CORSAIR IS ONE of many companies that have tried to make water cooling more accessible to the mainstream and its Hydro Series H50 sealed loop water cooler gained some rather favourable reviews, especially with regards to the reasonable ease of installation and reliability. Now Corsair has gone and upped the game with the introduction of the Hydro Series H70 which is set to improve upon the performance of the H50.
Although the H70 isn’t using a physically larger fan – which also means that it’ll still fit in any case with space for a rear 120mm fan – Corsair has re-designed the radiator and made it twice as thick at 50mm. This might cause some problems in very small cases, but as we’re talking depth here rather than height, the only thing we can really think of that would cause any installation problems would be very high heatsinks on the PWM circuitry on the motherboard. The new radiator design means that the heat-exchanging capability has been increased.
The pump has also been given an overhaul and it’s much lower profile than on the H50, although we can’t really see this bringing with it any benefits, since it’s rare to have space restrictions right above the CPU. The pump has also been fitted with a new cold plate that is meant to improve the cooling performance of the H70. Corsair claims that the H70 will handle overclocked CPUs better than the H50 and that it “stands toe-to-toe with any CPU cooler on the market, and does it with less noise, easier installation, and the support of nearly every ATX-compatible case”.
However, we’re not entirely sure about the statement about noise, as the H70 is supplied with a pair of 120mm fans that should be installed in a push-pull configuration. This is meant to increase the airflow through the radiator, but it’s also likely to make the H70 a lot more audible than the H50 and many other CPU coolers on the market. Still, the fans are supplied with step-down adapters that can be used to lower the speed of the fans which would result in a lower noise level at the same time. The H70 is available as of today, but Corsair neglected to mention a retail price in the press release, but appears to be listed online for about $110.S|A
Lars-Göran Nilsson
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