Pros:
Water, quiet with Asus Q-fan, de-clutters case, it's from Corsair and a 2 year warranty (pump goes, they'll replace the unit).
Cons:
Price, bought this on Amazon, and it was still $100+ and tax, but it's that expensive plus some everywhere.
Maybe the size, but the air coolers that beat it are insanely huge and heavy and leave all that hot air in your case.
Kind of vague instructions but I did read/ watch many reviews which helped with installation.
This keeps my system and CPU really cool, I installed it to exhaust air as I have 2 GTX 260s in SLI and they really warm up the case (Antec P-160). With this installed my case temps dropped by over 20 F. My 1055T is right above ambient at idle even with OC and never gets over 120 F with SETI, Rosetta and Folding@home. I have Asus Q control set to performance and you can't really hear this even when running at 1900 rpm. Despite what the other posts say, this is quiet compared to all the other noise makers in my case. Between the SLI video cards and my front 120mm, side 170mm, the hard drives and the fan in my room, you can't hear it even at 1900 rpm. Not to mention you should be listening to music, gaming or something anyway. This also gives me so much more room in the case. If your going for a silent PC, this isn't for you.
The room this freed up is great and the case airflow is significantly improved. No more reaching under a monster air cooler to add ram or hook up fan leads, this occupies the back of the case leaving the middle and front clear.
If you can't read the specs from Corsair's site take a 120mm fan, put it 4" from the back of the case and see if anything is in the way and you'll know if it will fit. Install the radiator before you install the pump, you won't have to find a safe spot for all of that weight while tightening down the pump/heatsink. This is easier than people make it sound, put the 1st fan on the radiator with supplied screws then mount the 2nd to the case loosely with a few screws, line it up and get one started and then do the other 3.
Install it in exhaust mode, all of the reviews and my personal experience say that it cools much more effectively that way, hot air OUT, it's simple.
Read the specs! Read site reviews! Use a tape measure to make sure it will fit, I have a mid tower, no problems with clearance, but I checked first! Corsair Hydro Series H70 High Performance CPU Cooler CWCH70
I received and installed this H70 a couple days ago. I live in the tropics, with no air conditioning, so environmental temperature is usually around 30 C. When my comp was working hard with some games, it easily hit 60 and even 70C. So obviously I needed a good cooling solution.
Pros:
Modular design that will fit all major Intel/AMD socket types with ease.
Fairly simple installation.
Clear installation instructions.
Cons:
****The H70 might be too big for your current case****
Tubing to and from the radiator is not very flexible, limiting your possible configurations.
Difficulty installing the heavy radiator in between two fans then mounting on the case, all with one screw.
Firstly you MUST make sure that your case is big enough for this device. The 12 cm fan is too big for smaller tower cases, as I found out too late. Fortunately I had an older spare case lying around.
Secondly, you must be confident enough to take apart a computer and put it back together again, since you will need to mount a bracket UNDERNEATH the motherboard. While Corsair sells a case with an access hatch for this, usually a "standard" cheap computer case will not. Therefore you will have to disconnect the power supply, drives, and memory, unscrew the motherboard from the case and take it out, remove the standard CPU fan without damaging the CPU, mount a bracket (supplied) underneath, clean the old thermal paste, reinstall and reconnect the motherboard, power supply, memory and drives.
If you don't know how to do this, or are afraid to do this, get someone who knows what they are doing to help you. If you regularly build your own systems, this should be a breeze.
Unfortunately the radiator unit is "heavy" - which is to be expected because it's filled with water. However this made me really nervous since the length of the cooling pipes is rather short and the pipes are rather stiff. So at some point you end up with the radiator in one hand while you're trying to fit the water pump/cooling unit on top of the CPU one-handed without breaking anything. Or if you do it the other way and fix the radiator to the chassis first you are struggling with stiff pipes and very little room. This is an observation - I would rather have stiff, leak-proof pipes than flexible leaky pipes! I still rate this device 5/5 but installation is tricky.
Another observation - the heavy, thick radiator is sandwiched between two fans, and screwed to the back side of the case. For some reason you have to use one set of screws that go from outside the case, through holes in one fan, and into the radiator. While this is not impossible it's a pain in the ....., especially when you "forget" to plug in one of the motherboard's power cables (that happens to be just under the radiator, and thus inaccessible). Mounting/dismounting/re-mounting is a pain under this set up. Surely it can't be that hard to engineer a "snap on" method for mounting the fans to the radiator? Then you'd just need one set of screws, and not two.
That said - despite its size and the need to absolutely make sure you have the right case, this cooling system delivers. My computer runs 30 whole degrees cooler under full load. Overclocking for me used to be out of the question - now I get 58C under load. At regular speed (which is where I run), I am at a cool 38C with no load ( just fractionally above room temp.), and 42C under load. Finally I don't have to panic and think that my chip will soon fry due to thermal damage.
Well worth the price for your serious cooling needs!!! - Cooling - Water Cooling - Cpu Cooler - Cpu Coolers'
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