Corsair iCUE Link H150i RGB Review: Strong performance, tons of customization options

Corsair’s come a long way since its 1994 debut selling L2 cache modules for OEMs. Today the company sells a wide variety of components and peripherals, like the Corsair 5000X case and CX750M Power Supply. Cooling has also long been a staple of the company's lineup, with its flagship iCUE H170i Elite LCD XT proving to be the strongest cooler we’ve tested so far with Intel’s i9-13900K.  

Today’s review will cover the company’s latest 360mm AIO, the iCUE Link H150i RGB, paired with Intel’s i7-13700K. This updated model features new QX120 RGB fans with iCUE Link connections that do away with traditional cables between fans. The H170i earned a spot on our best AIO coolers list, but does the iCUE Link H150i RGB also have what it takes? We’ll have to put it through testing to find out. But first, here are the specifications from Corsair.

Cooler specifications

Packing and included contents 

Included with the cooler are the following:

• 360mm radiator and CPU block
• Three 120mm fans, preinstalled
• Mounting for modern AMD and Intel Platforms
• Pre-applied Thermal Paste
• iCUE LINK Hardware Hub

LGA 1700 installation

The installation of the cooler is simple. The fans of the unit arrive pre-installed, which saves time during installation. 

1. Press the backplate against the rear of the motherboard, and then secure it using the included standoffs.

2. Next you’ll need to apply thermal paste to the CPU – and if you're unsure how to do that, see our How to Apply Thermal Paste primer.

3. Place the CPU block on top of the CPU and secure it using the included screws. Place the rotatable cover on top in the direction of your choosing. 

4. Connect the iCUE hub to the motherboard via the USB header and PWM cord. Use the small 90-degree cable to connect the QX fans to the hub on the radiator. Use the 60mm cable to connect the radiator’s hub to the iCUE hub.  

Features of Corsair’s iCUE Link H150i

▶ Large CPU block with diffused illumination

The iCUE Link H150i has CPU block that’s larger than the CPU blocks we’ve seen on other coolers. It supports diffused illumination and includes a rotatable, magnetic cover with Corsair’s branding. If you’d like an LCD display instead of the default CPU block, the LCD version of this cooler is available for $329.99 –  $90 more than the cost of the version we’re reviewing today – and supports digital temperature displays, GIFs, and more. 

▶ 27mm thick radiator

The radiator included with the liquid cooler is 27mm, which is typical of most units currently on the market. 

▶ Large copper base, pre-applied thermal paste

The base of the unit is large and comprised of copper to facilitate thermal transfer. Corsair includes pre-applied thermal paste on the copper base.

▶ Fully rotatable, braided tubing and full RAM compatibility

As an AIO does not interfere or overhang DIMM slots in any manner, all sizes of RAM, no matter how tall, are compatible with Corsair’s iCUE Link H150i RGB. The tubes of the of the AIO are braided, secured with metal fittings, and are fully rotatable for ease of installation and setup.

▶ iCUE Link controller hub 

The included iCUE hub is the brain of Corsair’s new cooler, and when used in conjunction with Corsair’s iCUE software allows for a wide variety of customization. With iCUE you can set fan curves from over 20 different sensors, customize RGB settings, view sensor data, and more.

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Below I’ve included a gif that demos a few of the preset options for lighting customization, but there are numerous ways you can customize the lighting.

▶ High-performance QX120 RGB 120mm fans

I say this on almost every cooler review, but there’s more to a cooler than just the heatsink or radiator. The bundled fans have a significant impact on cooling and noise levels, as well as how the cooler looks in your case. 

These fans are different than many on the market, in more ways than are obvious. The primary differences include the iCUE link system instead of traditional ARGB and PWM connections, which do away with cable connections between adjacent fans entirely. In addition to fan blade illumination, the sides of the fans have dual ARGB stripes.

These fans also include temperature sensors that can be used for the basis of your fan or pump speeds, if you prefer.

My main concern with these fans is that Corsair doesn’t list their MFFT in the technical specifications – but the construction of these fans is solid, and Corsair backs the entire AIO with a 6-year warranty.  

The original release of the single-unit fans did not include cables, which caused headaches for some users. However, Corsair has rectified this since their release – both single unit and 3-packs now include additional cords to ensure that you can use as many as you’d like without trouble.

LGA1700 Socket Bending

There are many factors other than the CPU cooler that can influence your cooling performance, including the case you use and the fans installed in it. A system's motherboard can also influence this, especially if it suffers from bending, which results in poor cooler contact with the CPU. 

In order to prevent bending from impacting our cooling results, we’ve installed Thermalright’s LGA 1700 contact frame into our testing rig. If your motherboard is affected by bending, your thermal results will be worse than those shown below. Not all motherboards are affected equally by this issue. I tested Raptor Lake CPUs in two motherboards. And while one of them showed significant thermal improvements after installing Thermalright’s LGA1700 contact frame, the other motherboard showed no difference in temperatures whatsoever! Check out our review of the contact frame for more information. 

Testing methodology

Today's highest-end CPUs, whether Intel or AMD, are difficult to cool in intensive workloads. In the past. reaching 95 degrees Celsius or more on a desktop CPU might have been a cause for concern. But with today’s top-end CPUs, this is considered normal operation. Similar behavior has been present in laptops for years due to cooling limitations in tight spaces.

All testing is performed with a 23C ambient room temperature. Multiple thermal tests are run on each CPU to test the cooler in a variety of conditions, and acoustic measurements are taken with each result. These tests include:

1. Noise normalized testing at low noise levels

2. “Out of the box”/default configuration thermal and acoustics testing

     a. No power limits enforced

     b. Because CPUs hit Tjmax in this scenario, the best way to compare cooling strength is by recording the total CPU package power consumption.

3. Thermal and acoustics testing in power-limited scenarios

     a. Power limited to 175W to emulate a medium-intensity workload

     b. Power limited to 125W to emulate a low-intensity workload

The thermal results included are for 10-minute testing runs. To be sure that was sufficiently long to tax the cooler, we tested both Thermalright’s Assassin X 120 R SE and DeepCool’s LT720 with a 30-minute Cinebench test with Intel’s i9-13900K for both 10 minutes and 30 minutes. The results didn’t change much at all with the longer test: The average clock speeds maintained dropped by 29 MHz on DeepCool’s LT720 and 31 MHz on Thermalright’s Assassin X 120 R SE. That’s an incredibly small 0.6% difference in clock speeds maintained, a margin of error difference that tells us that the 10-minute tests are indeed long enough to properly test the coolers. 

Testing configuration – Intel LGA1700 platform