Review: Corsair A500

Conclusion

After almost a decade of Hydro Series exclusivity, Corsair has returned to the air-cooled arena with the launch of the A500.

Priced at £90 and geared toward enthusiasts who prefer not to add liquid to their rigs, the large, dual-fan cooler is tasked with challenging established competitors from the likes of be-quiet!, Deepcool and Noctua.

No small task, yet in many aspects the A500 is a welcome alternative. Corsair's RGB-less aesthetic is tidy, installation couldn't be much simpler, the bundle is comprehensive, and height-adjustable fan rails represent a marked improvement over traditional clips. Cooling performance in our benchmarks is also on a par with the likes of the Assassin III and NH-D15, and the only frustration is fan noise, with the A500's 120mm blowers becoming clearly audible under load.

Bottom line: a £90 price tag for the A500 is perhaps optimistic, yet it is good to see Corsair add a premium air cooler to its range, and we're intrigued to see where the A-Series goes from here.

Corsair A500

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The Corsair A500 CPU cooler is available to purchase from Scan Computers.

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