Corsair H100i PRO RGB Liquid AIO CPU Cooler Review @ [H]

FrgMstr

FrgMstr

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Corsair H100i PRO RGB Liquid AIO CPU Cooler Review

Corsair has just unveiled its new series of Hydro AIO H100i CPU AIO cooler. These work with all new AMD and Intel processors. Its new claim to fame is super quiet magnetic levitation fans. As usual, cooling our highly overclocked AMD Ryzen CPU is our focus, so how does it cool when pushed to the limit?

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I've got the H100i GTX in my Skylake box, nothing but good things to say about it.

iCue software is a huuuge improvement over the old Link software though, which was a hot mess.
 
I have the H115i in my Ryzen 2700X, and visually they seem to be extremely similar.
Cools great. It was a PITA to install though - it came w/o instructions and the default Intel mounting bracket did not want to come off
 
I just bought a H100iv2....
I waited like a month after the 150i came out thinking a 240 would be out soon. I just missed the mark it seems.
 
Surprised they went the noisy route after the launch of their 360 AIO that was noise optimized as opposed to performance optimized.
 
I've been using an H110 for something like 5-6 years now. If it ever craps out I'll probably get one of these.
 
Unlike the earlier Corsair AIO coolers this one diverges from the Asetek design in that it does not accept those handy-dandy brackets shipped with the Threadrippers. So this cooler definitely will not work with one of those current and upcoming HEDT AMD processors. I would think Corsair would get away from the round cold plate commonly used on the Asetek-based AIOs that everyone and their dog rebranded. This would have been a good chance for them to do so. Ah well :)
 
Pity this wasn't the h150i pro being reviewed, seeing very conflicting reports about it which surprises me considering its just a larger version of this.
 
I did a new build a couple of months ago and went with the H110i. After slapping on some Noctua fans, it is super quiet. My old h100i is still running (5 plus years) on my older 4770k system so these things are pretty durable.

One problem: The iQue or LINK software has not been upgraded to work with the newer Ryzen CPUs. They do not give good temps so they lose their functionality.
 
I'm glad they didn't go balls out on the RGB... Reeling that in a bit is a nice aesthetic decision imho. I have an H115i, an H100i, and an H90... all very solid so far..
 
One question on this software, can you run this w/o software running in background?
I would imagine the fans can be run off CPU fan header but not sure on pump and how that would work, speed wise.
I don't even run LG mouse software but that have onboard memory so not needed.
 
EdKiefer said:
One question on this software, can you run this w/o software running in background?
I would imagine the fans can be run off CPU fan header but not sure on pump and how that would work, speed wise.
I don't even run LG mouse software but that have onboard memory so not needed.
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Yes.
 
Man. The irony this review dropped yesterday. My h100i just leaked and torched my PC for the first time in a decade of using aios. And I just tossed 4 or 5 stock coolers cleaning my office 2 weeks ago. And Amazon primenow only offers the h100i rbg for a cooler in my city with microcenter being a quarter day adventure. What are the chances??
 
haste. said:
Man. The irony this review dropped yesterday. My h100i just leaked and torched my PC for the first time in a decade of using aios. And I just tossed 4 or 5 stock coolers cleaning my office 2 weeks ago. And Amazon primenow only offers the h100i rbg for a cooler in my city with microcenter being a quarter day adventure. What are the chances??
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That sucks, I've had that happen twice on my x58 system with Coolit AIOs. In both cases I thought the system was toast with the way it was acting but it survived after rinsing the stripped motherboard(and graphics card once) in a tub of distilled water and then letting it dry thoroughly before putting everything back together.
 
Ebernanut said:
That sucks, I've had that happen twice on my x58 system with Coolit AIOs. In both cases I thought the system was toast with the way it was acting but it survived after rinsing the stripped motherboard(and graphics card once) in a tub of distilled water and then letting it dry thoroughly before putting everything back together.
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I'll give it a whirl. Cant hurt at this point. Already reserved a 7820x and msi pro x299 @microcenter. Threw a auros 1080ti in there but might cancel that lol. My first aio was a coolit. Loved it.

Edit: btw thanks for the advice! I'm still a bit bummed out by the death of my desktop lol.
 
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Kyle - great review. Solid performance all around.

I would love to see a retest of the Arctic Freezer 240mm in the new test setup which was the Haswell era champion.
 
haste. said:
Man. The irony this review dropped yesterday. My h100i just leaked and torched my PC for the first time in a decade of using aios. And I just tossed 4 or 5 stock coolers cleaning my office 2 weeks ago. And Amazon primenow only offers the h100i rbg for a cooler in my city with microcenter being a quarter day adventure. What are the chances??
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You reach out to Corsair to see if they'll replace your rig? They generally have a good track record of that.
 
I am a little late to this thread but came here because of the other review for the H115i. Is it just me but is the new PRO series outperformed by it's four year old predecessor? It looked like the original H100i keeps the CPU about 3 degrees cooler. I would have expected with all the upgrades and 4 years later they would have at least been able to maintain performance and ideally surpass the older unit.
 
memphist0 said:
I am a little late to this thread but came here because of the other review for the H115i. Is it just me but is the new PRO series outperformed by it's four year old predecessor? It looked like the original H100i keeps the CPU about 3 degrees cooler. I would have expected with all the upgrades and 4 years later they would have at least been able to maintain performance and ideally surpass the older unit.
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The corsair h100i it's able to sustain it's reign all these years but it have a cost... extremely loud.. newer units are able to offer similar cooling performance but several times quieter and and are made to be somewhat more reliable and durable, older h100I pump run at full speed 24/7 newer nones are variable speed, stock fans are also better quality and quieter.. however still the h100i has proven to be one of the best AIO 240mm unit ever.

I'm owner of one h100i cooler since launch, the cooler it's a champ, I have even have the guts to disassemble entirely and do a biannual cleaning process as the block microfins can get clogged overtime and replace the coolant but is not an easy or fast process however I still like that cooler I will keep forever as long as everything keep working, same as with my first gen corsair h50 with the huge pump, man that it's still even sealed working like a champ 24/7 in a server machine. Lol.
 
Just curious - how well does the software for these newer coolers work? I usually just use the BIOS settings on my motherboard to adjust my fan settings. Is it better/worse than that? Does the Corsair software have any conflicts with BIOS cooling settings?
 
As someone that has used the older H115i and it's software I can say there is no conflict between the corsair link software and the motherboard bios. My current setup uses a Corsair Commander pro for managing the fans rather than the motherboard bios. I find it gives you a bit more control over custom fan curves than the motherboard bios or its software, I can tell you though that the Corsair Link software does get into conflicts with some of the more popular monitoring software like HWInfo64. I can't run both because the fan control of Corsair Link goes nuts if HWInfo64 is running. I suspect that other tools like Speedfan would also have issues with it.
 
Araxie said:
The corsair h100i it's able to sustain it's reign all these years but it have a cost... extremely loud.. newer units are able to offer similar cooling performance but several times quieter and and are made to be somewhat more reliable and durable, older h100I pump run at full speed 24/7 newer nones are variable speed, stock fans are also better quality and quieter.. however still the h100i has proven to be one of the best AIO 240mm unit ever.

I'm owner of one h100i cooler since launch, the cooler it's a champ, I have even have the guts to disassemble entirely and do a biannual cleaning process as the block microfins can get clogged overtime and replace the coolant but is not an easy or fast process however I still like that cooler I will keep forever as long as everything keep working, same as with my first gen corsair h50 with the huge pump, man that it's still even sealed working like a champ 24/7 in a server machine. Lol.
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Agree about the quieter system. Looks like about 3 dB. I would have thought in four years they would have figured out how to make it quieter and maintain the temps or lower them.

As usually I want too much :ROFLMAO:
 
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