Pros: Rivals the some of the best air coolers out there, no maintenance like traditional water coolers, SUPER easy installation, seems to be good quality.
Cons: Instructions are lacking (see my installation tips below), must buy additional fans to unlock its full potential (I didn't ding it for this in my rating because I knew this when I decided to purchase it), no screws for a second fan, an intake setup will screw up the airflow in your case so expect to play with the case fans a little to get it right. Ideally, I would like to knock off half a star for the instructions.
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General comments: The build quality is excellent however I did notice that a couple of the fins were slightly bent right out of the box. The threads on female thumb screws and the male thumb screws did not match up very well, so I still had to use a screwdriver after tightening them as much as possible with my hands. No big deal. The included fan has an annoying whining noise at full speed but I had planned on replacing it anyways. As with any high speed fan, I think the noise level would be reduced significantly by an anti-vibration gasket which can be purchased for about $5. At the time of writing this review, they are not on Amazon but Frozencpu has them (Feser 120mm Xvibe Noise Absorber).
I didn't keep the stock fan. I ended up doing a push/pull setup using two XIGMATEK 120MM XSF-F1252 Case Fans which are rated at 75 CFM and seem to have pretty decent static pressure. They also make a whining noise but its more tolerable than the stock fan. If you want to run a two fan setup, you will need to run to your local hardware store and pick up four 6-32x1-1/4" screws and four #6 washers.
The performance seems very good. With my OVERCLOCKED setup below, I am getting about 26C idle and 65C load with an ambient temperature around 22C. With the stock fan setup, you can expect a 4-6 degree increase in temperature. Pretty sweet if you ask me.
CPU: 2600K OC to 4.7 GHZ at 1.365v
Cooler: H60 with a push/pull intake
Mobo: Asus P8P67 Delux
RAM: Corsair Vengance 8gb 1866
Graphics: 2 x SLI MSI GTX 560Ti
SSD: OCZ Vertex 3 120gb
HDD: Samsung Spinpoint 72 1tb
PSU: Cooler Master Silent Pro M 1000w
Case: Cooler Master CM 690 Advance
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Installation tips: There are two sets of thumb screws required for the installation, one set with two male ends, one set with female threads. To get the perfect installation, all these screws need to be evenly tensioned so that the cooling block sits evenly over the CPU. To do that, attach the back plate to the mobo using the male thumb screws. Tighten them by hand, a quarter turn past snug should do the trick. The cooling block is secured by the female thumb screws. Put the cooling block on top of the cpu and barely thread the female thumb screws on, just enough so that they are on (one or two threads). Then, in the X pattern shown in the instructions you want to tighten each about 1.5 turns at a time until they are all tight. This should ensure even tension. Don't over-tighten the thumb screws as this may mess up the contact between the CPU and the CPU pins on the mobo. A quarter turn to half turn past snug should do the trick. Remember, if you are unsure, its better to err on the side of caution.
Intake or exhaust? The instructions recommend intake for best results. I agree because cool air from outside your case is used to cool the radiator. If you run a exhaust setup, the hot air from inside your case is used to cool the radiator. Keep in mind that an intake setup will probably mess up the airflow in your case since most cases are set up so that the air flows from front to back. You will need to change the orientation of some of your case fans so that the air flows from back to front. Its important to have good exhaust fans to expel all that hot air being blown into your case by the H60. In addition to the two 120mm intake fans for the radiator, I have one 120mm side intake to keep my graphics cool, two 140mm exhausts in the top of my case, and one 140 exhaust in front.
The instructions tell you to plug the fan into the CPU fan header on your mobo, and the pump into any available 3 pin fan header. Since the power going to each of my 4 chassis fan headers cannot be adjusted independently, and because the pump needs a constant 12v supply of power I found it easier to plug it into my CPU fan header and change the fan setting so that it constantly gets full power. I then plug the fans into a regulated 3 pin fan header on the motherboard so that they, along with my regulated case fans, only kick into full power when needed. Or, if you prefer, just plug the pump directly into your PSU and save that CPU fan header for something else.
The thermal grease included with the unit is very good. I recommend trying it out before running out and buying some fancy $10 tube. Corsair Cooling Hydro Series All in One High-performance Liquid CPU Cooler CWCH60
I've only had this cooler for a little while, so I'll update this later on to
For starters, I'm currently running a three year old Quad 9550, so the option to upgrade to a 2nd Generation i7 processor and use this cooler is a real bonus! I've tweaked around with my clock speed on the 9550 and found that I can push it all the way past 4.2ghz before it becomes unstable. I'm currently running at 3.4ghz, and this cooler will keep my temps under 60°C even under 1-2 Hours of maximum load bench tests. My average idle temps are about 38°C, and average load temps while playing games are now at about 50°C. Comparatively, my old idle temps with a stock cooler were 40°C and my load temps maxed at about 75°C.
Overall, installation was a breeze, and the mounts for Intel boards are much better than the silly push-pin things that come with LGA755 stock coolers. Word of advice, though: the water block that mounts on the CPU is actually kind of big, and if you don't have a motherboard that was build with a large cooler in mind, you might find that it doesn't fit. In my case, I couldn't mount the cooler in the direction shown in the picture; it ran into a few capacitors on my board, and I had to rotate it 90 degrees in order to make it fit. However, I'd expect that this cooler will fit on almost any modern gaming board.
Other than that, I'm very satisfied with this cooler. It does its job very well, and I won't need to worry about my CPU temperature again! - Qty 2 - Corsair'
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