Final thoughts
Corsair has attempted to design the easiest-to-install watercooling system on the market; one that it reckons can be installed within 15 minutes and one that will provide better cooling than all but the most extreme air-cooled setups.
The Corsair Nautilus500 is the simplest watercooling system we've come across. The external, all-in-one nature, carried on over from the HydroCool series, means that you don't have to mix and match parts; the hard work is done for you. Multi-platform support is also present, as is the opportunity of adding in GPU and northbridge blocks at a later date.
However, from unpacking, reading of the basic instructions through to complete installation, we reckon that a novice user would require between 30-45 minutes, depending upon which platform was used. Sure, there's no board uninstallation to contend with and general setup is a logical affair, but simply unpacking and a careful perusal of the manual will take up the allotted 15 minutes, making Corsair's bold claim rather hard to believe.
One of watercooling's benefits is a lack of noise when compared with traditional air-cooled setups. The 120mm radiator fan barely makes a hum at 1,300RPM and is largely unnoticeable at 1,800RPM, The pump, though, is a little louder than we'd have hoped for, spoiling the possibility of a near-silent machine.
Performance was good on both Intel and AMD platforms, easily beating out decent, noisier (at full load) air coolers' results. We'd expect the performance delta to increase during the upcoming summer months, when ambient temperatures rocket and air cooling becomes less effective.
Corsair £99 Nautilus500 package, then, is a mixture of mainly good and a little not so good. It's easy to install, albeit not in the 15 minutes that Corsair likes to quote in certain literature. Cross-platform performance is good, too, and the entire system is a cinch to remove, transport and re-attach, should the need arise. We even shipped it between HEXUS addresses with the Nautilus500 pre-filled with coolant, and we were pleased to see not a drop spilled.
In an ideal world, we'd like Corsair to take another look at the fiddly LGA775 mounting mechanism that Intel favours and, perhaps the use of a quieter pump. Other than that, it's the simplest way to get into watercooling.
