Monday 3 October 2011

Corsair H60 Quick review

Welcome to my quick review of the Corsair H60 CPU Cooler.



Keeping your PC cool is not necessary a major priority for most PC users, but for the gamer or overclocking enthusiast it is a must. Whilst the market is saturated with an array of different cooling choices the H60 stood out to me as one that id like to have in my system, the question is would you like it in your system ?

The Corsair H60 comes in a nicely packaged box with plenty of pictures of said product boasting it's ability to cool with new "micro channel technology". Inside we find the cooling unit, a 120mm Fan, mounting brackets for AMD/Intel cpu's, and of course the usual paperwork that accompanies all new products. The cooler does look good i have to say, the black low profile looking water block & pump and Corsair logo give it a very appealing finish more so than the Coolit ECO ALC cooler which looks like a big black block.

Installation is relatively simple and most users should not have any difficulty installing the cooler, however there is one little caveat. I did find that the water block itself does fowl some of the motherboard components surrounding the CPU area and so didn't allow me to mount it with the corsair logo facing the right way. I did try on a second motherboard but alas the same result, so be aware that you may not be able to install it with that lovely logo facing the right way !



One of the new features of the Corsair H60 is the micro water channel built into the water block , this is supposed to improve water flow across the cpu and increase cooling efficiency. Sometimes new features on PC products are purely a gimmick or something superfluous to the design, but in the case of the H60 this is one that actually works. 
The 120mm supplied fan is of good quality and fairly effective with this cooler but it is a little noisy, i would recommend swapping it out and using two quieter fans in push/pull configuration. The radiator and tubing are of very good quality, the tubing itself is very strong and can bend quite alot allowing for different mounting positions of the radiator.



So... does it work ???

Test System

Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 @ 2.70Ghz ( Stock 2.4Ghz )
Asus P5G41 Motherboard
OCZ Intel XMP Extreme Ram 4Gb 1333mhz
HD6870 1GB
Antec TP650w PSU
Spinpoint F3 500Gb HD

Room temp 21-25c

The cooler proved very effective at removing heat from my mildly overclocked Q6600, with load temps at 45-49c and idle temps at 25-30c. The lowest temp i recorded at idle was a very chilly 17c , so does it work ? Well yes it does ! For this test i used two 120mm fans in push/pull configuration on their lowest speed setting and as the results show the micro channel technology does help at keeping temps in check. To measure temperatures i used Realtemp , Coretemp , and Everest all showing the same result.

If your looking for a new cooler or just want something that is more effective then i would definitely recommend this cooler as one of the top choices for you next system upgrade. The Corsair H60 looks good without a doubt, but it is also backed up by brilliant results which makes for a refreshing change to see something that can please the eye and work effectively. The only let downs with this cooler are the noisy supplied fan and the fact that it might not mount the right way up on your motherboard, but if you can live with these then its a top choice !

Price >> 8/10
Cooling >> 9/10
Installation >> 7/10
Looks >> 9/10
Quality >> 9/10



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