Corsair Hydro H5 SF review

Cooling 189 Page 13 of 13 Published by

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Final words and conclusion

Final words and conclusion

So the Corsair Hydro H5 SF makes me giggle a little ? Yet I am not going to claim that the Corsair Hydro H5 SF is the most charming looking or is the most easy to install product. It is a product that serves a specific need. See, if your need is building a small form factor PC based on a high-end processor, then let's face it, you'll run out of cooling options fast as the height of the heatpipe coolers are a problem and traditional liquid cooling would never fit. For heat-pipe coolers lower height equals to lower radiator surface area and thus worse temperature. Now most proper brand heatpipe cooler will manage fairly well that's the honest truth. But if you need that bit of extra in terms of tweaking, well that's where the Corsair Hydro H5 SF makes a heck of a lot of sense really. In a regular sized PC you obviously can achieve much better performance with other great, but this is the 17x17cm form factor and cooling simply is a challenge. The Corsair Hydro H5 SF is a valid solution to a problem.

 

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Aesthetics

The overall looks of the Corsair Hydro H5 SF are OK as far as I am concerned. Sure it is not the most pretty unit to look at, and also if you planned a SFF chassis with see-through panel, you'll be staring at the top plate of the cooler. That's not sexy I agree. But with its all black design the unit will fit well in any modern age SFF chassis and face it, it simply is a good alternative to heat-pipe coolers with the added benefits of being fairly quiet whilst offering OK  looks for what it is.

Installation 

No guru skills are required other than the need for 30 minutes to install the kit, a bit of patience and our help. Due to the nature of the SFF design, the installation however is sub-standard to what you normally are used to. Hey, use our article as guideline for installation and I'll say it again, it's 30 minutes work. Just make sure you plan out your cable routing. But yeah rocket-science certainly isn't needed/required.

Pricing

The Corsair Hydro H5 SF is released in the 99 USD bracket. We expect roughly similar prices in the EU, but that depends on the VAT in your country and the USD to EURO differential. You'll see prices in the 80 to 90 EURO range and I think that is a fair amount of cash as this cooler offers quite a lot. It is silent (if kept at default settings), and at the default settings it just offers really good cooling performance. 



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Small & cool ....

This was the first time ever to have tested a liquid cooling solution that actually fits inside a compact SFF chassis. We need to keep evangelizing that this is a cooler that is designed to fit onto a 17cmx17cm mainboard with the intention of being installed in a similar form / shape / design form factor chassis. The Corsair Hydro H5 SF as such really does what it needs to do, it can cool a high-end processor quite well enough, even allowing a bit of tweaking. And that it an impressive thing if you build an 11 liter case. With the processors ate default settings the cooling performance is good, tweaked up-to 1.3V the cooling remains acceptable and once we reach 1.35 Volts that's where things get more complicated in both noise and cooling levels. However if you are in need of 1.35V on your processor, you probably should not be looking at a Mini ITX PC. The temps and noise levels observed are guidelines, by connecting the fan and pump towards your motherboards FAN headers, you can control them (PWM) in the BIOS. It is here where you can fine-tune your preference in noise versus performance. The Corsair Hydro H5 SF can draw roughly 150 Watts of heat, it's good enough but do not expect miracles of course. Installation wise things are odd, but not difficult. Your experience will be a little unhandy due to the fact you are working in a small chassis with even smaller clearances. It is a fun job to do, but requires some thinking and planning. Other than that, the kit is simple to use and mount. In the end, the cooler manages really well with the tested Core i7 4790K processor we fired off at it, and even if you need 1.30 Volts; then it will offer enough cooling performance and that remains a tough task for any cooler. The one thing that can make sound is the pump (if it runs high RPM it'll make a growling noise), we recommend you to set it at a max RPM in the BIOS at a level you are comfortable with, but that can range from silent to noisy with cooling performance tied in closely to it. We can certainly recommend the Corsair Hydro H5 SF without any hesitation if you understand the purpose of the unit. The cooling performance is pretty good for a product of this class. Noise wise might need to tweak a little in the BIOS on pump noise. Find an RPM or voltage setting that offers a nice balance in-between perf and low noise. Combine all facts with the relatively ease of installation we can recommended this fascinating little fellah for sure.

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