i5 4690K + H100i Thoughts

[cyrofault]

Hello!

I am going to purchase a 4690K soon and will most likely overclock it. I'm also going to get a Z97-A. However, I've heard that the H100i has issues with Haswell processors, but I don't know if Corsair has fixed that. Also, according to Corsair's post here, they say that Legacy USB Support has to be disabled with Z87/Z97 motherboards. Is the H100i a good purchase? Will I have compatibility issues?

 

[RunLuke]

I'm running a 4790K with the h100i at 4.8Ghz, my temps are low 30'es to low 20'es idle and 50-60 under load (real world load, stress test reach 80'es). I also have the exact same motherboard. I don't think there is an issue with haswell processors, it is however an issue with socket lga 1150, the backplate might not be all that tight when you mount it against the motherboard (that's what I've been reading). I have no idea why, I fixed it using some rubber spacers. I didn't have to disable legacy support (I think, I could check when I'm back home in a few days). I haven't had any issues other than the mounting, but my tolerance for annoyances like that may be different than yours.

Remember to mount the backplate the correct way round, that's often an issue.
Here's are pics of my backplate, correctly mounted and with the spacers (green is the top, towards the top of case, red is towards bottom and the GPU):

 

[cyrofault]

Thank you for the reply and pictures! I'll look around some more, but what I saw on one thread is that the backplate should be tight(er) when the thumbscrews are tightened down and the radiator itself is in place. I think my tolerance for annoyances is alright - I have a Hyper 212 Evo, and that heatsink moves back and forth a few millimeters. 😉
So the software works alright? I think that's among one of my bigger concerns - you control the fan speeds with that software, and I want to make sure that I have a comfortable noise level (I currently have a Noctua NF-F12, and that thing is quiet, even under load). By the way, how are the noise levels? Should I plan on getting more Noctuas to replace the stock fans?

 

[RunLuke]

Fan speed control combined with the built in Asus Fan Expert is excellent, though you can't control them through the same interface. I use the Asus ribbon thing, though I usually hate using software like that, but in general the asus sotware is so good that I want to have it for other functionalities as well.

The h100i software has fan control, wher PERFORMANCE, BALANCED and QUIET (Silent, maybe?) are the default modes, but you have the ability to set a custom percentage or RPM for the h100i fans, that works excellently and you can go very low (as far as the fans support),
Control over the mounted LED in the waterblock works well,
the sensor readouts in the h100i software are a bit weird, not always displaying the temperature, but rather switching between showing zero and then the actual temperatur. I suspect this has something to do with polling rates and how the software displays the temperature (i.e. polls every second, refreshes display every 0.5 seconds) but I might be wrong. I don't care, I use other software for my temps anyway. If you choose you can skip the Corsair software and just connect the fans to your CPU and CPU_OPT header.
If you choose to connect them to the waterblock remember to remove the little black connector-proctector caps on each arm of the Y-Cable that connects fans to the waterblock, I spent a while scratching my head like a monkey till I figured out the cable wasn't actually wrong.

I would definitely consider getting new fans, I did (choose Corsair SP120 Performance over the Noctuas purely because of price, the SP ones are quiet enough for me so far), because the stock fans have a very annoying ticking noise a low RPM's, they cool they shit out of it and have a high CFM, but they are a bit too noisy for my taste.

 

[cyrofault]

Alright, thanks. One last thing - would you suggest using the thermal paste that comes with the cooler, or the Arctic Silver 5? I ask because I already have some and have used it for my 212 Evo.

 

[RunLuke]

I used my own paste (Artic Silver), but only because I thought theirs was bad because I got high temps, those were due to bad mounting. I think the paste that comes with the cooler is perfectly fine.