Last April Sebastian reviewed Corsair's H105 AiO watercooler granting it a Gold Award for its performance and the ease of installation. It has been almost a year and during that year a lot of new AiO watercoolers have arrived on the market so it is worth popping by [H]ard|OCP to see how this cooler stacks up against the new competition. It is still selling for around $110 and remains at the top of the charts for its cooling ability, unfortunately it also remains near the top of the dBA lists as well for those of you wanting a quiet system. The overall performance of the cooler, especially on overclocked processors helps it retain its Gold standing but keep an eye out for the new Corsair H110i GT AiO which you should be hearing about soon!
"For those of you wanting a double fan radiator for your CPU cooling needs, Corsair has its Hydro Series H105 240mm Extreme Performance Liquid CPU Cooler. This new H105 cooler does not sit at the top of the Corsair Hydro Series, and therefore might save you a couple dollars, but we really want to know, how well does it cool you CPU?"
Here are some more Cases & Cooling reviews from around the web:
- Enermax Liqmax II 240 water cooler @ HardwareOverclock
- LEPA LV12 cpu cooler @ HardwareOverclock
- ID-Cooling SE-204K Review @ OCC
- Thermaltake Core V1 Mini-ITX PC Case Review @ NikKTech
- Antec ISK 600M @ techPowerUp
- AeroCool XPredator X3 Devil Red Edition Midi Tower Review @ NikKTech
- Silverstone Sugo SG13 @ Legion Hardware
- Be Quiet Silent Base 800 @ Modders-Inc
- Origin Genesis @ Modders-Inc
Hardocp just ran a story
Hardocp just ran a story about the H110i GT being recalled. It may not be a good idea to order something which can be damaged by below expected temperatures right now. Even if you are in a warmer area, it might end up sitting in a truck at 20 below (F) for a while during shipping before getting to your door.
The 105 may not have any problems though. Anti-freeze decreases cooling performance, and most of these devices do not need to withstand very low or high temperatures compared to automotive mixtures so it may contain little actual anti-freeze. Also depends on the construction of the cooler; whether it can survive the expansion if the coolant does freeze. A lot of substances get very brittle at such low temperatures, so any flexing of tubing or expansion can be more likely to cause a break. I had a plastic control lever for windshield wipers just snap off at less than -20 once.
The decrease in cooling
The decrease in cooling performance is negligible if you use the proper amount. I honestly prefer using one spoonful of antifreeze in my custom loop instead of a silver kill coil
I have been using the H105
I have been using the H105 since last March. I first installed it in a Sandy Bridge i5 2500k system and tested the included Corsair fans vs a pair of Noctua nf-f12. I mounted the radiator to the top of the case with the fans mounted below the radiator in push configuration. I use Arctic mx-4 thermal compound, which I highly recommend. At full speed the Corsair fans outperformed the Noctua by about 2c but were much louder. I overclocked the i5 2500k to 4.7Ghz @ 1.4v and stressed tested with OCCT for 30 min with each set of fans. To keep the max core temp below 70(c) the Corsair fans needed to run @ 1752 rpm, the Noctua only needed to run @ 1255 rpm. So to achieve the same level of cooling the Noctua fans were more efficient and much quieter.
The H105 is now cooling a 4790k overclocked to 4.7 Ghz @ 1.227v on an Asus z97pro & is completely stable quiet. I think I won the silicon lottery!
NOPE. (c) Swiftech-god
NOPE. (c) Swiftech-god
Still wont work with 2011 v3
Still wont work with 2011 v3 in most cases, because of the location of the EPS power socket on the X99 chipset