Corsair Hydro Series H80i Liquid CPU Cooler Review

The Corsair H80i comes bundled with Corsair Link software and the provided cables needed to set this up. We have already checked out the Corsair Link software on the Corsair H100i so we have included the same brief overview of the Corsair Link software below. The software is now at version 2.3.4816 but not that much has changed in terms of features and lay-out except bug fixes, optimisations and support for new hardware. If you want to see Corsair’s own Corsair Link user guide then I’d definitely recommend checking that out here, otherwise our overview below gives quite a quick and concise summary of Corsair Link.

The Corsair Link Software (tested with version 2.2.0) is Corsair’s unifying program that allows you to control everything you could possibly need in one place. For our review purposes we are just looking the functionality of this with respect to the Corsair H100i (and H80i).

The first key part is the ability to adjust fan speeds. The panel allows you to adjust a lot of things but fan profilesis the most useful in the context of the Corsair Hydro Series coolers.

This is a close up of the config panel for adjusting fan speeds. As you can see you get a whole load of fan operating modes. There are also a whole load of other options which some users may find useful such as email updates or automatic shut-downs.

The Corsair Link software also allows you to keep track of all the specific details regarding your pump.

There is an ability to change the RPM divider of the pump which changes the way the pump reports the RPM this is useful only if you decide to use the Corsair Link software with another pump that isn’t Corsair made. For example you may have a Corsair case and power supply and want to use Corsair Link to manage your custom water cooled system.

The ability to tune the LEDs is a relatively unique feature that the Corsair H100i and Corsair H80i offers. Only NZXT’s Kraken X40 and X60 units offer a similar function.

You have three choices of LED modes. The normal setting which is just a single colour of your choice using the colour bar at the bottom to choose. The cycling mode which cycles through a variety of colours and the temperature mode which changes colour based on temperature intervals which you can set (as shown below).