Windows 7 - Corsair Hydro series H50

Just wanted to post this in case anyone was on the fence about this cpu cooler.

I came into some (rare) extra money. Been reading that this all-in-one liquid cooling solution is pretty darned good--so I bought one today.

About a 45 minute install as I had to remove my motherboard.

Even though I haven't had a chance to put it through a good test run yet, I am very impressed with the idle temps thus far. I was using a Core Contact Freezer and my idle temps at stock cpu speed was 35~39, depending upon room temperature. The last time I tried to put an overclock to this cpu, my idle temps were about 39~44 idle, 45~52 load--again, depending upon room temperature. (And only in non-summer months)

I installed this H50 as the instructions stated--with the fan drawing air from the outside--and I mounted the fan and radiator to the rear of the case. First run--temp leveled off at 32 idle. Pretty cool. But, the more I had my PC on, the warmer it got... up to about 37. It turns out I mounted it in the wrong spot--my case is under a desk, with the rear of the case about 3 inches from the wall--and 2 Radeon 4870s exhausting their hot a$$ air right below the intake fan for the radiator. So I moved the fan and radiator to a spot on the top of the case and after about an hour of relatively doing nothing (watching football and running firefox--I call that idle pretty much), temps never got above 33.

I'll be sure to put some numbers here when I put an overclock to the cpu (I'm gonna shoot for 3.8--I could probably shoot for 4.0, but I'm a scardy cat! I don't want to risk burning anything up until I have some cash reserve to replace parts if anything frys. )

I'd be interested to see what you get with an overclock.
I have an i7 clocked at 4GHz and a Noctua cooler with two fans(push/pull)
My CPU idles at 45c and can go up to the 60s under heavy load.
This seems a bit hot to me so I've been looking at different cooling solutions and the H50 is interesting.
I'm using a Cooler Master ACTS 840 case which is supposedly negative pressure so I'm not sure any kind of tower HSF cooler is going to have enough air to blow through the heat sink blades.
Maybe the H50 would be better but drawing more hot air into the case seems wrong somehow.
Let us know how you get on.
best wishes, J

I couldn't get a stable run for anytime longer than 15 minutes running prime95--I got the cpu to 3.7GHz and a max temp of 49C, before I blue screened 15 minutes later (also taking into consideration that I ran this test with an indoor ambient temp of approx 55F).

Currently, I clocked the cpu to 3.5GHz and had a max temp of 45C, with an idle temp approx 29C to 31C.

The real test on this unit will be to see its operation when SoCal hits summer!