Reviews - Corsair Hydro Series H50 - taking on the air-cooled establishment

[Darth Sidious]

Originally Posted by Blackbeard

I'm not sure if it will reach, but we reckon that you can probably fit the rad up to a distance of about 11 inches / 27cm from the pump/cold plate unit, if that helps?

thats going to be really close if only they had made it 3 or 4 inches longer, to use this Cooler at its best your going to have to mess with your cooling system, and make your rear fan an intake and your front fans exhausts.

[explicit4u]

Anyone that owns a TRUE or a 1336 Noctua Cooler shouldn't even look at this, Its mainly for people who either use budget coolers or the reference cooler (guilty!).

[simonw]

Regarding if the fan acts as an intake or exhaust, on page 3 of the review, it states that "Designed as an intake fan - that is, pulling air from the outside - the idea is that cooler air is dragged across the hotter radiator ...".

[Blackbeard]

Using the fan as an intake does give the best performance, since this provides the highest 'delta T' between the radiator/coolant and the air. Most chassis have top and/or side fans, so it's not difficult to change the airflow in your case to accomodate the rear intake.

Perhaps that's a bit more effort for some, but the benefit is lower CPU temperatures, and you can still maintain good airflow through the chassis. I've had the H50 running 10C lower than a dual-fan NH-U12P on a D0 i7-920 at 4GHz (190 x 21, 1.3V vcore, P95 8-threads). This was in a pretty standard CM590 chassis with rear intake and front exhaust for the H50, and front intake and rear exhaust for the NH-U12P. That's also a difference of 4 x 120mm fans in the system for the HSF, and 2 x 120mm fans for the H50.

[tickleonthetum]

Originally Posted by TAKTAK

It doesn't blow the air into the case, it exhausts it out of the case...


Which is more expensive... and this performs better...

Corsair advices that you fit it where you'd normally have your 120mm exhaust fan (above the usb/keyboard connectors etc) and set up to suck cold air in from outside, over the radiator and into the case. This means that the air will be heated by the radiator and then dumped inside the case. It will also blow directly onto the memory slots. As they hav said, those with a top exhaust fan may be able to mitigate the effects, but those without are in trouble!

The end result will be a lovely cool CPU and everything else in meltdown!

Originally Posted by Blackbeard

Using the fan as an intake does give the best performance, since this provides the highest 'delta T' between the radiator/coolant and the air. Most chassis have top and/or side fans, so it's not difficult to change the airflow in your case to accommodate the rear intake.

Perhaps that's a bit more effort for some, but the benefit is lower CPU temperatures, and you can still maintain good airflow through the chassis. I've had the H50 running 10C lower than a dual-fan NH-U12P on a D0 i7-920 at 4GHz (190 x 21, 1.3V vcore, P95 8-threads). This was in a pretty standard CM590 chassis with rear intake and front exhaust for the H50, and front intake and rear exhaust for the NH-U12P. That's also a difference of 4 x 120mm fans in the system for the HSF, and 2 x 120mm fans for the H50.

Fair enough, but what conditions were involved? What was the ambient air temperature? Did you have the case side panel on? What speed were the fans on? What was the noise level? What were the temperatures of the other heat critical components in the case (GPU, HDD)?

[Blackbeard]

Originally Posted by tickleonthetum

Fair enough, but what conditions were involved? What was the ambient air temperature? Did you have the case side panel on? What speed were the fans on? What was the noise level? What were the temperatures of the other heat critical components in the case (GPU, HDD)?

The room temperature was 24C, side panels were on, fan speeds were on full for all fans since it was a max cooling test. I didn't measure noise levels (though I wouldn't call either configuration noisy) or log the temperatures of other components, although it happily P95ed overnight.

I hear your argument about changing the airflow, but I do also think it's easy to manage by tweaking top/side fans. Modern chassis are very configurable. My test scenario only used the standard front/rear fans and that works.

[Darth Sidious]

you should have made the tubing longer so the rad could be front installed, as you way involves coming into competition with the PSU which is extracting hot air

[malfunction]

Any reason why the H50 and TRUE weren't compared with the same fan (or even better a range of fans / fan speeds)? Furthermore it would have been interesting to see how the TRUE performed with reversed air-flow (using the rear fan as an intake and reversing the fan on the TRUE) as the H50 changed the case to be positive pressure - i.e. all fans pushing in and exhaust leaving the case wherever it can rather than the normal front to back 'balanced' air-flow (which was probably actually negative pressure due to the exhaust fan in the PSU). And what about system, HDD and GPU temps?

[tickleonthetum]

Originally Posted by Blackbeard

The room temperature was 24C, side panels were on, fan speeds were on full for all fans since it was a max cooling test. I didn't measure noise levels (though I wouldn't call either configuration noisy) or log the temperatures of other components, although it happily P95ed overnight.

I hear your argument about changing the airflow, but I do also think it's easy to manage by tweaking top/side fans. Modern chassis are very configurable. My test scenario only used the standard front/rear fans and that works.

Fair enough then. I'd love to see a really thorough test though with temperatures for CPU, GPU, RAM and HDD. Also running separate CPU, then GPU intensive stress tests. It sounds like the H50 is on a par with the best in air cooling (TRUE/NOCTUA) but CPU cooling is just one part of the whole system which must be balanced to be of use. It's all very well gaming with a lovely cool CPU, but not if your GPU is worse off!

Can you run some tests with it set at Max AND stressing the GPU and check the temp difference in the GPU compared to using the Noctua?

[TooNice]

I see this as a testament of how good the TRUE is really. I am a little surprised that it got 80%. It's a 'safe buy' on the basis that it performs, but taking a £20 premium (assuming it costs a £7 for fan on the TRUE), or the added noise into account, it comes across to me as only slightly above average.

[kyle2020]

I must say i like the look of this. Like a reduced down Domino, or a less bling H20-120 compact.

[Nemo888]

I got one a few days ago. Great deal. I didn't bother to push the hot air into the case. I just took out the case fan bolted it on and put the case fan back on the other side of the radiator to push/pull through the radiator. Works great. The Thermalright 120 is more expensive, harder to install, heavier, and doesn't cool as well. In Canada the H50 is 74.74$ with fan, the Thermaright 120 is 77$ with no fan. There is no contest. H50 FTW.

[Hunkulus]

You find it quiet?....

[IsLNdbOi]

Sorry for bumping an old thread, but I just got a SilverStone Sugo SG05. I want to use a Corsair H50, but there are a couple of things I'm concerned about.

First, the SG05 has only one case fan and that's the 120mm fan up front that sucks cool air into the case.

If I mount the H50 at the front would I put the 120mm case fan in front of the radiator or behind the radiator (or is there only one way to do it?)?

Corsair recommends having the fan suck / pull cool air in through the radiator. If I install the H50 in the SG05, wouldn't the cool air passing over the radiator turn into warm / hot air that will be pushed over all the components on the motherboard?

The SG05's PSU does have an 80mm fan on the underside to suck air into the PSU and out the back of the case.

This is the way SilverStone says the air should flow through the SG05:




Ignore the large heatsink in that picture. If I had the H50 in there, I could probably remove the 80mm fan from the PSU, cut out a larger hole than the stock opening for that 80mm fan, then mount a 120 or 140mm fan to the bottom of the PSU to suck air up into the PSU and out the back of the case. The problem though is still that warm air from the radiator would be blown over the RAM, CPU, motherboard, etc..

Any advice / comments / insights?

[Blackbeard]

This might be of interest to you: http://www.itrends.dk/3096/

I hope your Danish is good

A HSF inside the chassis would also increase the internal temperatures, so even though the intake air will be warmed by the radiator before entering the main compartment, I don't think it will be an issue. You free up a bit more internal space for the air to flow around by using the H50 too.

I actually have an SG05 here and plan to do a build-up with a H50 and i7-870. I love dinky, high-performance PCs, so it's too tempting not to