty and I have read on their forums that the pump in these things will last for many years past the warranty. Possible leaks, but again, Corsair says this thing will not leak and after looking at how the thing is put together, I believe them. At least it won't leak in the lifetime you have it in the system.

Other thoughts: The directions tell you to pull air in from the case by mounting the fan/radiator to the inside back of the exhaust port. I actually did it different. I had it in a push/pull configuration. I push air from the inside, through the radiator and then pull the air through with a second fan on the outside of the back exhaust port.

Temps: I have an i7 920 overclocked to 3.2GHz and my idle temps are 37/35/37/33c. Load temps are 59/57/58/55c with an ambient room temperature of 73F.

Specs:
Case - CM HAF 932
CPU - i7 920
Corsair 6GB Dominator
BFG GTX 275 OC
BFG 1200W PS
2 x WD Velociraptors

Great product for people who need high performance cooling in tight spaces such as MATX HTPC cases. Unit is also VERY QUIET!! Performance is equal or greater to a high end air cooler.

The Corsair H50 was installed into a nMediapc HTPC-8000 wooden case cooling an AMD Phenom II X4 955 overclocked (3.7ghz) processor.

Keeps my Q9550 idling at 36 degrees C and I'm hitting 60 C under sustained full load using Prime95. Vcore is set to 1.38 volts and with a 482 mhz FSB x 8.5 multiplier I'm running at a rounded 4.1 Ghz. Using my old Zalman copper air cooler I would hit about 85 degrees C running Prime95 at 3.6 Ghz and 1.3 volts so this is a huge improvement.

The instructions in my box were not the best and could very much be improved upon for someone with little system building experience. I've been building my own for some time now so it was no big deal to have to remove the motherboard to get the back plate on and figure out how the mounting bracket works. Thermal grease supplied didn't seem like it was quite enough so I put a very thin coat on the CPU itself to ensure having even coverage.

I really wanted to like this product. Some reviews indicated difficulties with installation but I found the install went very smooth. The instructions could have been better but it was not difficult. Unfortunately, I encountered a couple major issues. The most significant was a pump failure. The cooler worked well for about the first 12 hours but then the pump failed and caused the CPU to overheat and shut-down. The second issue was the cooling effiency. When it was working, temps were about 5 to 6 degrees warmer than air cooling (compared to a Zalman 9900). On the positive side, it was extremely quiet!! I would easily have traded-off the cooling efficiency for the lower noise level, if only the pump had not failed. Based on other reviews, my experience appears to be unique and this is generally a good product but be aware that unlike an air cooler, when the pump fails, the CPU hits Tj max within seconds.

the best cooler you can buy actually, just save your effort and the space needed inside and buy this cooler, on i7 920 @ 4.0 GHZ idle is 49 to 50 c and load is on 72 - 74 c , knowing that i live in egypt and its really so hot in here, yet this cooler is amazing, make sure u have enough ventaliation in your case.

I'm using this cooler on an i7 chip in a gaming rig.. I mainly settled on the closed loop water cooler since I didn't want to fight a large air cooler that may or may not fit in my case. Overall, this device was easy to install and keeps my temperatures quite low, even during intense gaming.

For my own purposes, I replaced the stock thermal paste with Arctic Silver (I rarely trust manufacturer paste), but by the looks of the stock paste, it may have performed just as well and doesn't look like it is globbed on.

The only difficulty I had was that the tubes are quite rigid and due to the design being closed loop, are fixed length. Due to this, the orientation of the fan in my case almost put alot of pressure on the tubes, but nothing to cause a kink or difficulty.


Overall very impressed with its cooling capabilities, it really does outperform even the best air cooler i've used in the past, and the best part is it is very quiet vs the air coolers, and does not take up 2/3 of my case!

I bought this cooler at Microcenter. I am so happy with this choice that I could barely contain myself. I've been looking for a place to give this fantastic cooler it's credit. Amazon is a perfect review place, because many people come here for reviews. The Amazon price is about the same as microcenter, so you can certainly buy it here if you want.
I did not go shopping for a liquid cooler, but for a good air cooler. Luckily I saw this cooler all by itself at the end a row where someone had left it. I did not see it on the shelf. The salesman tried to talk me out of it, in a helpful way, and wanted details about my case to know if it would fit. I told him I didn't know the name of my case, but I knew it would fit, even if I had to drill and cut holes with a jig saw or dremel tool. I am not afraid of those things. If you are afraid of the drill, then you should be very careful with case choice. This cooler may not be for you.
Don't let the fact that it is water (or some mysterious liquid) bother you. It is sealed up tight, never to be opened, and dry as a bone. You will never see, feel, or sense, liquid, unless something goes wrong.
Before I started on this mission I really needed a new cooler. The problem was, was that my Core i7, at stock speeds, using the stock heat sink, reached almost 90 centigrade at full load. I was at full load using DVD fab to convert my DVD for my iphone. DVDFab uses all of the cores at full speed, and doesn't hold back at all. I can convert a DVD in about 8 minutes, which seems unimaginably fast to me. My old system would take hours. Stock temps were idling at 38 or so, Case temps 32-35. Once I saw those temps on my CPU, I shut down DVD fab and wondered what to do. Intel's stock stock cooler would barely keep their CPU safe at full speed. Most people who study this kind of thing will think that CPU temps above 70 are bad, and 80 will cook your CPU. I think 100 will auto shut off the CPU, as per intel specs.
On the back of the H50's box is a little graph. It looks like marketing fluff, so I didn't pay much attention to it. After installation I looked at it again, and the graph is remarkably accurate. It shows a standard CPU heat sink idling at 40C, and 85C at 100 percent load. It shows a "high performance air cooler" at 60C at load. And it shows this cooler a little less than 55C.
Well, my experience significantly outperforms this graph. At 100 percent load, stock speeds, I was getting temps about 45C. Overclocked to the crazy range? 4.1+ GHz, I was getting about 54C. All this time, it was whisper quiet. And I can feel the warm air coming out of the top.
On the web, some builders and reviewers have complained that the instructions are to blow the airflow into the case instead of out. they think it is backwards. They mistakenly think it blows hot air into the CPU. But the real point is to cool the CPU. So, to get the coolest air into the radiator, you should set it up to blow cool air (and therefore air external to the case) into the radiator. Case temps are 10-15 degrees warmer, and will significantly hamper the cooling of the CPU. So just follow directions and blow the air in instead of out. You will, therefore, have to engineer a way to get that hot air out of the case. I have a Thermaltake V3 case. The power supply blows air in at the back bottom, and there is two openings on the top for fans to blow up and out. So my case has air coming in at the back bottom, coming in at the back top for the radiator, and two fans blowing up out of the top. It is ideal for this cooler. I did need to drill a couple of extra holes for fan mounting screws, and I did need to mount the fan outside and attached to the radiator inside. The fan wire comes out a miscellaneus hole in the back of the case. With this adaptation, all my hot air comes out the top. Case temps as I type this are 30C. Room temp is about 24C.
Here is my case http://amzn.com/B002Q2M8KK . I did not need to take out the motherboard because this box has a special hole to get to the the back side of the CPU.
This is clearly the best cooler for the money, no question about it. It outperforms anything close to it in price, and it is barely audible. The two year warrantee is just icing on the cake. If you are a system builder, buy one. You won't be sorry.

I've been gaming and tinkering with computers for a long time, and I thought it might be fun to finally try some overclocking. However I needed to get my temps down before I could even consider it. I was initially going to go with a nice big aftermarket Air Cooler, but my case is only 7.3" wide, so my options were were very limited. I chose the H50 because of all the positive reviews, and its dimensions fit inside my case. The installation took some time, as I had to remove my video cards and motherboard, but was overall a breeze with the instructions and online videos provided by Corsair. I would recommend taking measurements prior to purchasing to be safe, as even though this is a compact cooler, it still was a tight squeeze in my case, and just grazes the bottom of my PSU.

How much difference did the H50 make at stock clock speeds? (Room Temperature 70F or 21C)

With my stock cooler on an i7 920, I received a peak temperature of 87C after 1.5hrs in Prime 95 and 75C under a heavy gaming load.
With the H50 I received a peak temperature of 64C after 1.5hrs in Prime 95 and 61C after 1.5hrs of heavy gaming load (BFBC2)
These are the occasional high peaks. My normal H50 temperatures in game are low to mid 50's and in prime 95 usually hovers right at 60.
Idle temps low to mid 30's

However to achieve these temperatures I did not have the H50 in the recommended configuration. I originally set the provided fan as an intake per Corsair's recommendation, and received a peak of 71C in prime 95 and 68 under a heavy gaming load. My memory temps also spiked from all the extra hot air in the case. The problem was in my situation, the exhaust from my 2 video cards and PSU were welling up behind my case and getting sucked into the H50's intake. I flipped it to an exhaust (and adjusted my other case fans accordingly) and received much lower temperatures. I also added a spare 120mm fan I had lying around for a push/pull config and my temps dropped another 2-3C Which gave me the best possible temps for what I have. From what I've read I understand that in most peoples situations the H50 will perform better as an intake, but if at first you do not achieve the temperatures you expected, fiddle around a bit with different configurations, as not everyone's case or setup is the same. I am also considering picking up a couple of higher end fans to see if I can squeeze a few more degrees out of this thing. Oh and as a final note, I used the thermal paste that came with the H50 as opposed to my usual AS5. The pre-applied paste is Shin Etsu, which is supposed to be very good.

I'm very happy with the the results I've gotten from the H50 and I would definitely purchase it again or recommend it to a friend.

Now that I'm running cool, I'm ready for some moderate overclocking =D Thanks Corsair

System Specs:
Core i7 920 Processor
Corsair H50 High Performance CPU Cooler
Asus P6T Motherboard
Radeon HD5850 Video Card x2
6GB Patriot Viper DDR3 Triple Channel Memory 1600mhz
Corsair TX750w PSU
Western Digital 1TB Hard Drive
Apevia X-Cruiser 2 Case

Easy to install and does an excellent job of cooling CPU. It's a closed system which means little to no Maintenance.
One of the most inexpensive liquid cooling systems on the market. After approximately three years or so of use I would replace (it is inexpensive enough to do).

I am very, no extremely pleased with this water cooler. Amazing performance and wonderful product. So quiet and efficient. This is the water cooling kit everyone, who wants to do water cooling should buy. Hands down probably the best product on the market for compact water cooling. Great product.