[SOLVED] Help on choosing a Liquid cooler

[kennytodd]

Hello everyone, I’m going to run a Ryzen 2700x in my new set up. I’m leaning towards the Corsair H100i AIO Liquid cooler, but am aware of the fan complaints. Has anyone used the H100i and if so are the fans as annoying as people claim? Also, If anyone has better recommendations for coolers leave them, my case is a NZXT H500i.

 

[Karadjgne]

Corsair has a somewhat mixed reaction. On the one hand, their devotion to warranty coverage is outstanding, they've replaced entire pc's due to manufacturing defects causing a leak. On the other hand, their fans are abysmal in the Hydro series. Corsair likes to use 3 pin fans that spin upto 2800rpm on some models, and being 3pin, you'll only get minimums of 1600rpm±. Even Noctua cannot make a fan spin at 2800rpm quietly.

Their new Pro series with the ML fans, (H100i Pro/H115i Pro/H150i Pro) are quite different. The ML fans are much improved over the old SP's and spin at much lower speeds making for as silent an operation as it gets.

I'm also a fan of the NZXT Krakens. I ran an X61 for 6 years before the fans went out, very silent running.

The Evga CLC is also decent, as is the Fractal Design Celsius

Personally, I'm a fan of AIO's, I prefer the looks and performance to that of similar capacity aircoolers. I also much prefer the customizable software that comes with most AIO's, the nzxt CAM did exactly what I wanted it too.

Your case will seat a front mount 240/280mm radiator with no issues. I'd personally go with a 280mm cooler, the extra ability meaning fans spin slower under loads compared to 120mm fans. That puts the stock fans as exhausts.

Just be careful, if opting for the H100i as there's several different versions sold, the h100i /h100i v2/ h100i GTX/ h100i Pro. You want the last, the h100i PRO.

 

[kennytodd]

Corsair has a somewhat mixed reaction. On the one hand, their devotion to warranty coverage is outstanding, they've replaced entire pc's due to manufacturing defects causing a leak. On the other hand, their fans are abysmal in the Hydro series. Corsair likes to use 3 pin fans that spin upto 2800rpm on some models, and being 3pin, you'll only get minimums of 1600rpm±. Even Noctua cannot make a fan spin at 2800rpm quietly.

Their new Pro series with the ML fans, (H100i Pro/H115i Pro/H150i Pro) are quite different. The ML fans are much improved over the old SP's and spin at much lower speeds making for as silent an operation as it gets.

I'm also a fan of the NZXT Krakens. I ran an X61 for 6 years before the fans went out, very silent running.

The Evga CLC is also decent, as is the Fractal Design Celsius

Personally, I'm a fan of AIO's, I prefer the looks and performance to that of similar capacity aircoolers. I also much prefer the customizable software that comes with most AIO's, the nzxt CAM did exactly what I wanted it too.

Your case will seat a front mount 240/280mm radiator with no issues. I'd personally go with a 280mm cooler, the extra ability meaning fans spin slower under loads compared to 120mm fans. That puts the stock fans as exhausts.

Just be careful, if opting for the H100i as there's several different versions sold, the h100i /h100i v2/ h100i GTX/ h100i Pro. You want the last, the h100i PRO.

I’ve read up and seen H115i pro be put in my case without ANY room to spare, like millimeters of space. Might chose the H115i Pro over the H110i pro because of the larger exchanger and the lower fan rpm/noise level. Yes performance is the same between the two but i’m a real stickler for noise.

On a side note, I was originally going to go with the Kraken x62, but heard it was terrible and broke within a year. Any thoughts?

 

[Karadjgne]

There's always a % of failures in anything manufactured. If nzxt had a 0.1% failure rate (that's a really, really small number, 0.1%) and manufactured 1,000,000 X62's last year, that still 1000 failed units. When you consider the $100+ price of the X62, just how many of the 999,000 other happy buyers will YouTube, forum chat or otherwise blog about something they paid good money for working as it should and just how many of those 1000 disappointed and angry buyers of failed units will let the world know what a POS they bought. You'll find failure rants about just about anything, but have a hard time finding glowing reports other than from professional reviews.

My X61 purred like a pampered kitten for all of 6 years, almost 24/7/365, without so much as a hiccup. It was on an i7-3770K pushed to 4.9GHz for most of that time, now it's at 4.6GHz. It was only replaced because I had another cooler and after the stock fans died on me, I wanted to use the aircooler (Cryorig R1 Ultimate) Otherwise it still would be in my pc.

The h100i pro is a 250w+ rated cooler. The h115i pro is a 350w+ cooler. So anything under 250w and they'll run about the same. It's only if you push that cpu to 250w+ that the differences in ability become glaringly obvious. Otherwise yes, the 140mm fans will be able to spin slower and quieter to get the same results as the 120mm faster and louder fans.

 

[kennytodd]

I hear you, I wasn't aware of the wattage rating for the H100i pro & H115i pro, I'm going to be running a 2700x so either coolers are overkill.

 

[Karadjgne]

Heh, no such thing as over cooling a processor. Just means that no matter what kind of torture any game or app can put the cpu under you are covered with room to spare and you won't have screaming banshee's for fans inside the pc.

A 2700x is an 8c/16t cpu. Generally under gaming they'll not get that hot, but you start taxing all 16 threads, yes, they'll definitely put out some heat. Add OC into the mix and watch the wattage meter climb.