Test Results
The three biggest factors that affect CPU cooling performance are radiator surface area, airflow, and ambient temperature. Will the combination of good case airflow and thicker radiators mitigate the effect of a closed system on air cooling performance?
The thickest cooler in today’s comparison, Rosewill’s FORT120 leads even though its fan must use warmer case air, rather than outside air, to cool the sink. Reversing the fans to mimic the Corsair H50 orientation helped bring down CPU temperatures slightly, but only at idle. Looking more closely at the second-place tie, the H50 was only able to match the mid-thickness True Spirit in performance when both were configured with Rosewill’s faster fan.
Reversing the exhaust fan as per Corsair’s H50 installation instructions has a significant impact on internal air temperature, increasing its rise over ambient by more than 100% compared to the original fan configuration.
Northbridge temperature isn’t as severely impacted by having the exhaust fan serve as an intake, although the three configurations with the reversed fans still finish last.
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Ditched my Domino A.L.C. for a Xigmatek Thor's Hammer with 2 X Scythe fans. Strapped it on a Core i7 920, bumped it to 4.0Ghz and never looked back.
Interesting. This is good to know for a future build, since cheap water cooling was always a temptation for me.
I was looking at water, then I decided if I really want to do this I'm going to have to spend at least 200 if i want a good, effective, upgradeable system. So I'm going to get the megahalem or the thermalright TRUE extreme. and stay with some sick air.
Air is still a better value unless you value noise or lack there of.
Water offers lower noise @ a slightly less extreme overclock, but who runs 4.0Ghz plus everyday.
still using my old thermaltake big typhoon with a few mods - sealed the gaps on the sides for more air pressure and using a 12cm "thick" fan from a dell tower (crazy) and the same type fan to extract air - works a treat
kinda proves that when your going water cooling, do it PROPERLY not a pre made kit
if i was to do water cooling, i would go all the way with a modded car radiator, drum for a water sump and a few powerful decent sized pumps to start off with to keep everything sweet, none of this "barely better then stock" bs.
The corsair h50 is NOT a water cooling solution. Not even close. At best, call it an "optimized" air cooler. The only situation where you would want one is if you need to install a cooler in a tight space. Otherwise, it's higher cost really ruins any value it has.
Get a Swiftech H220 in there and it will beat the air coolers pretty well, besides that there are no out of the box water cooling setups that can actually beat high end air coolers by anything meaningful.
Good article though, your best articles are when you take the time to answer these odd questions that are commonly asked by the enthusiast.
As many times as I see bottom-PSU cases like the Antec 300 recommended in builds in the Forum, the lingering question for me becomes, "Suppose I do have a bottom-psu top-panel-fan case. Would that make a difference?" Or, is there ANY situation where the cooling performance of this type of liquid cooler is actually superior to a big air cooler?
Thanks for listening to the feedback and doing follow ups like this TS. Really gives the community a reason to become involved knowing our unanswered questions get addressed.
^Absolutely.
It would be good to see a comparison of the H50 with a push-pull fan setup.
I have an old-style Antec SLK-B case with a side-port fan (intake) that blows air into and through two push-pull 1500 RPM fans with the H50 radiator sandwiched in-between; these fans blow out, not in. The temp drop from a single fan to dual fans is around 7c degrees.
The biggest advantage of the H50 is noise, or lack thereof. My Tenma sound meter records less than 30db within 1ft of the case. Can't say that for any of the other HSFs I've tried (mostly stock).
still prefer the liquid cooler as it reduces the need for an exhaust fan, only I should have to match it to a powerful processor for good use of it.
i have the thermaltake v9 case with 230x230 large top exhause fan, and psu is at the bottom of the case, would the h50 do better for me?
Otherwise fine article but who would use 250w consuming freak CPU in their computer in everyday life? I'd love to see the results of using stocks-speed instead over clocking.
Air is still a better value unless you value noise or lack there of.Water offers lower noise @ a slightly less extreme overclock, but who runs 4.0Ghz plus everyday.
Air can be very quiet, but it requires that you keep fan speeds low. A good 120 mm fan running at 1000 rpm or less is just about inaudible, but such low speeds mean you can't overclock a whole lot. I'd guess based on my experience that you wouldn't want to pump more than about 150-160 W through a decent 120 mm tower heatsink like the ones used in the review if you keep the fans
@vinshon
IMO you should be able to build a custom water setup in that case. Custom water will cool much better than the h50 anyday. Will it cost more than the h50? Yes but if you're gonna do water do water, these little prebuilt kits really don't cut it when comes to shedding heat or noise levels
@vinshonIMO you should be able to build a custom water setup in that case. Custom water will cool much better than the h50 anyday. Will it cost more than the h50? Yes but if you're gonna do water do water, these little prebuilt kits really don't cut it when comes to shedding heat or noise levels
Yep, I started out with a little pre-built kit but now I use a custom built loop to cool my CPU and northbridge/southbridge. Keeps the temp way way down on both. I have a 780i and the northbridge & southbridge have terrible stock cooling and the CPU is a quad core overclocked to 3.75GHz and it still stays icy cold.
Cooler Master Hyper Z 600 with dual scythe ultra kaze 38mm x 120mm. Nuff said'
yeah i would like to see you guys do some loop testing with some danger den stuff. I have a custom loop with an old ehiem pump, danger den waterblock, and a dual 120mm heatercore, and it stomps temps. I reach the limit of the cpu way before I tax the loop.