Corsair Hydro Series H80i Liquid CPU Cooler Review

Corsair’s H80i has been out on the market for a while now and as a result we’ve seen prices come down quite a lot over time. Today you can pick the Corsair H80i up for £76.99 at Specialtech, £76.99 at Overclockers UK and £76.56 at Scan Computers International while Amazon users can find it for £79.70 and in the USA it can be had on Newegg for $89.99. On the pricing front then we can see that Corsair are as competitive as ever and if you don’t have room for a 240mm radiator or large CPU heatsink cooler then the Corsair H80i is one of the most competitively priced high performance solutions on the market. For comparison the Water 2.0 Pro costs £84.95 / $94.99 and something like a Cooler Master Seidon 240M costs £89.98 / $99.99.

We can see then that the Corsair H80i is both the cheapest dual fan and “above single thickness” water cooling AIO on the market. It is also dramatically cheaper than most 240mm AIO solutions. Yet that cheaper price doesn’t see much performance lost and the extra compatibility offered by 120mm form factor certainly makes the Corsair H80i a more viable solution for the masses. Furthermore Corsair go above and beyond what most competitors offer by giving you full LED functionality, advanced fan controls, high quality PWM fans and a massive five year warranty if the product should ever go wrong.

There are a few niggles I had with the Corsair H80i such as the fact the fans whined when connected to the pump unit, yet they don’t do that when connected to a fan controller or a motherboard. Furthermore the Corsair H80i product page no longer lists the H80i firmware update files to fix this so I am not sure what Corsair’s stance is on doing firmware updates, though you can still get the latest 1.0.5 firmware on their forums here so it is presumably still supported and covered by warranty. That said it is worth mentioning that all NEW versions (AKA ones bought now or in the past few months) will come with the latest firmware update so you should never need to do one and Corsair probably won’t release at 1.0.6 firmware update as the current latest firmware is perfectly operational (we had an older review sample). Secondly, the stand-offs with the mounting are very sensitive to over-tightening and Corsair still haven’t put a warning in the manual about this so I warn users once again when installing your H80i do not use a screwdriver for anything other than installing the fans. Finally I felt the acoustic performance was a bit weak (exemplified by the whine) and the cooling performance in quiet mode was also a bit slack given how excellent it was in higher speed modes. Yet in quiet mode the Corsair H80i performs quite sub-par relative to other solutions at a similar noise level that perform much better.

Pros

• Excellent cooling performance for the form factor
• High quality fans
• Advanced fan control
• Corsair Link software functionality
• Braided/black cables all round
• Epic 5 year warranty
• Relatively tool-less and simple installation
• LED control
• Aesthetics are excellent, glossy pump unit and unique grey fans
• Corsair updated fans to 4 pin from 3 pin

Cons

• Competing solutions are generally a fair bit quieter
• Performance in quiet mode leaves much to be desired
• Older SKUs may come with 3 pin fans and/or old firmware which causes fan whine, double check with your retailer of choice before you buy
• Standoffs vulnerable to bending/snapping from locking nut (over)tightening, manual needs more warnings
• Firmware updates tucked away/subtly discouraged by Corsair

eTeknix says: If you are on a relatively tight budget then the Corsair H80i is a clear winner in the all-in-one closed loop liquid cooling market as it offers highly competitive performance at a lower price than its rivals. If you combine this with a simple mainly tool-less installation, high quality fans, well presented aesthetics, customisable LED lighting and a 5 year warranty then its easy to see why the Corsair H80i is so attractive to many system builders. What’s more the 120mm form factor makes it highly compatible with most cases on the market. The only blemish worth mentioning on this otherwise excellent product is that its acoustic performance falls a bit short of the competition, that said you can’t have it all and the Corsair H80i has an excellent balance between size, noise, performance and quality.

We would like to say a big thank you to Corsair for providing this review sample.