Corsair H55 RGB CPU Cooler

so I guess it’s time. They are mixing all of their Corsair water cooler reviews together, which is not good because people won’t know if they’re actually reading a review of the product they’re wanting or a completely different product, so to anyone reading this, this is a review of the H100i v2 240mm.

First a quick review of the seller PCRush Outlet in case that’s who is selling it when you’re looking to purchase.
~ 5 stars for shipping. It shipped the next day after ordering.
~ 0 stars for packaging. The cooler was shipped inside a box three times larger with ZERO packaging. No bubble strips, no bubble wrap, no peanuts, no paper. Nothing. Just free to bounce around all the way from them to me. I’m surprised it worked and wasn’t leaking when I got it.

The TL:DR is at the bottom in case you don’t want to bother with the entire review.

OK now the review.

This thing is pretty straightforward to install but unfortunately what should have been simple turned into a headache. I was one of MANY that have the “backplate not secure on some Intel boards” problem. Apparently this problem has been going on for YEARS on many of the models of Corsair coolers and they still refuse to admit that there’s a problem. The problem is that the backplate, when securely fastened, is still not tightly secured against the back of the board. Corsair says that this is normal and that after attaching and tightening the top it will pull the backplate in and tighten it as well. Unfortunately, I was one of many that this was simply not the case. After tightening the top I could still pull the cooling plate off of the CPU because the backplate was not tight against the back of the board.

So I did what the other forum posters and YouTube videos advised: I went the next day and got some rubber washers to put between the backplate and the board. Now, I had over 5mm of give on my backplate so it was very loose. If you only have 1 or 2mm of give you might not need washers which I’ll explain why in a sec. The washers I used are 5/32 x 3/8 x 1/16 and this was on an Asus Z87 Pro. The size you will need will differ based on the thickness of your board and the amount of play you still have after it’s been secured to the back of the board. That size washer is what I needed with play of at least 5mm on my board and they worked perfectly.

After I attached the plate using the washers I still had 1-2mm of play which concerned me. I wasn’t sure if I should put on an additional thin washer or not but decided to try it as it was. This time after tightening the cooling plate over the CPU it did pull the back in and tighten it as well. So if you only have 1-2mm of give after you’ve tightened your backplate you’re probably good to go without washers. If you have between 3-4mm of give you may or may not need washers. If you have 5mm+ of give you’re gonna need washers. The bad thing about putting it on before you know if you need washers or not is you mess up the pre-applied thermal paste which is very nice and not just some generic paste. So hopefully you can use this as a guide to see if you’ll need washers or not before putting the top on.

After I got through that headache the rest was easy. Put the fans on the radiator and attach the radiator to the case (Actually I inserted the radiator and fans before attaching the cooling plate over the CPU but anyway…). The instructions call for the fans to be used in a pull config for the best results. If you have an air intake on the bottom of your case and room for the radiator that might work well. Mine is mounted in the top of my case and since heat rises I felt it needed to be in a push config and also to work with the airflow of my case. So I have 2-120mm fans on the bottom of the radiator in push config and 1-240mm on top of the radiator in pull config. It works wonderfully.

Now for the temps. I’m running an i7 4771 at 3.9. The lowest I’ve seen is 21 degrees which was 3 degrees below room temp. The highest I’ve seen is 55 degrees. The 55 degrees was after running all 8 cores at 100% at 3.9 for four hours. Even still it appears to have just been a spike because it was hovering in the mid to upper 40’s. It likely hit 50 degrees, kicked the fans up higher, then maintained in the 40’s. So this thing cools like a beast.

The fans are not loud really because, so far for me, they haven’t really needed to spin up in order to keep things cool. If you’re overclocking like mad then yeah they’re gonna run faster and be louder. At max they are very loud. Also one thing I’ve found in the Corsair Link software is that the fan speeds DO NOT scale with the temperature. For example the fan speed is 40% at 20 degrees. If you set it to be 50% at 30 degrees it’s not going to be 45% at 25 degrees. It’s going to be 40% all the way until it hits 30 degrees and the same for every step above that. So I recommend creating a custom profile with adjacent steps no larger than 5 degrees apart. That’s a shame too my EVGA software for my video card raises the fan speed 2% for every single degree rise in temp. That’s how it should work.

Also I noticed in at least two different places in the instructions that the picture of the item was correct but the letter used to describe which part it was was not correct. So look at the pictures not the letters.

TL:DR
So that’s about it unless I can think of something else later. This is a great cooler that gives excellent temps but it must be installed properly and Corsair’s version of properly isn’t always correct. If there’s any give at all after you’ve tightened the backplate and the cooling plate over the CPU then you need washers.

I mostly use my PC for playing VR games, and the CPU temps were getting really up there when playing for an extended amount of time, like 95°-100° C with just a standard air cooler. After switching to this AIO liquid cooler, my CPU temps hover around 50° C and didn’t get any higher than 60° C under the most sustained workloads. I have a very small PC case, a SilverStone SG13 and I was able to fit the AIO cooler with the radiator and CPU mount with no issues!

This AIO overall works great. I had issues with the RGB on the pump at first, but later corrected that.

For your LEDs to work correctly, plug the 4pin RGB cable from the Pump into one of the 4pin slots on the ARGB adapter cable with the 3 pin end on it. Then plug that into a 5V Header on your Motherboard and it should work correctly. Make sure the 3 pin from the Pump is plugged into the CPU fan Header on your Motherboard as well so that the pump is working too.

Since this is the X series and not the i series, this requires your Motherboards software to control the Pumps RGB, make sure that you try your motherboards rgb software to get the LEDs working.

The one only issue I have is that I have to get a core XT to work the RGB within the iCue Software, but that’s not too big of a deal.

From a sale at a major computer store, I ended up buying more CPU than I bargained for at the time. I ended up with a Ryzen 9 3900X instead of the 3700X. I already had this. I fully expected to underclock and undervolt while I waited for a bigger cooler to arrive. It’s now been installed for three years. And it still does a great job with that CPU with a 4.6 GHz turbo to boot. Then again, it might help that I have a lot of room in my case. It might not fare as well in cramped quarters. But I am more than satisfied with this component.

I generally like to get the most out of the things I use, especially the products I use the most during my usual day. A good majority of the computers I have used throughout the years have used a single method of cooling; fans. I’ve noticed that most computers run relatively warmly, which is to be expected, especially with AMD brand processors. All computers have this problem, especially if they get too hot, they begin having issues due to them overheating. However, a full liquid cooled computer would be too expensive, so it would require something affordable and gives you that bang for your buck so to speak.
I’ve used stock cooling equipment before in computers for quite a while, and I needed something to help bring my performance up and make my processor more efficient. I had come across another method of cooling, AIO Liquid coolers. A cheaper method of cooling for sure, and without all the hassle of pouring liquid and checking for leaks every fifteen minutes. It sure would be an effective and cheap method to help squeeze a little more performance out of your CPU.
PRICE
Now most coolers of this type are generally around the $80-$140 range and are quite affordable compared to the price of a more typical water-cooled setup you’d see in more enthusiast grade builds. Even if you’re new to computer building or if you’re more experienced, something in a high price range would cause you to shy away from that product. I believe price is the most important when it comes to buying computer parts. Something on the cheap end might break or ware out in a short time, while something more expensive will end up not achieving a good price to performance ratio. So something in between those ranges could potentially be your best bet.
INSTALLATION
Installing shouldn’t be too much of an issue, especially if you haven’t installed an AIO Water Cooler before. This particular unit features a dual 240mm radiator and is a little tedious to install. Two hands might seem enough, however computer cases vary and some have more room than others, so installation varies. In my particular case, installation was frustrating and took longer than I would have liked. The radiator is relatively thin compared to most other Coolers. However it’s to be noted if the fans are installed inside the case, motherboard heatsinks will get in the way of the bottom screws. A angled screw driver is really recommended for that part.

AESTHETICS
With sleeved tubing and a redesigned radiator pump and radiator, this updated version of the previous h100i helps give this product are much more redefined look. I believe this redesign gives the whole product a more of a sharper look to it, some more personality so to speak. With swappable faceplates and an RGB LED light in the pump that illuminated the Corsair Sails logo and their name, really helps personalize your computer and help fit into its color scheme. It’s probably a best bet to mention that the fittings for the tubing have been relocated to the inside of the cooling block and not on the side as with the previous cooler. This helps to prevent joint breaking and keep the whole thing streamlined and professional.

PERFORMANCE
Compared to the temperatures of a stock cooler, this one blows it out of the park. With a decrease in temperature from around 60 degrees Celsius to around 20 degrees. It’s a fantastic improvement, one of which I am happy for. Switching to a water cooled component really did improve the computers performance, which had been slow performing during long run times. Although, depending on fan orientation the performance can vary slightly, or even drastically.
PROS
There are certainly many benefits to using a component of this type. With a larger area of heat dissipation, more heat can be pulled away from the processor. This particular unit comes with a large radiator which helps remove heat out from the case and doesn’t push warm air around on the inside, which further helps decrease ambient temperature. It’s a great fit, especially when it comes to keeping the things you keep precious cool. I’ve found that keeping the radiator at the top of the case and having case fans pull air from the bottom and push the air to the back of the case and then up towards the radiator really helps add for that cooling factor.
CONS
Unfortunately, as with almost every product, there will most likely be drawbacks to take note of. As mentioned previously, installation can be a bit tricky and frustrating at times. I also have noticed with the time that this cooler has been in use for my current computer, both stock fan bearing did ware out and cause noise when first powered on but they do quiet down after a little while. On another note, tubing is very stiff out of the box and is very hard to maneuver during installation and can make certain radiator positions to be a bit difficult to pull off and may cause breaking on the tubing joints and potentially causing the cooler to leak.

My choice of this particular cooler wasn’t a hard one. I’ve purchased products from Corsair before and I’ve liked their styling and build quality with many of their products. I felt this was the best choice do to its more noticeable redesign of the cooler pump, radiator, and sleeved tubing. These factors really improved the overall look of the system. Now there are other coolers that work exactly the same as this one, however if you’re looking for a more pleasing look, this is probably one to look into as it’s a one of a kind product and not many out there pull off that specific look, especially with the sleeved tubing.