Corsair Cooling Ice T30 TEC Memory Cooler Review

Some Assembly Required

The T30 does require a little bit of assembly to mount it to the memory modules but the results are well worth the 30 minutes spent fiddling with it. The T30 is essentially a H30 with a TEC, a mounting plate for the memory, and a fancy power supply. When you receive the T30 the system is assembled however there is no thermal material applied to the TEC and there are no screws inserted into the T30 for mounting to the memory modules. The following pictures attempt to highlight the various stages of assembly while showing off the T30.

Here you can see the white ceramic plated TEC, the H30 waterblock, the bottom mounting plate, and the small black temperature probe. To begin disassembly we had to remove the four screws holding on the thin top plate on the H30 and then remove the 4 thick screws that hold the entire unit together.

Here we removed one of the 3/8″ barbs so you can see how it swivels. If you loosen the four screws holding the barb in place you can rotate the barb for better placement within your case. On our test bench we simply replaced the barb and tightened the screws till they were snug.

Here you can see the internals of the T30. It is not actually milled but appears to have the fins welded to the surface of the block and then the entire assembly was anodized. Considering how dispersed the heatload is and how low it is I can’t imagine this will affect performance at all. You can make out the welds in the top image while the bottom image shows the fin arrangement.

Here you can see the placement of the temperature probe. It turns out due to the width of the T30 that you actually need to move the probe towards the middle by about 1/3 of an inch so that it sits in between the 1st and 2nd memory module.

Here you can see the orientation of the TEC module. There is a black and a red wire, make sure the black wire is facing to the right otherwise the TEC will heat the memory and cool your water.

Corsair has included a syringe of Shin-Etsu thermal material for making a thermal connection between the TEC and the two inner surfaces of the T30. Shin-Etsu is a high-bulk thermal material so apply a large dab then gently squish the TEC to spread it. Be careful here as you can crack the TEC, I simply plopped the TEC on top of the dab of Shin-Etsu and gently applied pressure using a single thumb directly over the blob of Shin-Etsu. A few seconds and wiggles later and I had a relatively thin layer of Shin-Etsu with the excess pushed out as shown above.

Next you will drop in 3 screws on each side of the TEC plate and then reassemble the entire unit. Lastly you will then remove the plastic sheets on the memory thermal material and apply it to the bottom of the assembled unit.

Using the larger of the two allen wrenches remove the three screws holding the DHX+ heatspreaders on your Dominator memory modules. Here we are using three 2GB Dominator GT 2000C7 modules. I also found that the easiest way to bolt the memory to the T30 was with the memory inserted into the motherboard you will be using. This keeps you from having to fiddle with the memory placement or applying accidental stress to the modules forcing them to fit into the motherboard memory slots. Above we are using an EVGA X58 Classified E761.

Take your time here and gently secure the modules before tightening them down. You want to apply even torque to each set of screws so you have a uniform contact across the bottom of the entire unit. You can see the temperature probe has been inserted between the 1st and 2nd memory modules and bend upwards slightly. Take care when adjusting this, it is possible to snap the joints and render the probe useless.

The top image here shows the TEC power supply set with humidity and temperature sensing. Notice how the black switch is lined up so that it is surrounded by the silkscreened outline on the PCB. The bottom image shows how the switch is set for maximum temperature. Take note that with this setting you will form condensation on the T30 and the attached memory modules.