Corsair H100i Pro RGB Review

👤by Matthew Hodgson Comments 📅16-08-18
Conclusion

Corsair’s H-series of CPU coolers have been reviewed by many websites over the years, earning themselves hundreds of awards and accolades for their cool and quiet performance, only getting better with each generation. Our findings were a little different with the H100i Pro RGB but we believe there’s a solution.

Certainly, the cooler itself looks great, providing a sleek and elegant RGB approach, which isn’t so “in your face” as some other options on the market. Installation is also easy and very well thought out – it’s clear that Corsair have spent the time on developing this system and its paid off.

That’s pretty much the end of the praise though, because performance was woeful in its “out of the box” form, especially compared to the H115i Pro RGB and H150i Pro RGB. We found the temperatures were excellent for a 240mm radiator, considering the 3930K @ 4.4GHz pulls around 170W; that’s an awful lot of heat to deal with, however, getting close to 50dBA in our tests was out of order.

We mentioned on the previous page that the software is incredibly aggressive with its fan speeds, choosing to keep the temperatures as low as possible instead of focussing on the noise levels. We spent a short amount of time messing with fan curves and ensuring the pump stayed at its Performance level of roughly 2900 RPM and got rather impressive results. We believe Corsair should take note and adjust things accordingly, perhaps testing the cooler on some more power hungry CPUs and issuing an update.



If you don’t mind tweaking fan curves and are confident with thermal envelopes and safe boundaries, you won’t be disappointed by the quiet performance of the H100i Pro RGB.

Pros
+ Looks great
+ Cost effective compared to competition
+ Easy installation
+ Good thermal performance
+ Lovely RGB lighting
+ Excellent Corsair Link software
+ Supports the new Corsair iCue software

Neutral
+- The H115i Pro RGB is worth the extra £15 if your case can accommodate it

Cons
- Incredibly noisy in it’s default state, on all three profiles (quiet, balanced and performance)


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