Corsair A500 CPU air cooler review - Introduction

Corsair A500 air cooler review
500% of the norm air cooler?

This time, we are reviewing an air cooler from Corsair, the Corsair A500. The official presentation took place on the 6th of January. In other words, Corsair has just resurrected its air cooling line-up, about a decade after the debut of its last product series of this kind, the A70 range. Wow, and we’d already got used to the fact that they were only making AIOs, right? And hold, wait for it ... yes, no RGB.

The A500 Dual Fan CPU Cooler is officially a single tower (in fact looking more like two smaller ones merged together), with four copper heat pipes and aluminum fins. On the sides, you’ll see two 120 mm fans without RGB lighting effects. The ML 120 fans have an rpm range of 400-2400. One great thing here is an option to move the fans (slide and lock system). You shouldn’t have any problems even with taller memory modules. Some thermal paste is already pre-applied in a very wicked manner actually, it’s the XTM50 spread in an optimized pattern for better heat transfer. Overall, the whole package looks really premium. The measurements of the cooler are as follows: 137mm x 169mm x 103mm without the fans, and 144mm x 169mm x 171mm with them, so the thing is really massive.

It’s going to be interesting to see how it performs against tat everlasting flagship, Noctua NH-D15 and some AIOs, right? At a price of 99 USD you'll receive a fancy cooler with premium fans and hey now, five years of warranty coverage, which is great (but what could actually break, apart from the fans, eh?). Let’s head to the specs/feature page, shall we?