Corsair Hydro H50 CPU Cooler

StevenUK · 9 Jul 2009 at 11:37

Hey

So ive been looking to build a new computer for about a month now, iv been goin over each component and ive decided on most of them, the only thing ive not really had a look into is the cpu cooler. (Will be getting an i7 OC to about 3.8 maybe 4Ghz) I heard Air Cooling can manage this si u need to good cooler. I orionally looked at the Noctua NH-U12P SE1366 (The dual fan one) and it seemed very very good from reviews. Today i came across the Corsair Hydro H50 and it looks quite nice, i cant find maybe reviews or benchmarks about it but im guessing thats beause its quite new. Wondering if you guys have any thoughts about it and recon if it would work well.

So my question is what would be best for my i7 A Noctua NH-U12P SE1366 or The New Corsair Hydro H50. As for the case i think im getting the Antec 1200 so Air Flow is pretty good i assume from that case.

Thanks

Ste

Happy · 9 Jul 2009 at 11:48

The general rule of thumb is to avoid cheap water cooling kits as they are pretty poor performance wise. However in this case, it's not half bad. Although it's outperformed by the top end air coolers. The Noctua isn't a brilliant cooler and it's expensive, I'd personally go with something like the Fenir or the best performing cooler at the moment which is the Prolimatech Megahalems With a couple of good fans

StevenUK · 9 Jul 2009 at 11:52

Thanks for that quick reply ill have to have a look at that

HazardO · 9 Jul 2009 at 11:54

I've seen varying reviews of the H50, some suggest it's better than a high end air cooler, others suggest otherwise. The weak point of this cooler is the RAD size, and Fan. For a high overclock, I think you would be better with a high end air, or proper water cooling kit.
For a low overclock, or a quiet stock system, this cooler looks like it might be quite useful (especially in cases that can't hold a 120mm fan cooler).

StevenUK · 9 Jul 2009 at 11:55

When you say high end air can you say what these coolers are please?

alex24 · 9 Jul 2009 at 11:57

I had a thread on this a while back. I think the main reason for using one would be when you have poor case airflow, but need a decent cooler for at least some OC'ing. Most sensible people however have a decent case with good airflow, and would sort that out before buying more coolers, making this product a bit redundant. The only reasons I could see to purchase it would be if you're not confident putting together your own water cooling and want to brag about the fact you have some, or if you're an OEM and wan't to use it to advertise an amazing system but do water cooling on the cheap.

In short, if your case has reasonable airflow, a top end air cooler like a noctua or TRUE will outperform this and be cheaper.

HazardO · 9 Jul 2009 at 12:00

High end coolers to look at (in no particular order) would be the Titian Fenrir, the Prolimateh megahalems, the xigmatech Thor's hammer, Noctua NH-U12P SE1366, and the venerable (but still very competitive) Thermalright Ultra-120 Extreme (TRUE).

johnyt · 10 Jul 2009 at 21:43

Hi there I've built my Rig with the corsiar H50 and I must say I'm very happy with it. Ive got it running nice and stable at 3.8ghz and built inside an antec 1200. I did add a 2nd fan to the radiator that made a fair differance. There seems to be a lot of negative feeling towards the H50 and for it's price I cant understand why. I posted some IR gun results on the corsair forum today. Ive pasted them here for you to look at:

A lot of people have been saying that the H50 would bring extra unwanted heat into the case. I have done a few readings to prove how minimal the extra heat coming in is with my 2 fan setup.
The extra fan is a 120mmx25mm 1900 rpm with a fan-mate 2 to adjust speed.

My setup is an Intel I7 920 @ 3.8Ghz on an Asus P6T with 12GB ram and x2 GTX 260 in SLi

Bear in mind that its summer time here in the UK and room temp through out was between 25.2 - 25.7c

First of all I took a reading after 1 hour of being idle. This read 26.9c not bad just 1.2c above room temp at that time.

I put the side of the case back on and ran Prime95 x 64 for just over an hour. All the fans on my 1200 case bar 1 are set as intake fans and set on low speed. The very large fan on top is running on medium speed and is the only fan being used as an exhaust. The extra 1900rpm fan on the radiator was set to near slowest speed. During the hour the CPU temp peaked at 73c. But after the first 15 minutes temps settled at 68-70c

Straight after I took that snapshot I took a reading from my only exhaust fan at the top. The reading was 27.8 which was 2.4c above room temp at the time.

As quickly as I could I took the side of the case of and took a reading off the H50. The reading was 28.4c which was 3c above room temp.

So an extra 3c above room temp is of course an increase but hardly any thing to worry about I think. Bearing in mind that I have 5 other fans blowing air in just a couple of degrees below and that after several hours of gaming real temp 3.0 marked highest core temp to be 62c I have nothing to worry about clocked at 3.8Ghz

BigBruiserAl · 11 Jul 2009 at 09:04

Thanks for that test johnyt seem like a very nice cooler, the people that slate it tend to be people with high end cooling that do not know what market the product is aimed at and the sheep that read 1,000's reviews are take everthing that the revewer says as gospel

My true gives me 71c at 4.0Ghz with 1 fan after 2 hrs of prime..so while it may not be a True beater maybe would ideal for people who want to run mild o/c and 12 gb ram(as the 1st slot is lost with most air coolers)

HazardO · 11 Jul 2009 at 10:12

@johnyt: That's a good result IMO, my i920 is hitting 84C under load @4GHz (1.264V)with the Titan Fenrir. If it can take 10C off my load temps I'd be very interested. So I've seen 3 results now (ignoring Corsairs result), your's and "They who apparently must not be named here"'s results look better than high end air, but HardOCP's Kyle's results were worse (Near 90C IIRK). If I see another independant positive review, I might just get one. Oh for the record, I have a coolermaster HAF 922, so it's got similar OTT case cooling to your antec 1200.

HighlandeR · 11 Jul 2009 at 12:49

I was put off getting the Corsair H50 reviews have suggested theres a pump noise + the fan noise makes it not so good for silent freaks.

They suggested a true with a slower 120mm fan gives better/similar results but at better silence factor.

I think I will wait for the newer generation of heatsinks with the monster 140mm fans, more air pushing and even more silence

But its still good to know it performs well I guess if ones not overclocking even better and more silence, these core i7 920s seem silly hot to me once overclocked to 4ghz+ and seem problematic wonder how a Core i7 950 would do.....

johnyt · 11 Jul 2009 at 13:14

HazardO said:
@Johnyt: That's a good result IMO, my i7 920 is hitting 84C under load @4GHz (1.264V)with the Titan Fenrir. If it can take 10C off my load temps I'd be very interested. So I've seen 3 results now (ignoring Corsairs result), your's and "They who apparently must not be named here"'s results look better than high end air, but HardOCP's Kyle's results were worse (Near 90C IIRK). If I see another independant positive review, I might just get one. Oh for the record, I have a coolermaster HAF 922, so it's got similar OTT case cooling to your antec 1200.

I saw the same review a few hours after I ordered mine and got quite worried when I saw it max out at 3.8 GHz. I did notice that he mounted the radiator upside down, corsair have said that the orientation makes little difference. I think the one he had was just a prototype as he said that he would test a retail version later. He didn't do the H50 much justice there I think a lot of people who watched his video are set against it. It's a shame because most of the people I know who actually own one are very happy with it and get much better results.

I did add a scythe kaze 1900rpm fan on the other side of the radiator and then a zalman speed controller shortly after; it was too noisy at full speed. I've set it to be the same noise level as the rest of my case which is pretty low.

But yes I'm very happy with the way it's working. I convinced a friend of mine to get one and he has the I7 920 @ 3.6 GHz everything is stock and inside an antec 900 case. His peaked at 71C after an hour.

Last night I ran Real temp 3.0 while playing Prototype till 2 in the morning. I looked at the peak temp before I went to bed and it had only hit 63c. A couple of hours ago I converted some avi files to DVD and max temp was 64c so like I said before nothing to worry about there for what I’m using it for. I've been putting it off for a while but might sort out the 4.0ghz tonight be interesting to see how it goes.

johnyt · 11 Jul 2009 at 13:43

HighlandeR said:
I was put off getting the Corsair H50 reviews have suggested theres a pump noise + the fan noise makes it not so good for silent freaks.

They suggested a true with a slower 120mm fan gives better/similar results but at better silence factor.

I think I will wait for the newer generation of heatsinks with the monster 140mm fans, more air pushing and even more silence

But its still good to know it performs well I guess if ones not overclocking even better and more silence, these core i7 920s seem silly hot to me once overclocked to 4ghz+ and seem problematic wonder how a Core i7 950 would do.....

The pump is very quiet on mine, on day one I was worried it wasn't working. I can only hear it when i got my bonce right in the case with all my other fans set on lowest speed. The stock fan is pretty much silent. I had a TRUE in my last case which was actaully a bit bigger than my Antec 1200 and it was just too big and I just couldn't get the airflow right to keep it as cool as others have said it should be. I just get better results with the H50, every ones setup will be differant though

Geekazoid · 11 Jul 2009 at 15:39

Johnyt one question is the fan on the rad of the H5O is that sucking air into the case or out of the case???

[edit] what if the pump fails are there any warning signs beeps etc??? or does the cpu just cook to throttle down mode... or does the MB detect it via the 4pin header??

johnyt · 11 Jul 2009 at 16:53

Geekazoid said:
Johnyt one question is the fan on the rad of the H5O is that sucking air into the case or out of the case???

[edit] what if the pump fails are there any warning signs beeps etc??? or does the cpu just cook to throttle down mode... or does the MB detect it via the 4pin header??

On mine it’s sucking air in. People were saying that would bring extra heat into the case but my whole post with the pictures was about how little extra heat there is. There are mounts on both sides of the radiator so you can have it any way you like. I put 2 fans on mine in push-pull. You only get 4 screws in the box so had to use 2 for each but it’s solid

Now if the pump fails, it won’t beep at you it's self. You will have to set a CPU temp warning beep in the BIOS. Also if your BIOS is set right it should under clock the CPU to protect it.

The included 120mm fan has the 4pin plug that you must put into the CPU fan socket on the motherboard. The pump will have to go into any of the other 3pin fan power sockets. On the Asus P6T the nearest was marked PSU Fan but it’s still the same voltage ect so putting it there is fine. In the BIOS I can see both rpm readings for the pump and 120mm fan (also the 2nd fan in my case). You can probably keep an eye on those in windows using PC Probe/Fan Speed ect. Within those softwares you should also be able to set an alarm when RPM drops below a certain point. You might also be able to set alarms in your BIOS.

Either way if correctly setup you should be able to prevent any damage to the CPU if the pump fails. I bought the I7 920 D0 retail version and keeping the stock heat sink just in case.
:cool:

Geekazoid · 11 Jul 2009 at 16:57

hmm

cheers mate thanks for the info

HighlandeR · 11 Jul 2009 at 21:45

thx also good to hear the pumps not too bad at all... still a good option

johnyt · 12 Jul 2009 at 02:24

HazardO said:
@Johnyt: That's a good result IMO, my i920 is hitting 84C under load @4GHz (1.264V)with the Titan Fenrir. If it can take 10C off my load temps I'd be very interested. So I've seen 3 results now (ignoring Corsairs result), your's and "They who apparently must not be named here"'s results look better than high end air, but HardOCP's Kyle's results were worse (Near 90C IIRK). If I see another independant positive review, I might just get one. Oh for the record, I have a coolermaster HAF 922, so it's got similar OTT case cooling to your antec 1200.

In a word yes!
I knocked 10c off that 84 for you.

Any one who has read some of my earlier posts will know my setup but for those who don't Here it is:

Antec 1200 Case
Zalman 1000w PSU
Corsair H50 cooler with scythe 1900rpm and speed controller added
I7 920 @ 4.009Ghz
12GB OCZ DDR3 Gold ( running now at 1540ish )
Asus P6T Motherboard
X2 GTX260 in SLi mode
X2 Kingston SSD 128GB, Raid 0 128k Stripe
Windows Vista Home Premium x64

I started Prime95 x64 and gave it 1 hour to do its thing.
Room temp was 24.2 - 24.4c during the hour. All fans on the case were set to low apart from the big one at the top thats set to medium so still nice and quiet. I set the fan controller for the scythe 1900rpm to be on par with the rest of the quiet case.

As you can see it peaked at 74c. After the first 15 minutes the temperature for the hottest core settled at 71 - 72c

Again not bad at all I think I'm quite happy with that. I completely forgot about the IR gun till just after I closed everything down so I have no other temps for you

The H50 has done me proud

Geekazoid · 12 Jul 2009 at 16:17

brill temps

tempting me to buy one for meself see if i get similar results...

HazardO · 13 Jul 2009 at 11:44

HighlandeR said:
these core i7 920s seem silly hot to me once overclocked to 4ghz+ and seem problematic wonder how a Core i7 950 would do.....

A Core i7 950 will be almost identical, yes you might find a 950 can run with a slightly lower voltage than the 920 at high clocks, but it will be close, they are the same die afterall. I'd imagine that some of the cherry picked 920s can actually run higher clocks than the average 950.