Corsair H50 Water Cooling Kit

carmatic · 5 Jun 2010 at 15:24

another reason i do not like opening up my case is because of a risk of aluminum dust from the screwholes of the case shorting something out, or some copper wire filaments from some work that was going on in the room a few days ago... was looking at the bios just now and there was a beeping sound and the screen went blank, after i powered on the computer again windows asked me if i wanted to boot up normally...

but anyway

yes, the teeth on my block are 'locked' into the tabs but all you need is a firm grip to cause the slight twist, the teeth are sliding inside their tabs... and i do not plan to even remove the side panel on my case ever again, just in case i nudge the pipes and break up the AS5 again
also when i lifted the waterblock off the cpu just now, i saw that the paste only covered half of the cpu... reapplied with a ※ pattern and gave the waterblock a good rub around before tightening the screws... now idling at 44 degrees with ambient temps at 27 degrees

C64 · 5 Jun 2010 at 15:33

If the performance of these with 2x fans on the rad push pull is still worse than say a TRUe with 2 fans and the noise level is the same then how can this justify it's £60 + price tag not like it's any quieter or better performing than a TRUE with 2 fans.

iCe-BLaZeD · 5 Jun 2010 at 16:41

yes i wouldnt recommend taking a h50 if u already have a decent air cooler, they seem to be about the same performance wise anyway, even a little worse sometimes, its a shame I didn't have another air cooler (other than stock which i haven't bothered with) so that I could do a comparison since I believe my chip just runs warm anyway

iCe-BLaZeD · 5 Jun 2010 at 16:51

i will add that my airflow probably isnt great in my case, i have far too many drives with cables all over the place (messy). got an SSD just hanging randomly in my case and 5 hdd's. I really should sort it out but i'll probably be getting a corsair 800-d if i can afford it within the next few months

iCe-BLaZeD · 5 Jun 2010 at 17:19

just reseated (and ofc repasted with zalmans thermal grease, not sure how good that is though) it not long ago and also turned the fans around to intake (with a dust filter over it)

idles have stayed almost the same at 43-44c on all cores, so an ever so slight improvement.

Prime after 5minutes is 62c on all cores. this is better than before slightly since it will probably top out around 65-66c i reckon and before it was getting to 70-72c.

in this heat/humidity it'll do for now, need some bloody air-conditioning in this room!

xiphrex · 5 Jun 2010 at 18:30

I had a tuniq tower before this H50 and the H50 is miles better, Im pumping more volts through the CPU than I did with the tuniq and its still cooler by a substantial margin (at load I would say its 8-10 degrees cooler).

And Im only using one fan with the H50 and its an intake fan so its going the wrong way.

I did notice though that case airflow is really important for this cooler. Its common sense, but because of their recommendation to use the H50 with an intake fan even though you put it at the back of the case, it totally messes up the airflow in the case.

I switched a fan at the front to push air out, and its inline with the H50's intake fan. Temps dropped by 3-4 degrees just by doing that even at idle. My hard drive temps have gone up though by about the same. This is compared to both fans being intakes (so ultimately there wasnt a sufficient enough exhaust fan to get rid of the hot air).

I think its a great cooler and it has wet my appetite for a proper custom watercooling job if I decide to upgrade to a new socket.

carmatic · 5 Jun 2010 at 19:03

iCe-BLaZeD said:
just reseated (and ofc repasted with zalmans thermal grease, not sure how good that is though) it not long ago and also turned the fans around to intake (with a dust filter over it)

idles have stayed almost the same at 43-44c on all cores, so an ever so slight improvement.

Prime after 5minutes is 62c on all cores. this is better than before slightly since it will probably top out around 65-66c i reckon and before it was getting to 70-72c.

im hitting the low 70's the moment i start priming, and i have the same CPU as you but this is with all stock volts and clocks...
this is after like the 4th time in a week i've reseated the waterblock, i must be doing something massively wrong with my installation method
i put a ※ pattern with my AS5 on the cpu, then proceeded to lower the block and slide it around the cpu to make sure its spread properly, before tightening the screws

anybody else have a method to measure the water intake corner of the radiator? i have an infrared thermometer, right now coretemp says my cpu is at 75 degrees and the hottest corner of the radiator is 42 degrees

iCe-BLaZeD · 5 Jun 2010 at 20:15

not really, temperatures of chips seem to range by up to 10-20c (i think, dont quote me on that) so while there "could" be a bad seating or w/e it could just be that ur chip runs a little hotter than usual. I would try to lower the volts and see how low you can go at stock, i mean i'm running 1.112v(IDLE) and 1.080v(primeLOAD) measured by cpu-z. So who knows what voltage we can get these 930's running at on stock (i am overclocked to 3.52ghz right now)?

C64 · 5 Jun 2010 at 20:58

xiphrex said:
I had a tuniq tower before this H50 and the H50 is miles better, Im pumping more volts through the CPU than I did with the tuniq and its still cooler by a substantial margin (at load I would say its 8-10 degrees cooler).

And Im only using one fan with the H50 and its an intake fan so its going the wrong way.

I did notice though that case airflow is really important for this cooler. Its common sense, but because of their recommendation to use the H50 with an intake fan even though you put it at the back of the case, it totally messes up the airflow in the case.

I switched a fan at the front to push air out, and its inline with the H50's intake fan. Temps dropped by 3-4 degrees just by doing that even at idle. My hard drive temps have gone up though by about the same. This is compared to both fans being intakes (so ultimately there wasnt a sufficient enough exhaust fan to get rid of the hot air).

I think its a great cooler and it has wet my appetite for a proper custom watercooling job if I decide to upgrade to a new socket.

that is good to hear as i have a tuniq yet the comparison graphs suggests same temp with these?
yes that is why the tubes need to be longer so you can have it mounted say in the 525 bay behind a kama bay etc

C64 · 5 Jun 2010 at 20:59

carmatic said:
im hitting the low 70's the moment i start priming, and i have the same CPU as you but this is with all stock volts and clocks...
this is after like the 4th time in a week i've reseated the waterblock, i must be doing something massively wrong with my installation method
i put a ※ pattern with my AS5 on the cpu, then proceeded to lower the block and slide it around the cpu to make sure its spread properly, before tightening the screws

anybody else have a method to measure the water intake corner of the radiator? i have an infrared thermometer, right now coretemp says my cpu is at 75 degrees and the hottest corner of the radiator is 42 degrees

slide it around ? just try seating it and not moving it?

xiphrex · 5 Jun 2010 at 21:14

C64 said:
that is good to hear as i have a tuniq yet the comparison graphs suggests same temp with these?
yes that is why the tubes need to be longer so you can have it mounted say in the 525 bay behind a kama bay etc

The H50 is also 10x easier to install than the tuniq. Ive had many a cut finger thanks to those tuniq thumbscrews.

Anyway Im going to be fiddling about a bit to try and improve the airflow. Not really happy with hard drive temps at the moment, they really need cool air being blown over them.

My theory is that if you had a decent exhaust at the top of the case with intake at the front and back then it would be the best of both worlds. Going to put a fan at the top with the top panel off to see how it would be like first though, before I go cutting holes in my case.

iCe-BLaZeD · 5 Jun 2010 at 21:21

after a little bit of usage since reseating (and turning fans around to intake) my i7 930 seems to be idling at 41-43c,

prime is as follows,

immediately after starting prime test = 58-59c
2minutes into testing = 62c
5minutes into testing 62-64c

not running a long test but ill assume that it wont rise much more than this, perhaps a few more c, happier with the temps now especially considering how warm/humid its been

Abitar · 5 Jun 2010 at 21:51

xiphrex said:
The H50 is also 10x easier to install than the tuniq. Ive had many a cut finger thanks to those tuniq thumbscrews.

Anyway Im going to be fiddling about a bit to try and improve the airflow. Not really happy with hard drive temps at the moment, they really need cool air being blown over them.

My theory is that if you had a decent exhaust at the top of the case with intake at the front and back then it would be the best of both worlds. Going to put a fan at the top with the top panel off to see how it would be like first though, before I go cutting holes in my case.

Mine cools a lot better sucking in cool air from the back with 2 140mm fans at the top of the case taking the hot air out. My case also has 2 120mm fans blowing cool air from the front. It also keeps the northbridge over 20c cooler manged 3.6ghz so far temps in the high 50's running prime for 2 hours

iCe-BLaZeD · 5 Jun 2010 at 22:03

Abitar said:
Mine cools a lot better sucking in cool air from the back with 2 140mm fans at the top of the case taking the hot air out. My case also has 2 120mm fans blowing cool air from the front. It also keeps the northbridge over 20c cooler manged 3.6ghz so far temps in the high 50's running prime for 2 hours

what CPU are u on? those temps are nice

xiphrex · 5 Jun 2010 at 22:04

iCe-BLaZeD said:
not running a long test but ill assume that it wont rise much more than this, perhaps a few more c, happier with the temps now especially considering how warm/humid its been

Have you made sure that the pump is not connected to a mobo header? Connect it directly to the power supply instead using an adapter to ensure it is always at full power.

Abitar said:
Mine cools a lot better sucking in cool air from the back with 2 140mm fans at the top of the case taking the hot air out. My case also has 2 120mm fans blowing cool air from the front. It also keeps the northbridge over 20c cooler manged 3.6ghz so far temps in the high 50's running prime for 2 hours

What case have you got? I really like the sound of 2 x 140mm fans at the top, that also means you have your power supply at the bottom which I prefer as well. My case is the Akasa eclipse 62, nice case and all but I think the cooling is a bit dates now. Back in the day it was one of the first cases to use all 120mm fans.

iCe-BLaZeD · 5 Jun 2010 at 22:08

xiphrex said:
Have you made sure that the pump is not connected to a mobo header? Connect it directly to the power supply instead using an adapter to ensure it is always at full power.

"1400rpm" is full power right? i don't have it going through an adapter but its on the CPU fan header with any type of fan speed throttling disabled in bios, it reads around 1400rpm all the time, thats right isnt it?

xiphrex · 5 Jun 2010 at 22:30

iCe-BLaZeD said:
"1400rpm" is full power right? i don't have it going through an adapter but its on the CPU fan header with any type of fan speed throttling disabled in bios, it reads around 1400rpm all the time, thats right isnt it?

Yeah I think thats the max speed anyway so maybe you are okay. But its maybe worth a try to see if anything is better.

Abitar · 5 Jun 2010 at 23:28

iCe-BLaZeD said:
what CPU are u on? those temps are nice

Q6600 G0 thats even with the warm weather 1.424 volts

Abitar · 5 Jun 2010 at 23:44

xiphrex said:
What case have you got? I really like the sound of 2 x 140mm fans at the top, that also means you have your power supply at the bottom which I prefer as well. My case is the Akasa eclipse 62, nice case and all but I think the cooling is a bit dates now. Back in the day it was one of the first cases to use all 120mm fans.

Lian Li PC-B25FB mate and yeah the PSU is at the bottom, there's a filter covering the grill under the psu so the psu fan doesn't get full of dust.

Zitron · 6 Jun 2010 at 12:42

Picked up a H50 the other day to cool an i5 750. Not overly impressed so far, it's ok i guess. It's pretty noisy though especially with the fan going at full speed.

Anyone running push/pull Apache Blacks? If so how does it compare with the standard fan for temps + noise? Thinking of picking a couple of them up at some point.
(edit: Searching the thread gave me some answers for this, should have searched first

)