Closing the Loop II: New Liquid Coolers from Corsair and Swiftech
by Dustin Sklavos on February 1, 2013 12:01 AM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
- Corsair
- radiator
- Swiftech
Conclusions, Part 1
As before, drawing conclusions on these products is less about simply crowning one the victor than it is about figuring out just what they offer on balance against each other, whether or not they hit the right price points, and what they're competing with. So while NZXT's Kraken X60 and Corsair H110 both dominate the charts, that doesn't make them the best choices for everyone. It's easier to fit a 120mm Corsair H80i into most cases than a 280mm Asetek radiator.
The Corsair H90
I've been a pretty big advocate of Corsair's products for some time now. Their RAM has largely been synonymous with "guaranteed to run right the first time" in my group, I still use and adore the K90 keyboard on my main workstation (and the M60 mouse on my Alienware M17x), and Corsair Link is a product with a lot of potential. That's why the H90 and H110 are such a disappointment.
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Outside of the mounting bracket, what you see here with the H90 is pretty much what you get. The H90 and H110 are barebones packages that are uncharacteristically devoid of any of the care and polish you typically expect with Corsair kit. Beyond that, using a different fan doesn't really make up for the fact that the Asetek 140mm radiator is a bit of a dud. Corsair really should've included two fans to differentiate themselves from the NZXT Kraken X40; as it stands, NZXT's package offers more features and better connectivity at the exact same price, making the H90 a non-starter.
The Corsair H110
If the lack of trimmings on the H90 was essentially fatal, on the H110 it's at most crippling. Not including any allowances of any kind for the fact that the H110 has two PWM fans to run is borderline unacceptable, but the H110 does have at least two advantages against the NZXT Kraken X60: price and fan quality.
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Build quality and performance are almost identical between the two products. The 280mm radiator does allow Corsair's fans to stretch their legs, though, and while at low speeds there's very little difference between the X60 and H110, at high speeds the H110 is able to produce comparable performance at lower noise levels. The fans NZXT uses on the X40 and X60 really only have two noise profiles: quiet at their lowest setting, and then unpleasantly loud at almost any other setting. Corsair's enjoy a more gradual ramp.
There's also the fact that despite its lackluster presentation (or maybe because of it), the H110 is ten bucks cheaper than the NZXT Kraken X60. If you're willing to make the sacrifices needed, the H110 at least makes a case for itself, and Corsair does offer a superior five year warranty on its products compared to the two year warranties on the Krakens.
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chaos215bar2 - Monday, February 4, 2013 - link
I'm not sure why you got the impression that the H220 couldn't compete. Overall, I got the impression that the H220 was one of the best coolers reviewed. It just sacrificed a little performance for a significant reduction in noise.ypsylon - Friday, February 1, 2013 - link
I would jump into H220 immediately. Drooling on it since first news appeared. Unfortunately there is small issue - nobody selling this thing in Europe. I inquired in few places across EU and so far nobody is eager to jump on it. Importing it from US is out of the question as I could build full custom loop for money spend on H220+S&H+VAT+2.5% duty fee. Still I have ~40 days ahead before planned WS switchover. If I can get H220 in that time I would, otherwise going with H100i + 4 AeroCool BlackSharks. Not interested in AIO 140/280.Nickel020 - Monday, February 11, 2013 - link
Actually, highflow.nl already has it on pre-order and usually offers quite reasonable shipping rates across Europe:http://highflow.nl/watercooling-sets/cpu-sets/swif...
More shops should be listing it once it actually becomes available.
BrightCandle - Friday, February 1, 2013 - link
Its not uncommon for a custom loop to get down to +25C at load, so these bigger radiator designs are starting to get really close to the performance of going fully custom at a lot less cost and hassle.ShieTar - Friday, February 1, 2013 - link
Sure. Now if those would just be provided for the 225W GPU instead of the 77W CPU, they might get actually relevant for a gaming computer.pcfxer - Friday, February 1, 2013 - link
BINGO!This man ^^^^^ has got it. Why the hell aren't they hooking these up to GPUs? Does a closed loop kit for GPUs even exists? I've had one video card die from a heavy HSF combo and I still hate seeing that much flex in card.
A closed loop setup is literally perfect for this. Any pump noise and fan noise from that would be worth it (if still reasonable, I normally hunt for options on SPCR).
Death666Angel - Friday, February 1, 2013 - link
There is the "Arctic Cooling Accelero Hybrid" and you can buy mounting kits for these CLCs to install on your GPU of choice. No full body CLCs I am aware of other than that. And since there are so many different layouts and removing the heatsink of most graphics cards voids the warranty, the market seems very small compared to these CPU CLCs.Runamok81 - Sunday, February 3, 2013 - link
With the help of custom brackets from triptcc.com modders have been installing closed loop GPU coolers for years.Jeaux Bleaux - Saturday, February 2, 2013 - link
From the article you didn't read; "At CES, the H220's pump was demonstrated keeping a pair of GTX 680s and an i7 cool."MadAd - Friday, February 1, 2013 - link
1- Corsair dropped the ball with me with my H60 recently. The pump was shrieking until i installed a fanmate to limit it to about 2k rpm (my friends coolit works at about 4k normally). The through board fittings were so sloppy I had to find 4 small washers to brace the board against the clamp or suffer less pressure on the cpu mount and to cap it all the fan they supplied committed both sins of a bad silent fan, high turbine noise AND a ticky motor noise. Probably one of the worst fans ive ever owned (and ive spend hundreds on specialist panaflos, scythes etc through the years).2- I would like to see reviews of these done in a fully loaded system too. That puny board with no GPU does not represent a normal PC at all. Yes punypc is good for isolating just the cooling hardware, so why should this matter? Theres a part of these ongoing reviews that seems to have been overlooked, someone using consumer friendly closed loops are likely using this for case cooling in some way too, thus a fully loaded system running a gaming bench say, would add heat to the system and show thes coolers in a different light, eg where they start to break down.
Thats the enthusiast end, on the other end with the growth of ITX and shelf size PCs my mind is not whether I can cool something in isolation, its whether I can use a single 120mm closed loop to do the whole system. 1 fan for the whole box, and that cant really be replicated in that test pc there either.
Just a few thoughts, no complaints, im more than happy with the reviews here. Thanks again for all the hard work.