Thoughts on Corsair's H100i Cooler

As I've posted here I'm getting ready to build a Haswell system (4770K) and decided to go with a closed loop cooling solution because my current cooler won't fit the RAM I ordered (Corsair Dominator Platinum)

So, what are your thoughts on the Corsair Hydro Series H100i ???

Have never tried a CLC before, to be honest I never trusted them, but I give them a go now because I don't want one of those huge monstrosities of an air cooler so CLC it is.

BTW this is going in my Cooler Master HAF X case

Thanks

Dude said:

I have read good reviews on it. I would also look at Thermaltake and Antec options.. Have a look over at OCN for some more info...Water Cooling

Thanks for the link, I'll take a closer look there, but I'm not doing any water cooling other than using a closed loop cooling solution to keep the CPU cool for modest overclocks, and the smaller foot print it provides over the more hefty air coolers.

kbrady1979 said:

Actually, I just looked at the Cooler Master HAF X case and it has 200mm fans up top but is capable of 360mm rads there as well....so I guess dual 140mm rads are out of the question.

I don't know about that, but as long as the Corsair solution fits up there, which it should, that's good enough for me.

BTW even though my case takes two 200mm fans at top, I just have the one factory installed 200 mil there, which obviously will be removed in place of the Corsair radiator and fans.

I would take a close look at the Thermaltake 2.0 Pro. Not the Extreme version. The pro, even costs more on newegg than the extreme version, and the extreme version is supposed to be top of the line. Only think that the extreme version has that the pro does not is software interface , but I really don't think that is needed in this case. My 2 cents. The pro also is smaller, the rad size is 149.9 x119.9 x 48.8mm + it's push and pull, vs extreme rad which is 270 x120 x 38.3mm. Right now, the pro is almost 50 dollars more than the extreme AND it's out of stock. That should tell you something. I use the pro with a fx-6100, have it OCed to 4.5 currently and if I run prime95, temps don't go above 35c, and I have ran it for 4+ hours...all workers 100% healthy. Highest OC so far with the 2.0 Pro was 4.7 and ran Prime, and temps still didn't go above 37 C. Yes I am biased, but it truly IS a good piece of hardware.

2.0 Pro - Current price 132.66- http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835106189

2.0 Extreme - Current price 94.99- http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835106190

vs

CORSAIR Hydro Series H100i Extreme Performance - current price 119.99 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835181032


PS When installing the cooler, I removed the pre-applied thermal strip to the part that goes on the cpu using this http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...20silver%20kit with coffee filters instead of any cloth and used the 1 drop in the middle method.

Thanks crankypenguin; And I actually prefer the style of the H100i or Thermaltake WATER2.0 extreme over the Pro. I don't want all of that bulk hanging off the back of the case like that of the Pro. Prefer the upper mount solution.

And maybe it's me, but the H100i's radiator seems to be a bit thinner than the Thermaltake WATER2.0 extreme's radiator. In this instance I do like the streamlined look of the corsair.

At any rate I'll give the Thermaltake a good look.

Thanks.

As for thermo paste, I've still got a brand new un-opened still in the hard plastic packaging tube of Artic MX-3 as I used up my last batch a few years back. So, I'll probably be using that

sygnus21 said:

Thanks crankypenguin; And I actually prefer the style of the H100i or Thermaltake WATER2.0 extreme over the Pro. I don't want all of that bulk hanging off the back of the case like that of the Pro. Prefer the upper mount solution.

And maybe it's me, but the H100i's radiator seems to be a bit thinner than the Thermaltake WATER2.0 extreme's radiator. In this instance I do like the streamlined look of the corsair.

At any rate I'll give the Thermaltake a good look.

Thanks.

As for thermo paste, I've still got a brand new un-opened still in the hard plastic packaging tube of Artic MX-3 as I used up my last batch a few years back. So, I'll probably be using that

With the pro 2.0 you can always mount one fan on the outside of the case in the back, thus reducing its inwards profile