My old H50 has been faithful since day one, but in the past couple of days I've been testing different mounting options and fans.Two things I've realized (or rather reaffirmed):

• Fan direction is important on the radiator. Corsair suggest setting the fan up to intake from the rear exhaust on the case. Load temps are much cooler with the radiator fan as an intake (5-6C cooler than exhaust). This makes sense, of course. Warmer system air flowing through the radiator fins doesn't help it do it's job any better.
• What fan you use makes a difference. The stock corsair fan that came with this H50 gets the job done. The Feser Triebwerk fan I use does a better job, though. It's higher static pressure makes all of the difference when used as a pusher fan. The caveat is that the Feser has a "whine" to it that is audible at all voltages. I'm using the stock Corsair fan for now, as this week before school I've been working on the system extensively, but I believe I had forgotten how different the H50 is when stock vs. "modded".

I know the H-series Corairs are the Bee's Knees these days, so I challenge you guys to test out different configurations if you haven't already. I apparently had forgotten how much of a difference my little mod made!Anyone else have any mods or tricks they use for these neat little closed loop systems?

I don't have any good tricks or mods but I think I am gonna change my h70 to intake from the rear now that I have a good airflow case. The antec 300 I saw a worst performance the way corsair recommends.I might try intake from rear and front and exhaust out the top and intake from rear exhaust out the front and top

Does this count???

Does this count???

lolz all that and a 250GTS. Corey you puzzle me. Seriously, how much better are your temps from that rad mod? Looks nice.Taylor, sounds like a plan.

lolz all that and a 250GTS. Corey you puzzle me. Seriously, how much better are your temps from that rad mod? Looks nice.

:LMAO:I was thinking the same thing!

Hehe, I know :Loser:! When I built this system, I was convinced that Kepler would be released by December 2011. Had I known it wouldn't be out till Spring 2012, I would have picked up a GTX 560 at the time. Now I've waited this long, so there's no point in upgrading now...To tell you the truth, I wasn't able to measure any temperature improvement with the thicker radiator and on the stock h50 radiator, I only measured 1C improvement going from the stock h50 fans to the GT AP15's. It looks cool and it was lots of fun, so I guess that works for me.I was thinking of upgrading to the H100, but it seems Corsair is having LOTS of noise complaints with it... that and I kind of want to go with something a little more upgrade-able. I'm seriously considering one of these Swiftech H20-220 kits. My current cooling system works just fine, but playing with water cooling is lots of fun!

Edited January 9, 201214 yr by cmeeks

I had eyed the ST H20- kits before, but I decided if I were going to go full water cooling, I'd buy what I needed and skip the kit. Eventually I decided I just couldn't justify leaving these closed loops and splurging like that. Plus, historically projects like that don't go well for me (we're talking purchasing a new mobo here [not to mention the OCZ PSU I dropped last week]). What sort of complaints? Probably from DH14 converts. I've played with my friend's H100 he has mounted in my old CM690 case (the original 690). It's not all that noisy IMO. Obviously having the two fans running balls to the wall won't be silent, but the difference in cooling from full voltage to half is negligible. At the lowest setting they're nearly inaudible. I was impressed enough to plan on using the rest of my Best Buy gift cards to purchase the H100.

Edited January 9, 201214 yr by ZachLW

What sort of complaints? Probably from DH14 converts. I've played with my friend's H100 he has mounted in my old CM690 case (the original 690). It's not all that noisy IMO. Obviously having the two fans running balls to the wall won't be silent, but the difference in cooling from full voltage to half is negligible. At the lowest setting they're nearly inaudible. I was impressed enough to plan on using the rest of my Best Buy gift cards to purchase the H100.

Complaints with pump noise. The radiator is so thin on the H100, I wouldn't be surprised if they're having a difficult time keeping air bubbles out of the pump unless they really fill it with water to the max. I'm sure Corsair can't guarantee EXACTLY the same amount of liquid in each and every unit. Too little liquid and air is going to get sucked right down into the pump. You will notice the Swiftech kit has a built in reservoir to prevent exactly this. Then again, the MCP-35X pump moves considerably more water than the H100.Anyway, I've been wavering between the H100 and custom water for some time. I had originally planned on building my own loop (even bought the pump) and I could even build a better performing system for cheaper than the Swiftech setup, but I decided I really like how the pump is integrated into the radiator on the Swiftech kit. TOP cooling performance is rather pointless. I would rather have all-around good performance (better than any air cooling unit or H-series setup) and good looks to go along with it! It's definitely hard to justify, though, especially when the next CPU's are going down to 22nm. On the flipside, that makes adding a GPU into the loop even easier.

It's not all that noisy IMO. Obviously having the two fans running balls to the wall won't be silent, but the difference in cooling from full voltage to half is negligible. At the lowest setting they're nearly inaudible. I was impressed enough to plan on using the rest of my Best Buy gift cards to purchase the H100.

I've seen a lot of people complain about fan noise, too - but they're all idiots. ANY fan at 2500 rpm is going to be loud! There's nobody saying you have to run it at 2500. Reviews have already shown the H100 performs extremely well even on the low setting. I believe there was a recent review that even showed it outperforming the NH-D14 on the low setting.Funny enough, pumps are the same way. Running them faster provides negligible cooling improvement, especially as the heat they dump back into the loop at high rpms can exceed 15 or 20 watts if I remember correctly. Not to mention the noise they make at high rpms.

Edited January 9, 201214 yr by cmeeks

I've read a lot of people say the fans are loud on the H series of coolers too. The thing is corsair has them setup to run full blast unless you use the included resistor(s) that at least came with the H70 (Not sure about the rest of the H series). I just installed the resistors and the noise level dropped a lot and the temps are not that much higher. In fact almost the same if not the same.

I've read a lot of people say the fans are loud on the H series of coolers too. The thing is corsair has them setup to run full blast unless you use the included resistor(s) that at least came with the H70 (Not sure about the rest of the H series). I just installed the resistors and the noise level dropped a lot and the temps are not that much higher. In fact almost the same if not the same.

Yeah. You'll only notice a difference in load temps after over 15 minutes of simming/stress testing in regards to fan speed.As always, I suggest a quality fan controller. It makes things so easy and quiet.

I replaced the Corsair H70 stock 3-pin fans with Scythe KAMA-FLEX PWM 120mm 4-pin fans. Using them with the Gelid Solutions PWM Y-cable, I can run both fans off the mobo CPU fan header. Cuts way down on the noise and when needed, I'm still getting over 2000 rpm from each fan. Running the fans in a push-pull configuration with the air blowing into the case. I tried a couple of different fan placements. At first I thought I wanted both fans blowing out of the case even though Corsair says have them blowing in. I tried it both ways and it is actually a few degrees cooler to have the fans blowing into the case. That way the radiator is getting cool outside air rather than warm inside case air. I have a large 200mm exhaust fan on the top of my Antec 900 case. That makes a huge difference in getting the hot air out of the case. I also have the top 120mm case fan as an exhaust and the bottom front fan as an intake.