Corsair iCUE H100i RGB PRO XT (CW-9060043-WW)

Magnetic levitation bearings

At CES 2020, Corsair brought an updated line of flagship "droppers" iCUE, which includes two models with a double and a triple cooler. The novelties are distinguished by an immodest price tag, addressable RGB lighting, a modified water block and coolers with magnetic levitation bearings that can switch to silent passive mode. The younger 240-mm model of this cooling system came to our tests.

Efficient cooling for Ryzen 9 3950X processors

According to the passport, this is a completely standard closed-type water cooling system, consisting of a two-section radiator and a pump. It is ready to install and work out of the box and does not require any special skills to assemble. The pump is made of plastic, with swivel fittings for easy installation of the water block on the processor and hose laying. The connecting hoses are braided to prevent bending during installation. The very process of installing this goodness is as simple and friendly as possible, and the system itself confidently takes out the conditional Ryzen 9 3950X (without overclocking), keeping the temperature within 50 °C. Even in this case, the noise level does not exceed 25 dB. However, we expected such results from a system of this level.

Almost silent

Given the biting price tag (almost $ 200 in east european stores), you need to ask with the iCUE H100i to the fullest extent. And there are a couple of nuances. The claimed “virtually noiseless” is not entirely honest here. On the one hand, the turntables can not only be slowed down, but transferred to an absolutely silent passive mode. And at medium loads they are almost inaudible. Everything spoils the pump, which begins to chirp when the load increases. However, the crackling appears only under a noticeable load with hot or heavily overclocked processors with serious heat dissipation. The second nuance is related to address illumination. It looks really impressive, but the synchronization system is only friendly with software from Corsair, so it will be difficult to synchronize it with components from Asus or Gigabyte. For the money I would like more flexibility.