Corsair CW-9060013-WW Hydro Series H90 140 mm High Performance Liquid CPU Cooler

I bought this to replace a Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO air cooler, not expecting a huge difference as I have a Corsair Air 540 case which has crazy good airflow. I was switching coolers only because I wanted to put the 212 in another computer and was curious about AIO liquid cooling.That said, I decided to go with the straight from the box to my motherboard route, didn't use aftermarket thermal paste, just put it together and power it up. This is going on a Core i5 4690k/ASRock Z97 setup that already idles at 30-32C and about 55-60C during gaming. The Hyper 212 is a fantastic air cooler if it'll fit in your case!I removed the rear exhaust 140mm case fan and put the H90 fan/rad as a pull exhaust (fan on case exhausting and radiator on that). Not the recommended mount, it is recommended to mount the fan as an intake, but like I said, the 540 Air case runs frosty anyways. The setup of the pump assembly isn't too hard although the instructions aren't super clear. I finger tightened all 4 pump bolts down until they stopped and then torqued them just slightly by hand. I would not recommend using tools, they aren't designed that way!Once installed, I plugged the cabling back in and fired it up. As soon as I got logged back into Windows I started HWMonitor to see and I'm instantly getting a few degrees cooler temps already. Now I idle around 26-30C and under a Prime95 stress I max out around 60C after an hour of stressing.A few notes: On first powering up after install the air bubbles in the pump are pretty loud, but after a few minutes the bubbling noise goes away and has not returned. Noise-wise I'm assuming it is slightly quieter as I have one less fan from my setup now, but the EVO 212 fan is pretty quiet anyways. My front intake fans (stock 140mm Corsair case fans) are loud anyways so I can't totally tell the difference yet. Replacing those might be my next project.Pros: Fairly easy install (but I'm experienced), quiet after initial power up, getting better cooling with stock thermal paste than EVO 212 with AS5 paste.Cons: Not sure I have any cons to this product, everything is running nice and cool like I expected. Pretty happy with the looks and performance for this cooler!UPDATE: overclocked my Core i5 from 3.9 to 4.4Ghz and I am still idling around 30-32C and Prime95 stresses it I hit high 60's. This is with the fans in my case set to under 1000 RPMs to control noise (around 36db). Pretty good!

I like this thing. It has made my computer way quieter and really brought down temperatures. I didn't do any objective measurements, so look to other reviews for that, but I did want to chime in on one thing, and that's fit.Make SURE this thing is going to fit on your case. That radiator is way bigger than it looks in pictures, and the tubes from it to the pump are pretty short. Also, you need way more clearance than you might realize to fit both the fan and the radiator. Pull out the old cloth measuring tape and check if it will fit. Because if it doesn't fit, you're going to either have to return it or buy a new case.Second, make sure to think about the airflow in your case and how you want to install it before you go ahead and buy. There's a reason many cases have the exhaust fan near the top -- heat rises. Corsair recommends mounting this fan as an intake, but on many cases that can be problematic. The CPU location and tube length mandate that this fan be high up in the case. It would be tempting to mount this thing as an intake on the upper back of your case and make the lower case fans the exhaust. However, In my experience if you do this, you'll just wind up just bottling heat up in the middle of your case right near the GPU. Fortunately for me, my case had another exhaust fan option on the top, so I was able to keep this fan on the back as an intake and add an exhaust fan above it. But it really would be worth thinking about your intended fan setup before you just jump in.A few last quick notes:-I've found that the pump makes a really minor glug glug glug that for me slowly went away with use. With my case shut it is not audible.-The fan that comes with it is a superstar. That thing can really push air around and is quieter than other fans I've bought for the amount of air it can move. It'd be overkill in many situations, but as your primary CPU fan I found it to be fantastic.-I mounted this fan in a push pull configuration with two fans sandwiching the radiator. To do this you need a ton of clearance and another fan, but you get an even cooler CPU for your effort.-Installation took a while. Getting the pump installed requires a bunch of parts and mounting brackets. As other reviews mention, the instructions included can be really hard to follow-- They reminded me of bad erector set instructions. Also I found getting the screws into the radiator to be a royal pain. It's hard to line up, the holes are not all that visible, and the radiator vents are sized so that if you miss, you could easily start screwing into the radiator itself. Hard to fault the radiator for this, but again, it really is a hard install. Don't expect to just slap this thing on. That said, if you know your way around a computer case you'll be fine.I love this thing, but it could be a REALLY frustrating purchase if won't fit into your case. We're all so used to computer parts just working. Unfortunately, I'm guessing there are a lot of cases out there this wouldn't fit into. Make sure you've got the clearance before you purchase.