Corsair H100 CPU Water Cooler Review

Test Setup

AMD Phenom II 965 @ 3.85 GHz
Asus Crosshair III Formula
Corsair Dominator 4x2GB @ 1760 MHz
Sapphire 7950 FleX Edition
OCZ ModXStream 700W

Testing

Temperature

The temperature results for the H100 are pretty impressive. We put it up against the Thermaltake Water 2.0 Pro and the Thermaltake Frio Extreme, each being one of the highest end water and air coolers respectively.

As you can see, at the stock 3.4 GHz we got a 1 degree drop at load, and at 3.85 GHz there was a 2 degree decrease from both the Frio and Water 2.0. The extra surface area of the 240mm radiator directly translates to lower temperatures over the standard 120mm, even with the extra thick radiator on the Water 2.0 Pro.

Noise

To test the noise of each cooler we took a reading with only the cooler’s fans spinning and the decibel meter about 12 inches away. This tells us how much noise the cooler itself will be adding to your system.

At idle with the fans spinning at their slowest, the H100 is virtually silent, like the Water 2.0 and Frio. The pump makes only a very slight whirr that can’t be heard without getting very close. With the fans ramped up to high speed they become much louder, easily the loudest in my case. The difference between the Water 2.0 Pro and H100 is fairly large, easily noticeable even without a decibel meter.