Corsair H-50 Cooler Saving the World From the Zombie Apocalypse

[Rubycon]

Is this really considered water cooling?

Heatpipes have "water" in them.

On a serious note I am not allowed to have water cooling (long story) but this would probably pass. I just don't think it could handle a 3540 at 4.5GHz with 1.275 volts. My Megahalems can handle the task (100 passes Linpack 6.1 with 12GB) with temps peaking at 82C with a 23C room ambient. Idle is in the middle 30's. Fan used is a 86CFM Adda 120mm out of a server. Fan controller runs it at 55% all the time (inaudible with case panels closed) and it switches to 100% once a single core hits 80C. Which means the fan never hits WOT unless Linpack is run. Even a 45 minute batch job in Premiere Pro will not get it going.

How loud/noticeable is the pump? Does it make a chattering noise? None of the reviews really address this in detail yet this is one issue that the end user has no control over. (unlike a myriad of fan options)

 

[imported_Barbarossa]

Originally posted by: faxon
hehe im glad we got some clarification on corsairs intentions here, their aim, and how things are going on behind the scenes as far as supply/demand goes. my only request now is that you guys have your representative talk to fry's main office to see about stocking a couple of these units. right now the palo alto branch only has TT bigwater 760i kits (which are shitty and notorious for leaks), and $200+ DD waterbox WC kits

(link), which no one ever buys because the market for that price range of WC kits is the market that usually just does DIY loops instead since the price difference is maybe $100 more for a complete loop with your favorite triple rad + 355 pump and high end water blocks for CPU and chipset, netting considerably more performance/$. as far as our cooling options go, at least at the palo alto frys we are severely castrated in what we offer, with the best cooling you can get coming in at $55 for a Xigmatek S-1283V Dark Knight. if you could get this cooler in store at $65 i could educate the staff on it before we have a video conference with one of your reps, and we would have a compelling offering for people looking to get into enthusiast level overclocking without the stress of having to go online and hunt down the best cooler, or having to pay an arm and a leg for an S-1283V when they can be had for $20 less online (not to mention you can get a megahalems or a TRUE for the same price).

Well, as for the in-store stuff, the retail versions should ship next month so you guys should see them in Fry's and Microcenter and whatnot around that timeframe. As for the Fry's VCON training, I'm usually the guy who does those. (big greek guy, dark hair)

I'll probably do one for you guys when they ship. I'll cover whatever other new products we have at the time also, SSDs, Flash, RAM, PSUs, etc.

 

[faxon]

nice nice, i remember you. next time you do one look for the red headed guy in the audience of store 3 (if you can see us). one thing i would recommend specifically to sell more of these units at frys is a comparison chart vs a xigmatek dark knight and a coolermaster V8 or Z600, since for some reason unknown to me, we dont stock anything better other than the danger den kit i named, and most of our staff dont even know the difference between coolers (they were still recommending mostly zalmans for overclockers before i was hired). use AS5 in the tests, since it's the best stuff we carry. our branch shouldnt have any problems really, but some of the other branches are completely inept, and a good performance chart should be enough to convince them otherwise most of the time.

ed: and btw, at $65-70, this will fill a major gap in our product lineup. i was chatting with the 2 other knowledgeable employees on the subject today and they agreed that we REALLY need something which offers TRUE/Megahalems level performance in store for cooling, around that price point. we often end up having people who are just getting into the enthusiast overclocking game come in, know exactly what they want to do and how, but have not the greatest idea of what hardware they need to get there with, and 9 times out of 10 we honestly have to send them away just to get a cooler good enough to meet their goals (since we would just get returns otherwise). having this cooler in store would fill that gap, and make our lives a lot easier.

 

[Yellowbeard]

I just got an email from the person that maintains our Q/A sections at our forum and website. We are going to post a more comprehensive Q/A segment about our cooling solutions and our cases. So, if there are any good questions you guys have that have not yet been answered, please post them here. We'll address them in the Q/A segment.


Product Link


Thanks.

 

[aigomorla]

do i get my questions answered?

seems like my questions are getting ignored on here as well. :T

Originally posted by: aigomorla

1. Ive asked countless times on XS though your vendors there on what the pump unit was. I know the product was designed by ASTEK, and there not a great company first off.

and

Originally posted by: aigomorla

i want to see the wetted part. Meaning the part under that side.

8th time the charm? maybe?

 

[imported_Barbarossa]

Originally posted by: aigomorla
do i get my questions answered?

seems like my questions are getting ignored on here as well. :T

Originally posted by: aigomorla

1. Ive asked countless times on XS though your vendors there on what the pump unit was. I know the product was designed by ASTEK, and there not a great company first off.

and

Originally posted by: aigomorla

i want to see the wetted part. Meaning the part under that side.

8th time the charm? maybe?

aigomorla, sorry for not answering the questions.

1) The unit is designed by Asetek, and the pump is a proprietary unit that is not available on the open market. It was designed specifically by Asetek engineers to meet the flow and restriction scenario present in their LCLC unit, and by extension, the version modified to meet Corsair's needs in the H50. Specifically - if you're looking for flow rate or other specs, feel free to email me: powerguy@corsairmemory.com

Hopefully I'll be able to answer some of your questions.

As for the wetted part of the plate, check out the review on Madshrimps.be, here:
http://www.madshrimps.be/?action=getarticle&articID=939

On the bottom of the page he has a picture of it.

 

[Gillbot]

http://www.madshrimps.be/artic...et-leeghoofd-27470.jpg

 

[Rubycon]

Originally posted by: Gillbot
http://www.madshrimps.be/artic...et-leeghoofd-27470.jpg

You have to drag and drop that URL to your address bar. Hotlinking is disabled.

 

[faxon]

Originally posted by: Rubycon

Originally posted by: Gillbot
http://www.madshrimps.be/artic...et-leeghoofd-27470.jpg

You have to drag and drop that URL to your address bar. Hotlinking is disabled.

works just fine for me

 

[Gillbot]

Originally posted by: Rubycon

Originally posted by: Gillbot
http://www.madshrimps.be/artic...et-leeghoofd-27470.jpg

You have to drag and drop that URL to your address bar. Hotlinking is disabled.

Drag and drop for me too

 

[Rubycon]

I can click it now too. Must be reading from firefox's cache.

 

[aigomorla]

:X

Fins are placed too high and dont help in water cooling because you will get a temperature gradiant.

This is why recient block designers decided to make the base as thin as possible and increase the surface area more on the base instead of extended the fins higher.

Example: EK Supreme:
http://i125.photobucket.com/al...aigomorla/IMG_0844.jpg

Apogee GTZ:
http://www.swiftech.com/assets...e-plate-pin-matrix.jpg

Swiftech Compact H2O-120 base
http://www.cluboc.net/REVIEWS/...pact/images/block3.jpg

Koolance 350:
http://i125.photobucket.com/al...aigomorla/IMG_0144.jpg

Guys u really messed up by pairing with astek. There a dying company.. no joke.. And im fairly sure that pump wont be reliable seeing how im fairly sure its the same OEM as Freezone by Coolit.

I think i could of helped u guys design a far better solution then this. :X

Guys u really needed to hear feedback from guys who know water and not go with an OEM vendor like astek alone... At least get feedback from the prototype b4 u go mass production.

I want to be as nice as possible... but... im not holding my breath too deeply on this product.

Im sure if it was pitted against a swiftech Compact, it would lose horribly.

This is how corsair should of made that kit. Not with Astek, but with Swiftech:

http://www.cluboc.net/REVIEWS/...0-120Compact/index.asp

Im trying to point out, that the pump is one of the most important aspects in h2o along with the radiator. I dont see any flaws in the radiator you guys chose, but that pump and base leaves me with a dirty mouth every time i look at it. :X

What i want to see is a external solution that would house a 120x2 radiator (could handle ANY CPU @ high OC). Something like a beefed up nautilus using a DDC-3.25 instead of a DDC-1, and a good cpu block with a thin base and nice matrix channels.

If u guys had something like this, it would most likely dominate the lan scene since the nautilus was truely a portable waterbox making it available on any case.

As for this, if you pitted it against a IFX-14 it would lose, and lose bad.

http://www.jab-tech.com/Therma...ht-IFX-14-pr-3846.html

Also if it was pitted against a Lapped TRUE, this unit will lose again seeing how lapping a TRUE can give you up to as much as a 5C decrease. :X

 

[imported_Barbarossa]

Originally posted by: aigomorla

Im sure if it was pitted against a swiftech Compact, it would lose horribly.

I should hope so, the Swiftech Compact costs more than twice as much!

I respect your opinion - but the rest of your post isn't describing the approach we took with the H50. You're describing a great product - one that would outperform the H50, but would be much, much more expensive.

We've partnered with Swiftech before on products - the Corsair COOL, for example. We've also produced external cooling solutions like the Nautilus 500.

In reality - the number of people who spend more than $100 on CPU cooling is very small, and most of them are going to build their own liquid cooling loop.

From a sales perspective - there just aren't enough customers to justify the development costs. That doesn't mean that we won't do it - it just means it's harder to make money if we decide to do that.

Thanks for your comments - you've really brought the opposing viewpoint out and showed that there are some people out there that the H50 isn't designed for. We knew that to begin with - we never wanted to compete with the Swiftech unit, but instead were trying to compete against high-end aircooling.

So yeah, you can buy a TRUE and lap it, do the washer mod, get some decent fans and you'll outperform the H50 in a high-airflow case. But for most people - they'd rather buy something off the shelf and have it work right out of the box.

We're not trying to be the best CPU cooler in the world - just the best one for ~$70.


PS - if you want to see it pitted against an IFX-14, check here: http://www.informaticaeasy.net...s-ifx-14.html?start=10

It's in Italian but the graphs are easily understood. We're very competitive with the IFX-14.

 

[Zap]

Originally posted by: faxon
which brings up the ultimate question of if there is any purpose to it. the answer would be of course there is, there are a good few situations where i could see using this unit (lanbox comes to mind)

There ya go!

Here's a quick list of benefits of this kind of product, which I will dub "cheaptacular liquid cooler" or CLC for short.

- Less weight directly applied to motherboard.
- Lower profile allows good cooling without hitting RAM, part of chassis, PSU, etc. allowing it to fit in situations where hugenormous tower heatsinks (HTH for short) fail.
- Can exhaust heat directly outside the case without possibly heating up the PSU.
- Gives guaranteed +2 to e-peen, which equals side windows or case lighting in überness. Have all three gives +6! Be the envy of all your 15 year old Counterstrike clanmates!

Originally posted by: aigomorla
I think i could of helped u guys design a far better solution then this. :X

But could your design have a street price of $70 and still be profitable for the manufacturer as well as the reseller?

 

[Gillbot]

Originally posted by: Barbarossa
From a sales perspective - there just aren't enough customers to justify the development costs. That doesn't mean that we won't do it - it just means it's harder to make money if we decide to do that.

So yeah, you can buy a TRUE and lap it, do the washer mod, get some decent fans and you'll outperform the H50 in a high-airflow case. But for most people - they'd rather buy something off the shelf and have it work right out of the box.

I think this about sums it up. I agree that it could be a very good unit but my online review skeptecism will always draw doubt into my mind. That said though, I never fell into the "TRUE is the best" category either after seeing many people buy them, put loads of effort into lapping to get the best temps and my AC Freezer 7 Pro performed VERY close for far less money after similar treatment (such as extra fan, backplate, lapping, etc.).

 

[Omerta]

This cooler doesn't look very appealing to me considering it's a closed loop and can't be modified without voiding the warranty.

 

[aigomorla]

Originally posted by: Zap

But could your design have a street price of $70 and still be profitable for the manufacturer as well as the reseller?

yes its called a lapped true with Sflex fan. :X

 

[Quiksilver]

Originally posted by: aigomorla

Originally posted by: Zap

But could your design have a street price of $70 and still be profitable for the manufacturer as well as the reseller?

yes its called a lapped true with Sflex fan. :X

Your dodging the question

 

[aigomorla]

can i design one cheaper?

possibly at vendor prices.. the swiftech compact 120 later on belly'd out to be below 100 dollars.

So if i had corsairs connections, possibly.

ultimately you'd need to ask gabe this question tho. Im sure Gabe from swiftech could make the setup for sub 100 if he had bulk orders.

 

[zagood]

Originally posted by: aigomorla

Originally posted by: Zap

But could your design have a street price of $70 and still be profitable for the manufacturer as well as the reseller?

yes its called a lapped true with Sflex fan. :X

I hate to jump in on this point, but for an "off the shelf" solution, stores are charging around $20 to lap a TRUE. So, going off the cheapest prices, let's say $50 for the cooler, $20 for the lapping service, and $13 for the fan. Plus lapping the CPU to get full benefit.

For people who would build their own WC, lap their heatsink, use oversized fans, sleeve cables, etc. you can probably do better for the price, just like building your own computer from the ground up you can get better performance for the same you would spend on, say, a dell. But for non-enthusiasts the H-50 looks like a great price/performance solution.

My issue would be what maintenance will be like for a unit running for a year+ 24/7. If these are meant for the non-enthusiast (or lazy pseudo-enthusiast) then that may be an issue.

-z

 

[aigomorla]

what i'm worried about is that people will get the wrong notion that this is acceptable water cooling.

I understand Corsair's approach, but this product has been labeled a water product, and should be categorized as one.

Oh i found ASTEK's original unit... its priced near the compact, so yes, i think gabe could of done a very competitive price on the compact had corsair went to him.

http://www.ncix.com/products/i...103&manufacture=Asetek

Okey... Yellowbeard here is a way to appease all the water cooling people.

As i said Skinnee is an independent tester for water products. He's a very crediable source that other water vendors goes to for testing.

How about sending him a sample to do a quick review on? He can compare it to almost any type of water setup, and we can see exactly where it stands.

If it can get within 5C of the lowest setup skinnee can make, which means another 120x1 setup, i'll give you guys a thumbs up and a full apology.

 

[AmberClad]

Originally posted by: aigomorla
If it can get within 5C of the lowest setup skinnee can make, which means another 120x1 setup, i'll give you guys a thumbs up and a full apology.

How exactly would that work? What does "lowest" entail? Lowest price? Smallest size rad (disregarding thickness?)?

You want him to compare something like a RX120, with separate res, block, and pump, to this cheaper one-piece solution? That's an apples and oranges comparison.

 

[aigomorla]

A res doesnt really help or improve cooling. Im sure he could T-line it if you would make you feel better. And a fusion cpu block i believe might be his lowest end block.

You can pick up all of the things i listed for sub 100 total if you go super cheap parts.

Gillbot did it, and a few others as well.

Giving it a 5C window against a low end kit is being very generous, considering that is the window a Modded TRUE gets.

Also he is most likely gonna extrapolate a C/W for it, so we can see how it would do on a scale level, and we can class it that way.

There's a lot of specific tests a water tester does that normal conventional sink testers dont do.

You dont give a specialized cpu tester a gpu to test, and vice versa...

Same can be said for water, conventional testers dont have inline flow meters, and temp probes. They cant monitor all the variables needed to determine where a product like this would actually stand.

 

[skinnee]

Whoa, whoa, whoa...this is one hell of a thread. Props to Yellowbeard and Redbeard for fielding the questions and poking with level heads.

First thing I want to comment on is the mud slinging about review sites. I've been following the threads and reviews from XS, Hexus and MadShrimps. What you're seeing with mixed results depending on the site is not because someone received a unit for free then juiced the numbers in order to keep a sponsorship or connection, but the variance in test benches. Cross comparing benches is a bad, bad thing to do. I can't speak for other sites, but the amount of time and money I have invested in my site is mind boggling. Yes, I receive product samples and prototypes to test...I then spend a ton of time testing and reviewing those products, my payment for time is the sample/prototype...which turns out to be a lot less per hour than working at McDonalds. So please, if you're going to sling mud at a review site just understand the amount of work and effort that goes on behind the scenes.

Secondly, the H50 is not going to be equivalent to a WC system Aigomorla, Gillbot and others would build/use. The target market for this product is not advanced enthusiasts...at least from my perspective its not. The jabber on it beating a TRUE...well, I'd have to run the tests in my lab to say one way or the other. However, some of the comparisons you guys are throwing at the H50 are just unfair. For instance, Lapping a TRUE is not something a potential consumer of the H50 would even contemplate...so why compare the two?

Now the Swiftech Asatek debate going on, I'm not getting into that as I have no idea what the business relationships are, the initial target price point and so on were specified at project initiation. Its easy to say a company should've gone a different way, but you make assumptions that you really shouldn't...we know nothing of the internal requirements and details that went into the development of the product.

Companies who supply us with all of our toys have completely different market segments they target, and the H50 is not targeted at those who already have loops running...its just not. From my eyes, the H50 is geared towards users who are looking to step into water slowly. I remember back when I started looking at moving from Air...it was a bit overwhelming, so I just purchased a kit...yes, a TT kit. Had the Corsair H50 been available when I was looking for a way to get into water without the large financial risk I probably would have gone with it, because I already had experience with Corsair products and the brand is a brand I can trust.

My $0.02 anyway.

One final thing... Yes, I would have been thrilled to work with Corsair testing/reviewing on this one or any of their products. However, I don't think I have ever been on their radar.

 

[AmberClad]

Originally posted by: aigomorla
A res doesnt really help or improve cooling. Im sure he could T-line it if you would make you feel better. And a fusion cpu block i believe might be his lowest end block.

He's going to duct tape a DDC to the Fuzion, is he ? Or is he going to use an $80 Apogee Drive? Because I can see certain advantages to the H50 design that seem hard to duplicate with an off-the-shelf-setup, namely the simplicity and compactness, which Zap and some others alluded to.

Could they have gotten more out of their $70 budget by working with the right people? Probably. But it seems to me you're still discounting the strongpoints in this solution, while trying to compare it to ones that will outperform it, but not have the same advantages.



Edit: Er, speaking of skinnee...

Welcome to AT , looking to forward to the T3 review (I thought it was going to be posted today?).