CORSAIR Hydro Series, H100i RGB PLATINUM, 240mm, 2 x ML PRO 120mm RGB PWM Fans, RGB Lighting & Fan Control w/ Software, Liquid CPU Cooler, CW-9060039-WW, Support Intel 1200/ 2066, AMD AM4/ TR4

Pros: -Quiet -Performance -RGB

Cons: none

Overall Review: This replaced a 120mm AIO cooler, it looks/performs better plus it's quieter. I was planning to increase the OC but I'm debating upgrading the PC instead, installing/playing with this gave me the itch. I have an older CPU that's served me well but the more efficient Ryzen 7 offerings with double the cores are tempting. That'll mean having to upgrade to DDR4 as well since that's all the new MB's take, the decision isn't easy. Regardless which route I go, this cooler will fit and it performs better than the former. I'd recommend this cooler to anybody limited to 240mm & wanting RGB. If building ATX, there's a 280mm version that'll fit a lot of the larger cases. -i7 4790k @ 4.6 GHz idle: 32C load: 69C

Pros: This cooling loop does two things well. It does an excellent job of cooling and it's able to do it quietly. Previously I had a Hyper 212 Evo air cooler. I was pleased with its performance, especially given what I paid for it. On a dellidded 4790K at 4.8 GHz 1.365v, I could run Prime95 on Small FFT setting for about an hour and never exceed a little over 80C. I could run longer, but I was testing the cooler, not the overclock. With this cooler I was able to do the same, but after an hour the max temp I saw was around 70C. For those who don't know, Prime95 is a power virus workload torture test for CPUs and RAM that stresses them to the limit for as long as the program is running. It's the most foolproof way to test your overclock and your coolers capability. For CPU intensive games like Grand Theft Auto 5, temps typically ranged in the 50s to low 60s. Typically, closed loop style coolers like this one can't really compete with a properly built custom liquid cooling setup. Although, for the price, you can't argue with the results. Closed loop systems like this fill what used to be a void in the market between air coolers and a full fledged custom loop. Custom loops, while their performance is unarguably the best you can get without going to more exotic forms of cooling like thermal-electric coolers or phase change setups, their cost often exceeds the $300 mark. While also requiring a level of skill to install that is above the average casual gamers capability or desire. However, closed loop systems like this one, have advanced to the point where you can use them for reasonably heavy overclocking. Especially if your CPU is delidded. When you start getting into high voltage and extreme overclocking, they can't keep up with the heat the CPUs generate. Well, they might be able to if you added a second set of ML series fans for a push-pull configuration and ran the fans and pump at 100% whenever you're gaming or doing anything CPU intensive. Although, that is more where a high end custom loop would be the better choice. But for 99% of the people out there, one of these types of closed loop coolers will be sufficient cooling. Especially if all you're doing is gaming. Normally, the only time CPU usage stays maxed out for extended periods is when benchmarking, torture testing and sometimes gaming or if you're into running encoding software. I imagine that this cooler, which is very well built for what it costs, could keep most CPUs cool enough for 24/7 use, especially if you're not overclocking. The fans that come with this cooler are phenomenal. The Corsair ML series of Magnetic Levitation fans are, in my opinion, the best fans you can get for your PC. They're extremely efficient and reliable. If you're using them to cool a radiator, it doesn't get much better. Even at their lowest speed, they have an effective static pressure capable of moving enough air flow to provide adequate cooling for ordinary work loads. In the lower RPM range, which is around 400-800, the ML fans are near silent. If you want a great fan that is both silent and capable, these can do that. They're really all around great fans. At max speed, they're really loud. I mean, I've had fans that spin up much faster, move a lot more air and get much louder. But that style of fan is not really suited for anything outside of an Industrial setting. So even though the ML fans at max RPMs are loud, they also move a lot more air and have an incredible capability to provide cooling beyond that of any traditional PC fan design. They're also designed to last much longer than pretty much any other fan with an ordinary bearing. Where the Corsair ML fans really shine though is in their medium RPM range. You can get exceptional air flow with a moderate amount of fan noise that is completely tolerable for the majority of people. So regardless of where your tastes lie, or more accurately, how much fan noise can you tolerate without going crazy. The Corsair ML fan is pretty much the perfect fan. If you're really irritated by fan noise, you can disable the fans with silent mode and they won't spin up until your coolant temperature reaches 45C. Although, Corsair ML fans on their own are very expensive if you want to add another set for a push-pull configuration. These days, I only use Corsair fans in my gaming PC. Of those, I have 12 ML series fans. I run them at their minimum setting so I can get good air flow while also being quiet as possible. I used to run them around 40%, which is the threshold where the noise starts to become noticeable. But I've found I can run them at minimum without compromising my temperatures. The ML fans in this kit are rated for 75 CFM and 4.2 mm/H2O fan static pressure compared the previous series SP series fans that came with the v2 and Pro which had less air flow, but a slightly higher static pressure. The early version of the H100i's fans performed at 62.74 CFM and 3.1 mm/H2O static pressure, furthermore they were obnoxiously loud.

Cons: The radiator's thickness is kinda thin, 27mm including the shroud. The radiator itself takes up more space inside of the shroud than it did on the H100i and H100i V2, which is good. But the downside to that is that you'll have to be more careful when installing fans. It's not difficult to get overly ambitious when tightening fan bolts and end up damaging your radiator. Possibly resulting in a catastrophic leak. I've actually done that before. I was able to save the radiator using some epoxy to seal up the hole I punched in it and it worked fine afterwards. But that was on a custom loop and it didn't have any liquid inside of it. In this case, if you punch a hole in the radiator, fluid will leak out and filling the loop can be tricky. I've seen some tutorials on YouTube showing how to do it. A properly designed radiator should have bolt stoppers under any bolt anchor points to prevent that from happening. The bolts provided are pretty much the perfect length, so it's probably not really a risk unless you overtighten your bolts. But if you add a second set of fans, that's where it can get sketchy. You're also gonna have to provide your own bolts, because this kit only comes with the ones it needs for the 2 included fans. I don't know exactly what kind of thermal paste this cooler comes with. I only ever use paste I'm sure about. I've found that thermal paste is one of the least expensive and most effective ways to keep your components cool. I immediately tear down any graphics cards I buy and reapply better thermal paste before I install them. These days I use Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut. It will give you at least a few degrees advantage over the factory applied paste. For those who don't know, the best way I've found to clean up thermal paste is to use rubbing alcohol and Q-tips. Simply dip the Q-tip in the rubbing alcohol, without getting it too saturated, and wipe clean the thermal paste. When it's cleaned up, take a clean Q-tip dipped in rubbing alcohol and go over the area at least once more to ensure its completely clean. The tubing is pretty rigid. There is some flexibility, but not much. The tubing does need to be rigid to a degree to prevent kinking. However, for a system where you can't modify anything, I expected the tubing to be a little easier to work with. Mounting one of these closed loop coolers can be problematic. Even more so than a custom loop, because you can't modify the length of your tubing. Without being able to modify the tubing, you're forced to mount it within a certain radius of your CPU and it must be inside your case. Unless you leave the side cover off, you modify your case in some way or have an open style case. Until recent years, there hasn't been anywhere to mount a radiator this big. A single 120mm or 140mm can easily be mounted in any case fan bay. But in the past couple years, case designs have adapted to allow a spot to mount 240mm or larger radiators internally. If your case wasn't designed with liquid cooling in mind you'll be forced to find some custom way of mounting it. Case modding is one of my favorite things about building PCs. The easiest way to mount one of these is by using zip ties. Just anchor your zip tie around something in your case and secure it to one of the bolts you used to mount the 120mm fans to your radiator. That's what I have done in the past. It doesn't really matter what position your radiator is mounted in, whether it's horizontal or vertical. But to be safe you should try to keep the radiator above the pump, which is mounted to the water block. So that gravity will feed coolant to your pump and prevent it from pumping air. Which could burn it up over time. These closed loop systems are filled so that there is a bit of air in them. But, after a couple years, some of that liquid could evaporate, leaving more air in your system. Letting gravity do some of the work for you should help to extend the life of your pump and might improve overall flow rate as well. You might think I'm crazy, but from personal experience I know that a sealed system will need coolant added at some point. Even if there aren't any leaks or vents for air to get in.

Overall Review: There are also some other significant upgrades with the Platinum series cooler. The pump is an exclusive design by CoolIT that has a significant improvement in flow with less restriction and an improved cooling plate design. The radiator also has a higher fin density, making it more efficient at the same size. Overall a pretty significant boost in performance vs previous models. You can customize your coolers settings and RGB lighting effects using the Corsair Link software. The fans also have RGB vs just the pump housing on other models. You can monitor coolant temps, customize fan and pump speeds or set up cooling profiles and change the RGB lighting mode or colors. The Corsair Link software is pretty convenient if you also have their other peripherals. I have Corsair RGB mice, keyboard, mouse pad and wireless headset. I can control all of those and this cooler using the Corsair Link software. It's a lot easier to us than the older version of their software and you can link all your devices together with the same lighting scheme. This kit comes with the hardware to fit to most modern mother boards. For Intel, it supports all the 115x, 2011 and 2066 boards. Nothing earlier than that out of the box. For AMD it supports Everything from AM2 to TR4. Although I certainly wouldn't use one of these coolers with a Thread Ripper CPU and I'd be careful if using a Skylake X CPU as well. Mounting this cooler to your CPU is really easy. No different than most after market air coolers. Although, with the type of screws it uses to clamp the water block to the CPU, it is really easy to damage your CPU socket by over tightening. With Intel sockets anyway. AMD sockets are much more user friendly. If you over tighten it, you risk bending contact pins in your socket. If you bend a pin, or several pins, you'll be in trouble. It is possible to bend pins back into place, but it is extremely difficult. I accidentally bent some pins on my x58 board when I over tightened my water block. I grabbed a flash light, a magnifying glass and a knife with a fine point. The knife probably isn't the best tool for this job, but it worked for me. All you can do is find the bent pins and try to very gently bend them back into place. My x58 Classified advertised to have 300% more gold in the CPU socket than a standard board, so the pins were far more susceptible to bending. A lot of people reported this problem in the forums online, so it's not just me. This cooler has nicely braided lines that appear much nicer than the plain black hosing you normally get with one of these closed loop coolers. The contact point on the water block is also nicely polished and smooth. I recently came across an air cooler that had a really nasty uneven finish, which has given me a greater appreciation for coolers that have a properly finished surface. You can kind of hear the pump running while the system is on. It's louder on boot, but that's normal. This version of the H100i comes with Corsair's newest version of RGB lighting. It can be rather stunning. The fans light up and their pump housing/water block assembly has lighting as well. Their older style of RGB was just a bunch of obvious LEDs that changed colors. But the RGB they have now is really nice. You can't see any exposed LEDs and the lighting effects are evenly distributed. You can fully customize the RGB effects. You can set it to match your PCs color scheme, to switch between colors, to flash and more. But my favorite effect has always been the rainbow wave. Which is usually the default RGB mode on Corsair stuff. You can adjust the speed of the RGB effects, I typically prefer to have them going slow. I think that when the colors are changing too fast it can be distracting. But RGB can definitely make your PC stand out. The room my PC is in is constantly glowing a variety of colors, it has earned me a lot of compliments. I typically don't like to give 5 Eggs unless a product is really outstanding. Well the H100i Platinum is an awesome product. It has great fans, an improved radiator and pump, the gorgeous RGB lighting and the price isn't bad for the performance you're getting. Although, if you have the room in your case, you should definitely consider the H115i Platinum. It's going to be better for not much more money.

Pros: RGB Lighting with iCUE configuration Quiet Fans and Pump

Cons: RGB Lighting requires iCUE Cable Management Screws did not fit

Overall Review: The CORSAIR Hydro Series H100i RGB PLATINUM 240mm Liquid CPU Cooler was easily installed on my Ryzen 5 2600 CPU and Asus ROG Strix B450-F Gaming Motherboard. Corsair includes multiple brackets to make the pump compatible with several motherboard configurations. It only took a few minutes to change the mounting bracket on the pump to the AM4 configuration and use the included thumb screws to mount the pump to the motherboard. However, after the pump was installed, the fans, radiator, and cable management were not as easily installed. The included screws did not easily thread into either side of the radiator and both were too long, pushing against the radiator fins. Luckily, I had some 6-32 screws that were slightly shorter that threaded into the radiator screw holes more easily. Each fan has two cables, one for PWM and the other for Corsair RGB control. The pump has two water lines, two PWM cables, two Corsair RGB cables, a cable to connect the pump to a fan header for monitoring pump speed, a SATA power connector, and a micro USB cable that connected to the pump at 90 degrees on one end with an internal USB header connector on the other. All these connections coming to and from the pump can be a bit of a mess for clean cable management. Once connected and installed, the fans and pump defaulted to a rainbow pattern. After downloading iCUE from Corsair’s website, it was easy to sync up the lighting pattern with my Corsair keyboard and mouse. During my tests, Task Manager reported iCUE using anywhere from less than 1% to no more than 4% CPU utilization. Before using the Corsair H100i RGB Platinum, my CPU was cooled by a Cooler Master MA620P 2 Fan Cooler. During my tests, my house temperature was set to 72F. When the CPU was at idle, the temperatures maintained 31C/87F. With the fans quietest setting and with the CPU utilization at 100%, the CPU fans ran at 600rpm and temperatures peaked at 56C/132F. With its loudest setting, the CPU fans ran at 1800rpm and peaked at 48C/118F with 100% CPU utilization. The Corsair H100i pump has two settings, Extreme or Quiet, The difference between the two settings was only a few hundred RPM and I noticed no difference in noise or cooling. The Corsair ML Pro fans have 4 different settings available in iCUE: Zero RPM, Quiet, Balanced, and Extreme. Running the fans in the Zero RPM setting was silent, but the temperature rose to 41C/105F at idle. Then with the CPU utilization at 100% and over 15 minutes passed, the temperature slowly rose to 61C/141F and the fans turned on at a little less than 400rpm. In the Quiet setting, the fans run at 700rpm when the CPU was at idle and maintained temperatures of 27C/79F. With the CPU at 100% utilization, the fans adjusted to 1500rpm and reported peak temperatures of 37C/98F. With the Balanced setting, the fans run at 2000rpm at idle CPU utilization with temperatures at 25C/76F. With the CPU utilization maxed, the fan speed only rose to 2400rpm and the temperature to 36C/95F. And finally with the Extreme setting, the fans sped up to a loud 2800rpm with idle temperatures at 25C/77F and when the CPU was at 100% utilization, temperatures settled at 36C/95F. After testing all the settings, the Quiet configuration seemed to give the best mix of good temperatures and noise level. If you already have Corsair products that use the iCUE ecosystem, this can be a good addition to your computer.

Pros: - great cooling for a 240mm cooler. Beats the competing RGB 240mm cooler I'd been using by about 2C in quiet mode, and 8C in extreme mode (which is really loud). - very nice addressable RGB effects - the cycling colors on the faceplate are particularly cool - the ML-series fans used on this cooler are Corsair's best, and arguably the best in the industry - zero-fan mode! - yes indeed, this mode has been added to the iCUE control panel, allowing you to shut down the two fans entirely (or have just one operating) during idle period. The pump still runs, however, so this isn't exactly a "zero-noise" solution, but it's as close as you'll find in a liquid cooler

Cons: - price, price, price. You are paying a HUGE premium for the ML fans and addressable RGBs. This is the most expensive 240mm AIO every released by a major manufacturer. - given the cost of adding the addressable RGBs, it's simply inexcusable for Corsair to continue to work only within its walled garden of iCUE peripherals. The whole point of addressable RGBs is to provide the ultimate in customization, but if I can't sync with my motherboard or case, what's the point? - I own Corsair RGB RAM, but the cross-peripheral "Lighting Link" presets don't work on it. I could get "spiral rainbow" to work on my Corsair K70 RGB keyboard and H100i cooler simultaneously, but the command has no effect on the RAM. Not even setting a Lighting Link static color worked on the RAM. Totally lame. In other words, despite Corsair limiting you to sync'ing only with its own products, even these products don't always work together. Even the way certain presets work is different: "color shift" on the cooler only allows you to choose two colors, while color shift on RAM allows seven. That virtually guarantees they'll never be in sync. - there is an absolute mess of cables coming out of this cooler - two cables for each of the fans (power and RGB), and then four cables coming out of the block (USB for control, SATA for power, plus the connectors for the fans. It's a mess, and while RGB does require more connections by nature, the fact that Corsair is using its old proprietary system instead of ARGB headers makes this worse - ARGB headers actually provide power too, so the extra SATA power would likely be unnecessary. As an example, an ARGB cooler I have from a competitor does NOT need any SATA power to run. The pump is powered by USB, while the lighting is powered by the ARGB header.

Overall Review: It's hard to fairly rate this product. Sure, the performance, both in terms of cooling and acoustics, is excellent for a 240mm cooler. But it costs more than most 280mm coolers, let alone every 240mm cooler on the market, and Corsair's insistence in sticking with its proprietary RGB system is coming back to haunt it. Standard ARGB controls and connections are now better than what Corsair has to offer, so why bother paying a premium for a proprietary solution? Frankly, assuming you're using a case that can fit a 280mm cooler, you're almost certainly going to be better off saving money by going for a competitor's 280mm RGB offering than Corsair's smaller 240mm ARGB offering. You might even be able to pick up their ARGB 280mm products for less than this 240mm cooler.

Pros: Fans are dead silent at most speeds Aluminum finishing ring around pump housing looks really nice.

Cons: Most expensive 240mm Closed loop cooler on newegg. Pump vibrates & is noisy at any speed (possibly imbalanced impeller) limited hose flexibility with questionable inner diameter. 5 cables come out of the pump base Proprietary RGB system

Overall Review: Just a bit of background before I jump into the review. I have been water cooling PC parts for about 15 years. Early on, this was mostly a lot of DIY & Custom stuff involving many trips to hardware stores followed by handy work with a Dremel and other tools. So being able to just order a fully "plug and play" water cooler is a bit of a welcome but very unexpected turn in "PC enthusiast modding". With that said I do own Tons of corsair gear. In fact the Cooler I had on my delided 4790k before testing this Unit was the H80i rev 2. so this in not my 1st experience with a Corsair water cooler. All that said I find it very challenging to write this review when taking price into account. On one side, the only thing actually wrong with the unit (pump noise) can probably be remedied with an RMA. fair enough... so Great Product! right??? Well not so fast. On the other side of things this unit is so expensive I cant help but want to bash every little thing thats not perfect. If you buy a run of the mill commuter car, you dont expect much right? but if you buy a BMW you expect perfection eh? At this price ($159.99) this cooler is in some heavy competition with 280mm Closed loop coolers & even more so, actual Enthusiast gear from the likes of the Swiftech H360X3. A 360mm cooler that comes completely ready to mount (yes even fans pre-installed) with a much higher quality pump & waterblock. Not only will the the H360X3 perform way better, but you can add more to the loop later if you feel its time to step up your game! Looks: The pump/CPU block combo has a really nice aluminum finishing ring on top, but it so many wires coming out of it that its hard to manage and takes away from the "Clean" design elements that this type of product should be boasting. You could argue that this is typical on all closed loop coolers, but Corsair is already using a closed proprietary RGB system. So they could have easily just wired up a single 12" proprietary cable to the pump and had it break out to all the fan, RGB & power connectors.... the radiator is very lackluster in this department. It basically just looks has is some cheapo chrome "corsair" sticker on the side? really? The Corsair H80i I already own has a more premium looking Radiator with a very nice "Corsair" logo on top of a sandblasted gunmetal finishing piece. The RGB is pretty cool and well enough customization inside the software. most of the breathing and running color effects are quite awesome looking but if you have anything else RGB forget about having any kind of cohesiveness between any of it. which in the end kind of makes you just want to have everything static on one color. Other wise your PC will look like some kind of distracting Rave party. Cooling performance: This Cooler seams to have lower temps at 1st when compared to the H80i but after heatsoak sets in the temps are only a few degrees cooler. Ramping up the fan speed to max thankfully does not make much more noise, seriously. These fans are ridiculously quiet for how much air they move but sadly this doesn't help much at lowering temps until maxing the pump speed out. This will take a few more deg off the top but with the excessive noise the pump generates at this speed its not really an ideal solution over the quieter H80i. In the situation that you receive a unit with balanced pump impeller. you could see about 5-9 deg (Celsius) total cooler under full load than the H80i. That is a pretty big jump and nothing to take lightly. In my specific senerio this allows me to run my delidded 4790k 24/7 @ 4.5GHz on all 4 cores at about 68-72c. The H80i would never let me do this with acceptable temps. Does this unit preform well and add all the RGB goodness to your Rig? Sure does! but I think the take away from this review should be there are definitely cheaper ways to get similar temps and if you have $160 to blow on water cooling, you should probably looking into something in the 360mm or 280mm territory. preferably something expandable? I want to rate this 3.5 eggs, one taken away for the pump noise and half an egg taken away for the price but since that half eggs are not an option im going with 4 eggs.

Pros: I was very excited to receive my Corsair H100i RBB Platinum cooler since I've been looking at these coolers for years. Corsair has been setting the standard for all in one coolers for quite a while now so I was very happy to have a chance to put one to the test. To begin with, the packaging and presentation was very nice however I had 2 issues with the instructions detailed below in the cons section. Installation was fairly straightforward. Because I'm reviewing the unit as it arrived, I also used the thermal transfer interface material that came installed on the cpu instead of scraping it off and using something better. While my results might have been better with high performance TIM goop, I wanted to see how good it would be straight out of the box. I think the results are more than satisfactory. But... How good does it cool and how quiet is it? A caveat up front - I'm under-utilizing this cooler since it is capable of cooling cpus much much hotter than mine! I am running an i7-3770 cpu, nearly the top of the line several years ago. The cpu cooler I had been using was a deepcool gammaxx 400, which is a reasonably priced air cooler that I reviewed back in 2014. So here are the basic temperature results for load temps: Deepcool: 64C H100i: 45C I tried several different programs and utilities to load the cpu, and none of them could get the cpu to report over 45C. Dropping from 64C to 45C in a non-overclocked scenario is a pretty huge difference, and the difference in an overclocked cpu would be even bigger. There's no question, this cooler is very capable of cooling both stock and overclocked cpus quite nicely. iCUE reported cooler temperatures no higher than 32C, which tells me that a better TIM material between the cooler and the cpu could have gotten me another couple of degrees drop in temperature. While not a big deal considering my cpu is stock, an overclocked cpu would certainly benefit by removing the included TIM and using a better custom thermal interface material. I was also pleasantly surprised when I installed the iCUE software (not mentioned in the instructions!) my computer had automatically recognized the cooler plugged into a motherboard USB port, so it was ready to go the first time I ran the iCUE software with no fiddling about installing drivers or anything like that. Changing the colors and effects were very easy, as was adjusting the fan and pump speeds based on either pre-set profiles or a custom temperature profile. Since my cpu isn't overclocked, I left the fans and pump set to "quiet" and I was very pleased with how it was able to control temperatures with almost no sound. And that will round out the nice things about this cooler - It's very very quiet! The specifics of the installation will determine exactly how loud it is, however the fans were almost inaudible in my installation and all I heard was a very quiet stream of air coming out of the top of the case. Very quiet, almost unnoticeable. I will say that it was louder than my previous air cooler, however that is quite easily attributable to differences in the installation. My air cooler had a single fan and it was installed in the very center of the case, not up against an exhaust grille. So the cpu fan with the air cooler was completely silent and I never heard it. While the fans included with the Corsair H100i are very high quality and very quiet fans, they're mounted right up against the top exhaust vent grille, there is airflow disruption through both the radiator and the grille itself, and there are 2 fans instead of just one. So where the air cooler was 100% silent, I can barely hear this H100i. I'm not surprised, since that's simply the nature of high performance water coolers. When you use more fans and stick them right against the side of the case, you're going to hear them. So while I could barely hear the fans, I consider this a Pro not a Con because they were very quiet under all conditions and ought to remain quiet even if stressed with a newer overclocked cpu that generates more heat than mine does. Turning up the fans using the "balanced" setting dropped the cpu temps by about 2 degrees, and using the "extreme" setting dropped them another degree. I think the stock TIM included with the cooler probably held me back here since I expected a bigger difference between the silent and extreme fan settings. At "balanced", the sound of the fans was still pretty quiet under load and very quiet at idle. At "extreme" the fans produced a noticeable whoosh of air but there was no fan whine or unpleasant fan noises at all. Just the whooshing of air through the radiator.

Cons: When I unboxed the cooler and started getting ready to do the installation, I had a hard time figuring out which cooler standoff screws I needed. While the manual showed 3 separate standoff types and one of them was clearly assymetric in design, the 2 remaining types of standoffs were different only in how big they were. The instructions simply didn't say "These are big and these are small", so I had to guess which ones I needed. I guessed right, but I can see how someone could initially use the wrong standoffs and potentially damage their motherboard or cpu! The final con I had was that the instruction manual didn't highlight the need to go to the corsair website and download the iCUE software that you need to really control this unique cooler. From setting fan and temperature profiles, to pump speed and lighting effects, the iCUE software is absolutely KEY to getting the most out of this cooler. Maybe I'm blind but there was no CD in the box and I found no mention of any software or how to actually control the cooler in the instruction manual. This is a pretty big deficiency considering that a number of people who buy this all in one solution might not yet have the experience to automatically know that they're missing something and need to go get some software.

Overall Review: It isn't exactly a con for this cooler, but I have a corsair 500R case and while it appears to be well designed for putting a dual-fan cooler at the top of the case, they didn't leave quite enough room between the top of the motherboard edge and the top of the case. I couldn't fit both the radiator and the fans inside since the fans would hit my RAM sticks. So I had to mount the radiator outside of the case underneath the removable grille and the fans inside the case. It fit that way, however the grille doesn't quite snap shut quite right since it has to bend around the radiator just a bit in order to close. Basically this means that you need to be careful, as always, to match your cooler and case carefully. I had initially assumed that because corsair made both the case and the cooler, they would fit better. Instead, I found that this case was an early enough design that the cooler simply doesn't fit right so either the fans have to be inside the case and the cooler outside (the configuration if you want to exhaust the hot air), or the radiator inside and the fans outside (if you want maximum cpu cooling by using cold outside air blowing in across the radiator). And in the exhaust configuration, the radiator is simply too big to fit without having to bend the grille a bit to get it closed. Just be careful to match your components and you'll be fine. Overall, I was very pleased with my experience installing and using this cooler. The RGB lighting effects are very neat and since they're customizable, you can really make your installation unique. Installation was a bit of a puzzle since the case didn't allow quite enough room for an installation "by the book" according to the instruction manual, but that's a matter of matching your case to the cooler you're planning on using. In the end, I got it installed and the results more than met my expectations. The only concern with this cooler, aside from a slightly more complicated installation than some air coolers, is the price. If you're installing this on a stock i3, i5, or even i7 cpu, you might be spending a lot of money on cooling capacity that you really don't need. On the other hand, if you are using a modern higher temperature cpu or doing even mild overclocking, this cooler would certainly be worth the investment. I highly recommend this cpu to both casual enthusiasts looking for just a little more performance, and more performance oriented gamers and experts looking to get the most out of their overclocked rigs. There's great value and performance for both!

Pros: -One of the best looking all in one coolers on the market. LEDs are all nice and bright. The pump unit looks great, and Corsair ML fans are arguably the best looking RGB fans out there. -Overall performance is great- dropped my overclocked i5-4690K several tens of degrees at load vs my old hyper 212 evo. Fans perform great as well- good airflow while still being quiet. -Corsair's iCue software is pretty good- glad it works with my existing Corsair Link to control all the RGB lighting in my case. Lots of cool lighting effects. -Thermal paste is pretty good- replacing it with Arctic Cooling MX4 didn't seem to make a huge difference. I think it's fine to leave the stock thermal paste on.

Cons: -Expensive. But IMO it's worth it especially if you have other Corsair RGB gear already since the software is consolidated. -All the general cons of RGB- I won't take an egg off for this because this is a general con with RGB setups and you probably already know all these if you're building an RGB system: lots of wires- fans/pump have both power wires and RGB wires so you need to do some cable management, also may not be compatible with other RGB systems (I swapped out a cooler master system to Corsair since they look better),

Overall Review: Overall I love this upgrade, I think it makes a huge difference in how my build looks. It is expensive but if you want a top of the line RGB build, Corsair probably has the best looking parts and the best software as of time of writing this review.

Pros: As always meets a high standard for a solidly built computer component and : - has great warranty and support - RBG lovers dream with plenty of colors and color configurations via software - small footprint that makes it easy to install in many current cases on the market - fully compatible with all sockets on the market and cold plate design and size reflect that

Cons: -cooling capacity is excellent but not top notch in its class -fans a bit loud at high rpms -price

Overall Review: This is definitely an updated version of the H100i RBG, I would definitely recommend it to anyone seeking an RBG build with good cooling performance. The cooler is a RBG wonder with 16 independently controlled LED's and that is reflected in price.