So I have recently rebuilt my mATX machine with an i7-5820k, as it was on a budget I had to go for a low price cooler. I saw the H600 at under £40 and for that after looking around the net went for it.
I don't normally write reviews, but this was the first bit of kit iv had in quite some time that made me think a little about what I got for the money.
Packaging
To me packaging is only important to the point of safely getting item A to location B so will not spend much time here. The packaging was well made and there would be no questions of the H600's safety in transit, and the outer box had a lot of information on the back about the internal components along with the specifications for this AIO
Bundled Parts / Instructions
As normal the H600 had all of the needed mounting components for its supported sockets, the instruction manual and a small amount of Antec thermal compound. Along with this it was packaged with a 4 pin fan with blue LEDs
First down side to this AIO was the quality of the instructions, they where mainly made up of diagrams with very little in the way of test descriptions of the mounting process. And the LGA2011 instructions are quite clearly an after thought as they where printed on a single bit of paper separate to the main manual.
Fitting
As I was fitting this to an LGA2011 socket the fitting method was to screw 4 adapter pegs into the normal 2011 mount points around the CPU, apply the thermal compound and screw the pump / cpu block down onto these pegs with the included spring loaded screws. Finally connecting the SATA power for the pump and the fan plug to the motherboard CPU fan header
This installation was surprisingly easy, the screws are long enough to get all 4 screwed down 2-3 turns before the block touches the CPU. I felt this way I knew there was even pressure to distribute thermal compound ect.
However looking at the fitting method used for other sockets I can see them being much more clumsy, this is as they use a backplate with 4 pegs that push though the motherboard from the back. This in itself isnt an issue, but there is nothing holding the pegs in place and could move and cause problems lining up the spring loaded screws.
Looks / Build Quality
The H600 looks very solid, the radiator looks to be very good quality and the tubing looks very rugged. The fan looked to be of good quality.
The fitted product
As you can see above the H600 looks really quite nice inside this small case, and works well with attempting to keep cable management up to scratch
Performance
Round 1
First time I fitted this kit I used the "pea sized blob of thermal compound method" , I ran the machine for a few hours and got an idle temperature of 45c and a load of 71c. Looking around the web this was "normal" for these type of CPU's on cheap coolers, and would be OK for normal use. However to me something didn't seem quite right. So I removed the cooler to find that due to a combination of the thickness of the thermal compound and the minimal force applied by the spring loaded screws the compound didn't spread out to the edge of the CPU (only coverd ~60% of the CPU area)
Round 2
After the above I applied the compound this time in 3 lines equally spaced across the CPU, again using the fitting method detailed above. This time the temperature was 40c at idle and 56c max under load (MUCH BETTER !)
Sound Level
I don't have anything to measure the numbers for this, all I can say is at 50% speed the fan is near silent (you can hear it above this) and there is no pump noise that I can hear
Conclusion
Overall this is a very well made kit, and performs really well when looking at its cost (at this time <£40), the only thing that lets it down in my eyes is its poor instructions and clumsy installation for non LGA2011 installs
PROS
[+] Well priced
[+] Performs very well, keeping my 5820k under 56c
[+] Silent under normal conditions
[+] Looks good
[+] SATA power for pump
CONS
[-] Poor instruction manual
[-] Clumsy fitting on non LGA2011
I don't normally write reviews, but this was the first bit of kit iv had in quite some time that made me think a little about what I got for the money.
Packaging
To me packaging is only important to the point of safely getting item A to location B so will not spend much time here. The packaging was well made and there would be no questions of the H600's safety in transit, and the outer box had a lot of information on the back about the internal components along with the specifications for this AIO
Bundled Parts / Instructions
As normal the H600 had all of the needed mounting components for its supported sockets, the instruction manual and a small amount of Antec thermal compound. Along with this it was packaged with a 4 pin fan with blue LEDs
First down side to this AIO was the quality of the instructions, they where mainly made up of diagrams with very little in the way of test descriptions of the mounting process. And the LGA2011 instructions are quite clearly an after thought as they where printed on a single bit of paper separate to the main manual.
Fitting
As I was fitting this to an LGA2011 socket the fitting method was to screw 4 adapter pegs into the normal 2011 mount points around the CPU, apply the thermal compound and screw the pump / cpu block down onto these pegs with the included spring loaded screws. Finally connecting the SATA power for the pump and the fan plug to the motherboard CPU fan header
This installation was surprisingly easy, the screws are long enough to get all 4 screwed down 2-3 turns before the block touches the CPU. I felt this way I knew there was even pressure to distribute thermal compound ect.
However looking at the fitting method used for other sockets I can see them being much more clumsy, this is as they use a backplate with 4 pegs that push though the motherboard from the back. This in itself isnt an issue, but there is nothing holding the pegs in place and could move and cause problems lining up the spring loaded screws.
Looks / Build Quality
The H600 looks very solid, the radiator looks to be very good quality and the tubing looks very rugged. The fan looked to be of good quality.
The fitted product
As you can see above the H600 looks really quite nice inside this small case, and works well with attempting to keep cable management up to scratch
Performance
Round 1
First time I fitted this kit I used the "pea sized blob of thermal compound method" , I ran the machine for a few hours and got an idle temperature of 45c and a load of 71c. Looking around the web this was "normal" for these type of CPU's on cheap coolers, and would be OK for normal use. However to me something didn't seem quite right. So I removed the cooler to find that due to a combination of the thickness of the thermal compound and the minimal force applied by the spring loaded screws the compound didn't spread out to the edge of the CPU (only coverd ~60% of the CPU area)
Round 2
After the above I applied the compound this time in 3 lines equally spaced across the CPU, again using the fitting method detailed above. This time the temperature was 40c at idle and 56c max under load (MUCH BETTER !)
Sound Level
I don't have anything to measure the numbers for this, all I can say is at 50% speed the fan is near silent (you can hear it above this) and there is no pump noise that I can hear
Conclusion
Overall this is a very well made kit, and performs really well when looking at its cost (at this time <£40), the only thing that lets it down in my eyes is its poor instructions and clumsy installation for non LGA2011 installs
PROS
[+] Well priced
[+] Performs very well, keeping my 5820k under 56c
[+] Silent under normal conditions
[+] Looks good
[+] SATA power for pump
CONS
[-] Poor instruction manual
[-] Clumsy fitting on non LGA2011
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