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

[HEXUS]

Corsair's budget liquid-based cooler aims to stick it to the premium HSFs. Does it?

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[DeludedGuy]

Its not really worth the £60 price tag, hopefully they will have some sense and lower it to £45.

[Faiakes]

I agree. I already own the Thermalright. I have no real incentive to move on the Corsair for such minimal performance gains.

[simonw]

I have to be honest, I was interested in this cooler when it was shown at the Computex show, because of the price and the cooling potential.

I have since seen a preview of it from another website and their results weren't particular impressive. Is it true that the fan/radiator is blowing air into the case? If true, I think it is not good as the warm air from the radiator will stay in the case. So it may be better if you have a case with roof fans to exhaust the air, but why did they not reverse the fan, and design the radiator to be outside the case.

[LuckyNV]

The unit is sealed completely, you can't mount the rad outside and the block inside without taking it apart.

Either way, this WC unit is supposed to be going against high end coolers and the price/perf is quite competitive considering.

I would say this would appeal most for those with small cases that don't have the room for a big tower but enough room on their rear 120mm exhaust.

Also probably much more safer with transporting to LANs perhaps.

I would have loved to see more testing like dual fans on the TRUE and dual fans on the rad and using the same fans for a direct comparison.

[Irien]

Anyone know if you can replace the fan with a Noctua or Akasa low noise fan? I have a couple knocking around and noise is quite important to me.

Also, would this fit in a micro-atx Silverstone TJ-08 (I think that's the number) - it can take 12cm fans.

[LuckyNV]

You can, but the fin density on the rad means it'll work best with good airflow (1700rpm is the stock fan)

[Darth Sidious]

Im wondering if the Rad will stretch to the front of my lian li pc7 in the 5.25 bays I have a 12cm bay cooler

[McPhee]

Originally Posted by LuckyNV

I would say this would appeal most for those with small cases that don't have the room for a big tower but enough room on their rear 120mm exhaust.

Possibly the perfect cooler for this case, just need to check the height of the CPU block. Going by my E5200 temps there's no way i'm getting a quad in there under the NT-06E i've got in there at the moment.

[Tarinder]

Originally Posted by McPhee

Possibly the perfect cooler for this case, just need to check the height of the CPU block. Going by my E5200 temps there's no way i'm getting a quad in there under the NT-06E i've got in there at the moment.

It's about 60mm from the motherboard's PCB to the top of the H50, with the assumption you bend the pipes out of the way.

[Blackbeard]

Originally Posted by Darth Sidious

Im wondering if the Rad will stretch to the front of my lian li pc7 in the 5.25 bays I have a 12cm bay cooler

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?

[explicit4u]

Originally Posted by LuckyNV

You can, but the fin density on the rad means it'll work best with good airflow (1700rpm is the stock fan)

So you can change the fan on this?

If you can how easy is it normally?

[Blackbeard]

Originally Posted by explicit4u

So you can change the fan on this?

If you can how easy is it normally?

Yes, you can use any 120mm fan. Changing the fan is trivial as there are only four screws needed to attach the fan and radiator to the chassis.

The included Corsair fan can be controlled by PWM, and is specified to work down to 600rpm.

[tickleonthetum]

I'm fairly new at all this thermal stuff, but, isn't the idea of blowing hot air "into" the case the complete opposite of what you need? This only cools the CPU so all that hot air is going to get sucked into the graphics cards, etc. It's going to blow right over your memory sticks!

Surely the only reason to get a Water Cooling product is if you are Over Clocking which in itslef generates a lot of in case heat so this would be rather counter productive.

It really needs for the research guys (& girls) to come up with something new and revolutionary to cool things. Something that can chill the water or air without creating condensation problems. A system that keeps the air in the case at (for example) 20 degrees and the water in the loops at 21 degrees?

Anyway, I think I'll stick to my plans of getting a TRUE 120 with 2 fans rather than this as I don't see an advantage.

[TAKTAK]

Originally Posted by tickleonthetum

I'm fairly new at all this thermal stuff, but, isn't the idea of blowing hot air "into" the case the complete opposite of what you need? This only cools the CPU so all that hot air is going to get sucked into the graphics cards, etc. It's going to blow right over your memory sticks!

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

Anyway, I think I'll stick to my plans of getting a TRUE 120 with 2 fans rather than this as I don't see an advantage.

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

[ExHail]

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...

I think he was referring to a previous post where the guy mentioned putting the radiator at the front of the case which normally is where air is sucked in. That's how I understood it anyway.

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I have the TRUE now and 4 degrees is not worth me getting this tbh. I was hoping for better performance than this. The wind tunnel that is my case suits the TRUE better anyway I guess.