Corsair Air Series A50
Well-known for its quality memory and power supplies, Corsair has also been the purveyor of high-quality cooling devices for several years. The A50 might be its biggest concession to value, with a large surface area that hints at its possible performance potential.
Corsair uses a direct-touch heat pipe design to reduce latent heat, with a finely-sanded finish to maximize surface contact. Only three heat pipes are present, but all of these are slightly oversized compared to typical designs.
A 2000+ RPM 120 mm cooling fan, thermal paste, universal LGA mounting bracket, AMD mounting clip and fan-slowing resistor wire finish out the installation kit.
The I-shaped hold-down bracket is attached to the top of the cooler’s base using screws, reducing the effort needed to hold various components in position while thumb-nuts are installed over the LGA mounting bracket’s adjustable studs.
AMD users will unfortunately find that the clip only installs front-to-back, making this an updraft cooler on most motherboards. The preferred cross flow orientation is limited to Intel motherboards and those few AMD boards that have the mounting bracket turned sideways.
