Performance
With the low quality of the mounting bracket and its respective screws, you would be forgiven for thinking that the H80 was an overall lower quality product that Corsair was making it out to be, but that is certainly not the case. In every area, the H80 blew away the competitive air cooling solution; the H80 provided not only lower overall system temperatures, but slower heat up times, and vastly superior return to idle times. In fact, the H80 was so quick at dropping the system temps back to near idle levels that in the picture provided, the graph is nearly vertical. That being said, the H80 does not meet one of the general expectations of water cooling: that it will make your system quieter. The Silent Knight was less notable by far at every comparable fan speed. This is not to say that the H80 approaches the near tornado levels of some other coolers, but the noise level is definitely noticeable if headphones are not currently being worn, or if your speaker level is relatively low.
As evidenced by the graphs below, the H80 idles at around the same temperatures (48C) as the Silent knight, but under the AIDA64 CPU stress test, the H80 performs an average of 10C better than its air cooling counterpart. Another great advantage is the difference in times when going from full load back to idle. The Silent Knight takes a few minutes to cool from its 100% load temperatures back to idle temps, while the H80 is nearly instantaneous.
| ASUS Silent Knight | Corsair H80 |
 Full Load |
 Full Load |
 Back to Idle |
 Back to Idle |
Excellent review. I didn’t know much about liquid cooling systems and while this was a review, the graphs and information in it helped me learn and make a choice. Thank you!