Hardware Corsair Hydro H50 CPU Cooler Review

Corsair has achieved the holy grail and made a low cost liquid cooler, the Hydro H50, that actually does what it should: it provides very good cooling for your CPU, it doesn't sound like a hurricane and isn't ridiculously expensive. Does this spell the end of air cooling as we know it?

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/cooling/2009/07/29/corsair-hydro-h50-cpu-cooler-review/1

 

I think this is a truely great peice of equipment and its on my list for sure.

Im confused about the pulling air in through the rad thou, thats just not right, pulling hot air INTO your case?

 

Yes, but you're drawing cool air in from the outside so the cooling potential is greater for the CPU alone, even if that does heat your case.

Then again, with cases now having large exhausts in the roof it should efficiently exhaust straight out, but as we saw in the case of the Cosmos 1000 - don't use the H50 as your only intake.

 

I want this, but wouldn't be able to fit to my exhaust fans (I have a PC A 05B). The tubes are just far far too short. Could have the rad hooked up to an intake fan but that just ends up keeping the inside of the case toasty.

 

An interesting review, with a result that I never expected - corsair better watch out for the eu and the monopoly laws!!

Is it possible for bit tech to start doing proper noise testing with a db meter, rather than just a subjective test.

 

Drawing hot air in is okay providing you have additional means of removing the hot air, most decent cases these days have enough capacity to fit numerous extra fans if they don'y already have them. All it takes is a bit of forward planning with your airflow management and it will be fine.

I'd have bought this if I didn't already have the Swiftech 220.

 

Oh yes I see, thanks for clearing that up.

I thought this was most interesting vid review by a home user with a decent system.

Corsair H50 & Scythe Kaze 4Ghz i7 920 Overclock ASUS P6T Antec 1200: ~
Clicky

Cliff Notes: The H50 is frecking Awesome and does not heat your case up.

As a foot note I cant find it now but the H50 on a chart I saw brought the cpu temp down 25deg off the stock cooler of a e7500 or i7, and with a push pull config of fans, drops another 5 or so degs at max fan speed down to around 35/38 I think at a high oc, but the bottom line is this is a great product.

 

That looks like a pretty special bit of kit, I'll certainly take note of that badboy in future - it's so much better than all aircoolers, and very nearly better than my own WC kit! (Although I'll bet it isn't as quiet, this setup is eerily quiet.)

 

Wow, a owrking WC kit... I'll be damned!

Compact too, and I love that mounting method!

 

I think if Corsair suddenly announced bit-tech users got a fiver off they'd never be able to make enough of these to meet demand, we love a bargain, i'm considering buying one for the shiny factor... but its mainly my graphics card that does the noisy *considers some ill thought out mod*

 

that's a great looking bit of kit! Now they just need to bring out a graphics card equivalent...

 

We've tried before, but there was too much background noise even if we took kit home and tested in it during the day. The only way to do it is build a professional quiet room (v expensive) and get some really sensitive equipment (v expensive). If we had that cash we'd probably spend it elsewhere tbh - more staff, more video equipment, etc. as that'd get us more significant returns and give you guys more variety and more interesting things to watch/read/do on the site.

If anyone wins the lottery and wants to donate a quiet room and testing kit, please feel free though!

 

Well, Corsair just managed to sell one piece. (I'm placing an order; apparently is a good review more efficient and cheaper that an expensive add campaign).
Antares

 

Looks like a decent piece of kit and for a reasonable price. I would consider this for a spare pc but maybe not my main one.

 

Now that's a sleeper for sure, I'd almost given up on integrated WC kit's.

The fact that this little ninja manages to almost outperform my full blow WC kit when it come to the CPU....sad!

Excellant!

 

When it gets near silent I can hear the damage I have collected over the years of living in a loud city and the use of headphones.

Ears drums are an amazing design only seconded by the eye and of course the brain.

The science of sound proofing is actually really interesting I remember reading about it extensively for a project I was doing and unless you are going to go the whole way and put up 6 foot of material its really hard to block all noise, high end fq stuff is easy to block due to the wave length, but low end bass, you need a rediculas amount of thickness to stop it and egg cartons won't work, Im guessing that who ever started that myth saw an accositc camber and thought they were for sound proofing instead of sound wave propagation control?

I think a way you could get maybe reasonably close to a sound proofed room would be to see if any of your famliy members or some one you know has one of those make shift underground ww2 bunkers that I know are still around, I have seen a few in some larger rich customer sites. Some people have kept them on for storage of wine, a good soild room under 2 or 3 feet of earth with a effort made on sound proofing the door with those foam sound proofing tiles with suspended lead lining sandwidtched in it, put that on both the front and reverse side of the door. you could acheave reasonable quite for under £200.

What was that device in babylon five sound, in the bar when it brought alight down over a table and made it security sond proofed for conversation get one of those

 

I wonder if the H50 will allow me to push my Q6700 to 3.8 GHz,? I'm currently getting an easy 3.4 GHz using a Kama Angle.

 

shame i bought few weeks ago noctua which was that time for £54, but yeah, it's on the list

 

Now this is an excellent piece of kit, very sturdy, performs very well (on Intel systems anyway) and allows you to attach any fan of your choice, this would be a perfect HTPC cooler or for a casual to everyday gamer.

The 2 things I don't like about this unit though are the fact that is has 2 fan connectors, not a single designated one, this issue could be rectified with "Y" splitter though. The other thing I don't like is the finish on the base, a little bit too rough for me, lapping would definately get you a better result. I wonder when they will be released in Australia and how much they will be costing ...hmmmm.