Corsair CWCH50-1 Water Cooler

In contrast to one or two reviewers, I found this a pretty simple install. My motherboard is a Gigabyte GA-770TA-UD3 with AM3 socket. The brackets fit well and with plenty of clearance. The pump itself is small so should not interfere with any other parts like RAM (clearance can be a problem with larger fan and air based coolers). From opening the PC case, the whole process of taking PCI and graphics cards out, motherboard out, bracket exchange, fan and radiator install and then CPU pad/pump install, replace cards, testing and then closing up the case took no more than 45 minutes - and I don't have a removable panel behind the CPU so the motherboard did have to come out.Cooling is very effective, even with my AMD Phenom II X4 965 running flat out on all four cores. The supplied fan is pretty quiet too (but replaced after a few months with a Cooling 11 bladed job, even quieter)It is important to point out (although it is in the instructions) the pump must connect to a non-controlled fan outlet so that it always runs at full speed (it is extremely quiet, just about silent) and the cooling fan that blows air through the radiator should be connected to the CPU fan connector on the motherboard. That way, the fluid is always circulated, and the cooling breeze is varied according to the needs of the processor.What more can I say - it just works. Five stars.UPDATE July 2011 (after 18 months) - still works just as well as when new. I have had to blow the dust out of the radiator, but that's to be expected. And I have changed the processor - now a Phenom II x6 1100T - it runs just as cool as before if not better.

The unit has superb cooling power, but I'll mention the cons first which may help others make an informed decision before buying this cooler.The first problem you may face, depending on your case & motherboard, is that the radiator unit may not fit at the rear of your case (due to the unit's thickness & the protruding tubes obstructing the motherboards north bridge heat sink fan assembly). On my Coolermaster CM690 II Advanced case it barely makes it. I had initially planned on using an additional fan on the radiator for a push pull setup, but decided against this as it would mean obstructing the North bridge fan completely.The thickness of the radiator gives rise to the next problem: the side upper 140mm fan on my case side cover gets obstructed by the radiator & so I couldn't close the case side cover any longer. This forced me to compromise, using a 120mm fan instead for the side.Lastly, as mentioned by various other reviewers, the assembly may require one to remove the entire motherboard from the case & is fiddly - not really a con but good to know nevertheless.On the plus side, once the initial hurdles are overcome the cooler does a great job. On my system with a Phenom II X6 1055T oc'ed to 3Ghz, the idle & load temps are around 33 & 58 max respectively. Bear in mind the load temp is while using LinX & torture testing the CPU to the max. Also min temp is with the fan running at only 1000 RPM (whisper quite). Once the temp hits the 45 centigrade mark my bios auto increases the fan's speed to it's max rated RPM of 1600. At this speed the fan noise IS quite audible & can be slightly annoying. Fortunately such a scenario rarely arises.As a comparison, my previous cooler, an Arctic Cooling Freezer Pro, caused CPU temps to soar into the 80's (the Phenom II X6's rated safe max temp is only 62 degrees) during xtreme stress testing.I'm sure with a dual or quad core cpu the performance of this cooler is gonna be even better.Hence all in all a worthwhile purchase for me.

When I got my Intel Q9550 I said I would replace the retail heatsink and fan at a later date when I had more funding and found this while looking about. The item is very good at doing what it says as my PC sits at about 35 degrees and about 45 when in heavy use (games, video editing) which cant be complained at. Installing the thing is very easy but you will have to take your motherboard out as you need to attach something behind the CPU to keep the thing in place but after that its fairly plain sailing. It screws in neatly and the radiator and fan which is supplied connects to the back with little issue. Noise isnt an issue with this as its much quieter than the fan on the GPU or any case fans you may have installed. The cooler does come with a thin layer of thermal compound on it but I prefer to use my own to be honest but its a nice touch they didnt have to do. All in all its feels well made and fits well in my average sized case. Im sure it would fit in a smaller case but may be a bit of a squeeze and the pipes are reinforced and dont bend to much.If your really serious about cooling then your want to invest in something more meaty than this but for A+ CPU cooling you cant get much better than this without buying the high end heatsinks.

I bought this simple water cooler to replace my huge Asus cooler and I have to report that it works just as well as the Asus but taking up minimal space. My Antec twelve hundred extreme gamer case is huge though so I can't comment on how it would fit in a more compact case. Earlier experiments with full water cooling systems ended up with damaged graphic cards and motherboard when water escaped. My wife was totally agains another water cooling system predicting yet another disaster. No such problems though.You may have to remove the motherboard to fit the backplate unless you happen to have a case with access to that area of the mobo or, as in my case, the backplate to my previous cooler had the same threads so I was able to use that instead of the one that was supplied.Anyway - my overclocked i7 920 running at 3.4GHz hovers around 42C idling and about 60C when running Prime95 at 3.6GHz (Intel speedstep in operation) while not spectacular, is perfectly acceptable.