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FRONTPAGE Corsair Hydro Series H80 Review

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It has been several months since I have looked at any cooling solutions offered by Corsair and since my last visit with their cooling solutions they have come out with three new Low Cost Liquid Cooling (LCLC) systems. The Hydro Series H60, Hydro Series H80 and Hydro Series H100 LCLC systems. Today we will be looking at the Hydro Series H80, which is their newest offering that fits in place of a single 120 mm case fan on either the top or the back of the case.

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Excellent review and comparison Jim, I really like the way you keep the references the same so you can see how cooling compares using the same CPU platform with different cooling solutions.
I trust you will be getting a H100 soon and it will be interesting to see how it compares to the single rad Corsair coolers.
 
Thanks Edmund. That is one reason why I am trying to retest some of my earlier heatsink reviews on my present platform, so the figures are pretty much directly comparable.

And I hope that Corsair decides to send me an H100 for testing too. I am really curious to see how it compares to the H80 in performance. From what I gather, the radiator on the H100 is quite a bit thinner than the H80 rad. And I am hoping that I will be able to test it with a push pull setup too, since it uses the same fans as the H80 (and can borrow the H80 fans for push pull testing. I just hope the Dragon Rider has enough headroom above the board to do a push pull setup or otherwise I will have to try installing the pull fans externally on top and rigging a gasket between the H100 rad and the case top material to seal it.
 
I have a H100 in my gaming rig with push-pull fans and although the rad is much thinner than the H70/80 it is more effective, also the thickness with four fans is less than the H80 with two so it should fit. I have mine installed above the mobo inside a HAF 932 case, running all fans on lowest setting using the integrated pump/block's fan controller, overall I'm very happy with it, will be great to see you review one :)
 
Wow...this is the first solution from corsair that has really impressed me...I'm interested to see if they can keep getting more efficiency out of their lclc's
 
How loud is it? From the specs is seems like it is louder than an H70 and my H70 is irritatingly loud.
 
Thanks MUD, good review as always. Looks like I can say they finally did it right.

Heck, I could drop 1/2 of my rig and be happy. But the OC itch is growing..... Naa, I like my pretty overcooled rig.... Overcooled.com... Hmm IMOG, you listening?
 
I have really enjoyed watching these Corsair coolers evolve to a viable option. For sub $100.00 that looks like a great option versus some of the air coolers on the market. Nice review.
 
SupaMonkey, I really don't do any testing for quietness since I have 5 real computers (plus a Mac Mini ;) ) in my computer room and a window AC to boot; it's got a fairly high noise background to start with. But, when checking the fans with the onboard controller and seeing where the intelligent controller started throttling the fans, the sound from the fans at full blast are much noisier than the fans for the H70. And I expected that, since they also turn up 700 rpm higher than the H70 fans, but I also found the fans to be fairly quiet when on the low and balanced settings on the pump controller. I would say that on the balanced pump setting, the fan gets around as the H70 fans when it is running full blast, but ramps down quite a bit if it's not under high load conditions.

The biggest differences I see with this unit as compared to the H70 is that they improved pump/coldplate efficiency by a fair margin, plus they have integrated a decent and intelligent control module into the pump for controlling fan speeds. The disadvantage to this is that you can't monitor fan speeds at all unless you drop another hundred or so on their Link Commander monitor deal.:( I do hope they send me one of those too for testing. I know that it's supposed to be able to use programmable fan profiles and other things, but it's mighty expensive.
 
A Quick Question for those much wiser than I...

Is it possible to install one of Corsair's Hydro Series coolers on a graphics card?

I'm considering using the H-100 to cool the Intel CPU and possibly the H-80 to cool an ASUS GTX 570. I'm still in the planning phase of the project and any insight would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you in advance.
 
Maybe, but it's probably a bad idea IMO...the heatload oyu're looking at for a 570 vs a stock-clocked CPU is pretty large if memory serves me right on the 570's specs.
 
I have read of a few people doing it. They had to do some creative mods for mounting it I believe. And Mort, I feel that the H80 would probably do a decent (not great) job if you left the fans on high and were able to get a good, solid mount. But running the fans on the rad at full speed would kind of negate the reason to use water on the gpu, IMO at least.
 
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