My H100 has just arrived.
I just finished cleaning out my case and am currently benching my Ven-X.
I'll get to you guys soon. Until then this will have to tide you guys over.
Random Neighbourhood cat lent me a paw.
THese were taken with my 3GS, hopefully by the time I set up the H100 my
real camera will have fully charged.
Ven X Results
i7 920 @ 4.2 Ghz HT on 1.384V <-- I don't need that much voltage just wanted to really stress the cooler
Not sure what my ambient is but it's pretty warm
IDLE Temps LOAD Temps
39/36/39/36 84/82/83/81 <- After about an Hour of Prime 95 on Blend
IDLE GTX 470 TEMPS
42/46
UPDATE 1 - H100 PUSH STOCK FANS AT LEVEL 3 INTAKE EXACT SAME SETTINGS AS THE VEN-X RUN
IDLE TEMPS LOAD TEMPS
38/35/38/35 79/77/78/75
IDLE GTX 470 TEMPS
40/43
Some interesting results guys. So across the board we see about a 5 C drop in temps. But of course at the expense of really loud fans. Sound about as loud as my old GTX 295 @ 100% fan speed
Interesting note here is the decrease in idle video card temps even though the H100 is set to INTAKE air and thus dump warm air in the case.
UPDATE 2 - Corsair H100 Stock Fans Push Intake at Level 2
IDLE TEMPS LOAD TEMPS
40/37/40/37 85/82/84/81
IDLE GTX 470 TEMPS
40/43
This is a much nicer noise setting. Sounds about as loud as my Vex-X with GT AP-15s, and performs just like it too. I'd say this is pretty good considering the Ven-X is one of the best air coolers around. Not to mention that the H100 has more headroom with the option of attaching 2 PULL FANS.
I think I'll skip the LEVEL 1 setting as I figure temps will go up about another 5 degrees.
UPDATE 3 H100 P/P (Stock PUSH, GT AP-15s PULL) LEVEL 2
IDLE TEMPS LOAD TEMPS
37/35/38/35 77/76/77/74
Hmm these temps look familiar...P/P LVL 2 = LVL 3 PUSH in idle, I'm looking at these LOAD TEMPS now and they are looking mighty fine. I could hardly believe my eyes.
THIS IS an 8 C DROP ACROSS THE BOARD BY JUST ADDING PULL FANS These numbers are better than the PUSH STOCK LVL 3 SETTING
Sound Level is the same as before, no subjective difference from the PUSH LVL 2 setting. I love my GT AP-15s
UPDATE 4 - H100 P/P LVL 3
IDLE TEMPS LOAD TEMPS
38/35/39/35 76/74/77/73
Something interesting has happened. The H100 has a built in fan regulator that controls the speed of fans plugged into the block depending on temperature of the coolant. I only have the Stock fans plugged into this, while my GT AP-15s are plugged into molex converters.
It appears that the coolant isn't raising to a high enough temperature to casue the stock fans to go into max RPM. It seems that they are faster than max LVL 2 but not at MAX RPM. It sounds louder than before but not as loud as LVL 3 PUSH settings.
SOO it would appear that with my current settings the coolant isn't running hot enough. The temps I have posted are better than lvl 2, but not by much. AGAIN this is due to the stock fans not spinning to max. The only way I can fix this is if I plug the stock fans into their opwn headers instead of the block.
UPDATE 5 - H100 P/P LVL 2 4.4Ghz @ 1.464V
IDLE TEMPS LOAD TEMPS
I recently saw a review of a person testing the XSPC RASA RS360 w/ P/P on a i7 950 4.5Ghz with 1.464V achieve temps of about 76 max.
SO i wanted to test out what the H100 could deal out at similiar settings. What I found was that at these settings I got about 12 degrees higher. And although I wasn't clocked as high the extra 0.02V add about the same heat as the other setting would.
UPDATE 6 - MAX SPEED VS. MIN SPEED P/P 4.2 Ghz 1.36V
MAX RPM On Corsair Stock Fans, AP-15s at MAX RPM
IDLE TEMPS LOAD TEMPS
38/35/39/35 75/73/75/71
MIN RPM on Corsair Stock Fans, AP-15s at MAX RPM
IDLE TEMPS LOAD TEMPS
This is probably the most interesting result. The difference in RPM between MIN and MAX setting is ~1400 RPM which equates to really loud to near whisper sounds. The best part is you can have this silent setting at the expense of only 3C.
I figure this all comes down to the AP-15s being really good in their pull config and that changing the speed on the corsair push fans only changes the temps 3C. All I know is that I'll now be keeping this cooler in the MIN setting.
Ok, so wrap up time I guess.
Performance:
Great performance. The H100 beat the Ven-X with stock settings at MAX, by around 5 C at max speed, however the fans were way too loud for me, at least when I'm not playing games, listening to music or watching a movie
When set to LVL 2 the H100 had similar acoustics to my Ven-X at about the same performance. Still great considering how good the Ven-X is.
P/P Setting, Wow good stuff here. At LVL 2 you get great performance at reasonable acoustics. At this setting it edges out the Ven-X by 8 C.
This will be my personal setting.
At LVL 3 performance is about the same as LVL 2, this is due to the H100 limiting fan speed depending on coolant temperatures. This setting gets about 1C lower than LVL 2, but at a noticeable, but not unreasonable acoustic lvl increase.
IMO it's better to stay at setting 2 in P/P for my setup
EDIT
After further reviewing I have discovered the LVL 1 setting in P/P to offer only marginally worse than the LVL 2 and 3 settings in P/P. The decreased noise in LVL 1 at the expense of only a couple of C is totally worth it IMO.
Ease of Install:
I'm going to say right now that this was not the easiest cooler to install. The only real hard part (Also really annoying) was attaching the fans to the rad to the case all at once. It became a balancing act and took a good while for me to finally figure out how to get it all attached.
Also, the instructions are great, after step 1. With step 1 just showing a basic install of the fans in PUSH EXHAUST config. doesn't show how to do it any other way...aside from that there is no writing just pictures. Simple enough...aside from step 1
Aesthetics
This cooler looks pretty bad ass. Also, doesn't occupy much room on the motherboard compared to air coolers. The rad at the top fits with plenty of room to spare in my HAF 932
Cost
I got this kit for 108 w/ TAX INCLUDED
Pretty good price, considering my old Ven-X set me back 59.99 at the time + 35 for the GT AP-15s. So the cost was about the same. If you have the money and aren't quite ready for a real Watercooling setup this is about as good as it gets.
However, to get the performance I am referring to I had to add my GT AP15s to keep the noise level acceptable as well as to reach the desired temps. So if we tack on the 35 to my 108, the total is 143 CAD. At this price you could get the XSPC RASA RS240 for about 20 bux more. I'm not sure how that performs but from what I've read it should result in temperatures ~ 10 C less than this. I know this kit is even cheaper in the US, so it'd probably be the exact same price to get this kit as the H100 w/ 2 extra premium fans.
This leaves the question if this H100 is really worth it. IMO since I already had the fans and I didn't want to deal with setting up a true water cooling system it is. But for those of you willing to go true water I'd recommend the XSPC RS240 over the H100
Lastly, the result I posted are worse case scenarios. My voltage is set higher than normal for a 4.2 Ghz o/c just to show you the power of these coolers. Also, it should be noted that Prime 95 is an extremely stressful CPU test, in real world situations in gaming you're not going to see your cpu loaded this much, so realistically you can shave 5 C off my temps for every day usage.
I might update the review if I find anything else I want to test it in our if you guys have any requests! PM me for more info.
*I had these fans set as intake, and the interesting result was that there was no noticeable affect on my GPU temperatures. This might be because I have very good airflow in my case.*
I hope you enjoyed my review!
