Corsair Hydro Series H60 CPU cooler review

by Parm Mann on 28 March 2011, 09:00 4.0

Final thoughts and rating

Our benchmarks have confirmed what you might have already expected; Hydro H60 performance sits slap-bang in the middle of the £50 Hydro H50 and £75 Hydro H70.

Temperatures are kept well within comfortable limits, and the £60 self-contained unit is a strong challenger to high-end air coolers. We reckon premium air coolers with a couple of fans will have the edge when it comes to extreme overclocking, but there are other factors aside from out-and-out performance to take into consideration.

As an overall package, the Hydro H60 scores well in many of the key areas - installation is simple, minimal stress is applied to the motherboard, the low-profile pump looks tidy and leaves plenty of room around the CPU, and it's a more than capable cooler when set to run at near-silent noise levels. Heck, it looks the business, too.

The Hydro H60 isn't the best-performing CPU cooler we've ever seen, but at £60 it's one of the best all-inclusive units and represents a marked step up from the award-winning Hydro H50.

The Good

Better cooling performance than Hydro H50
Practically silent with low fan speeds
Compact low-profile pump
Simple installation

The Bad

£60 is a lot of money for a cooler
Can struggle at extreme loads

HEXUS Rating

Corsair Hydro Series H60

HEXUS Awards

Corsair Hydro Series H60

HEXUS Where2Buy

The Corsair Hydro Series H60 cooler is available to purchase from SCAN.co.uk*.

HEXUS Right2Reply

At HEXUS, we invite the companies whose products we test to comment on our articles. If any company representatives for the products reviewed choose to respond, we'll publish their commentary here verbatim.

*As always, UK-based HEXUS.community forum members will benefit from the SCAN2HEXUS Free Shipping initiative, which will save you a further few pounds plus also top-notch, priority customer service and technical support backed up by the SCANcare@HEXUSforum.

HEXUS Forums :: 13 Comments

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Posted by miniyazz - Mon 28 Mar 2011 10:19

Interesting review. I suspect a lot of people would benefit from a GPU-style table pseudo-officially documenting noise levels between all coolers at idle/load though, as it would be good to know noise differences between all coolers and not just H60 vs stock!

Also,

The 120mm x 25mm blower is said to be custom designed to offer higher static pressure, allowing for sufficient air to flow through the radiator's dense array of fans, while keeping noise levels down to a minimum.

The fan's seven blades spin at speeds of up to 1,700RPM and are capable of providing an airflow of 74.4CFM. In contrast, the fan bundled with the Hydro H50 ran at the same speeds but could muster an airflow of only 59.05CFM. All the signs suggest better-than-H50 performance.

I find it somewhat odd that you talk about the fan's high static pressure but then move onto CFM ratings. I wouldn't go so far as to say they're totally unrelated, but you certainly can't draw any static pressure conclusions from them. Some fans with a high rated CFM will have a very poor actual CFM when you introduce resistance (i.e. a radiator) whereas others with lower-rated CFMs will nearly maintain those CFMs once resistance is added and so offer greater performance through a radiator. It's the difference between case fans and radiator/HS fans really - one you want to shift lots of air against minimal resistance (case fans, with high CFM) and the other you want to shift significant air against resistance, for which you need high static pressure but CFM is much less important.

Granted, you might not know the static pressure rating, but it's a bit odd nonetheless!

Posted by Brewster0101 - Mon 28 Mar 2011 12:21

Wonder how noisy that small pump is.

To be honest a comparison with a simple custom water loop would be also be benificial. Its well known that these pre-made kits are not usually any where near as good a seperate water kit. I understand they can work out a little cheaper and offer a no hassle approach as no assembly is required, but seeing a comparison would be good.

Posted by ehhhhhhh - Mon 28 Mar 2011 12:45

To be honest a comparison with a simple custom water loop would be also be benificial. Its well known that these pre-made kits are not usually any where near as good a seperate water kit. I understand they can work out a little cheaper and offer a no hassle approach as no assembly is required, but seeing a comparison would be good.

I'm interested in this too, but reviewers might think that the huge price difference makes the comparison a bit pointless.

You can only get a CPU block for the price of the H60.

it would be nice to see articles and reviews on proper watercooling hardware on the site though :)

Posted by Brewster0101 - Mon 28 Mar 2011 13:59

You can pick up a water block for £30, pump for about £25 and 120mm radiator for £25. Add £15 for tubing and liquid , so £100 ish. So on on hand the H60 looks like a good option, but on the other hand you can't add any more blocks for video card.

Posted by miniyazz - Mon 28 Mar 2011 16:10

The prices for pump/water block seem quite cheap - are you talking new prices?

Also, good luck cooling a GPU as well as a CPU with a single 120mm rad :p

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