Corsair Hydro H5 SF review - Introduction

Performance AIO Liquid cooling for the smallest form factor
Corsair Hydro H5 SF

In this review we analyze the Corsair Hydro H5 SF Liquid cooler, we go small! Now if you think that the product is a strange looking contraption, well okay it is. But for good reason, this is the first ever AIO liquid cooling solution for small form factor Mini-ITX solutions. That's right, this puppy will hover on top of your mITX motherboard armed with a strong processor whilst offering impressive cooling performance.

You know, in the world of CPU coolers nothing ever stops developing. These days you can pick a hundred different heatpipe based coolers, where many are shaped, formed and priced the same. The better heat-pipe based coolers are good though. Next in line are LCS systems (liquid cooling), the entry level products are affordable, easy to install pre-fab liquid cooling kits. We've seen and tested many of them as Corsair, Asetek, CoolIT and so on all have interesting kits. The bigger problem is cooling performance. The gear behind these kits are good yet the performance is often battling a small included 120mm radiator with thin tubing and lacking coolant levels due to missing reservoirs. To compensate FAN RPM goes up making a good looking product noisy again. With that in mind Corsair started to develop a new H series (for Hydro) coolers.

Corsairs Hydro range anno 2016 is extensive, but they had yet to cover the smallest form factor for the consumer side PCs, Mini-ITX. To get you an idea, Mini-ITX is roughly 17x17cm for the motherboard. Often these solutions are inserted into very small chassis, and that places limits on the coolers you can use. Typically you need to use a half or low-height cooler. These work fine, but the cooling performance remains poor to average of course. Now since Corsair has been working on something called the bulldog, a small form factor PC, one of the side-products from that project had to be what is now the Corsair Hydro H5 SF. Since Mini-ITX is a growing trend, why not offer a cooling solution for the DIY PC builder. For give or take 90 EURO you can purchase this product, much better than low-profile air-based coolers albeit a little intriguing to install we must admit.

If your chassis can support this unit, the sky is the limit though as you will be even be able to overclock say a Core i7 processor housed in that mini-me of a PC you have built. Join us in a review of the Corsair Hydro H5 SF. We are going to build a small form factor PC and run some numbers. So without further ado, let's have a peek at the Corsair Hydro H5 SF and then head on-wards into the review.