Today's Hard|Forum Post
Today's Hard|Forum Post
Date:
Monday , March 02, 2015
Author:
Marc Adams
Editor:
Kyle Bennett
Share:

Corsair Hydro Series H110 280mm AIO CPU Cooler Review

We today have our final installment of "re-reviewing" the older Corsair Hydro Series AIO coolers on our modern testing platform. Two years ago the Corsair H110 proved itself to be a good value when it comes to sealed liquid All-In-One CPU coolers, but how does it perform a couple of years later? What does the H110 get you with today's hardware.

Introduction

Today brings us the final chapter in our look back at Corsair’s Hydro line of AIO coolers. We first reviewed the H110 back in February of 2013 and found it to be a very good cooler if a bit pricey given its competition. With twenty-four months between then and now, we look at how the Corsair H110 has held up, see if it can still compete against modern AIO coolers and how its overall value stacks up to the best the competition has to offer.

The "Corsair Hydro Series™ H110 280mm Extreme Performance Liquid CPU Cooler" remains unchanged from our original review. It utilizes a 280mm radiator paired with two 140mm fans for cooling. An additional two fans can be added for push/pull performance and Corsair uses its improved tubing on the H110.

Article Image

System Setup

Today's review takes place on our fourth generation [H]ard platform. The test bed consists of the ASUS Z97-A motherboard, eight gigabytes of Corsair 1600 MHz DDR3 RAM and the Intel Core i7-4770K.

Article Image

Test Methods

CPU

The biggest change you will notice is the removal of hardware testing. In recent years, Intel has shifted their methods of testing to software based and so we find it acceptable to do the same.

GPU

Once again we have an integrated GPU in our processor which alleviates the need for a discrete one. With the removal of a discrete GPU comes the advantage of not having an additional variable to account for.

The iGPU will not create any anomalies in our testing as long as we practice consistent testing methods.

Case

Corsair was kind enough to provide us with their Carbide series chassis. It provides excellent airflow and interior space and is a good reflection on current case design.

Thermal Paste

Noctua's NT-H1 thermal paste was selected as the paste of choice for a few key reasons. The thermal paste has been shown to provide excellent thermal conductivity allowing the heat sinks to better do their job. There is no observed curing time. That is, performance does not get any better over time. Any curing time could have introduced variables into the equation causing at best dubious results and at worst unreliable ones.

Temperatures

Ambient temperature will be kept at 25C for the duration of the tests and measured with a MicroTemp EXP non-contact infrared thermometer and cross referenced with the Sperry Digital 4 Point thermometer. Any variance greater then 0.2C will halt the testing until temperatures return within spec for fifteen minutes.

Idle

Idle temperatures will be recorded after a twenty minute period of inactivity. Any fluctuation during the last sixty seconds will reset the timer for an additional five minutes.

Load

Load temperatures will be recorded after a twenty minute period for air cooled systems, and thirty minutes for liquid cooled systems, at 100% load. To obtain this load we will be using AIDA64 Extreme Edition v3.00.2500. This places an even greater load on the CPU than before and includes some benefits. Because the load is so extreme we see the temperature vary wildly from 72C to 86C in some instances. To get an accurate reading we will utilize AIDA64’s ability to average the temperature over time. Given twenty/thirty minutes at 100% load we arrive at a temperature that accurately represents our heatsink’s performance.

Sound

Sound levels will be measured with a Reliability Direct AR824 sound meter from a distance of four feet away. With everything turned off and the room completely silent the meter registered a sound level of 38dB(A). This is a very quiet room where a simple pin drop could be heard. All sound measurements are recorded in the very late evening to further reduce any ambient noise.