Corsair Hydro H60 CPU Water Cooler Review

Conclusion and Final Thoughts of the Corsair H60

The Hydro Series from Corsair has been king of hill for pre-built sealed kits since it came out. It seems that with Antec teamed up with Asetek now in the cooler market the hill now belongs to them. With that being said, the H60 is a good cooler. It is well built, quieter than previous Hydro Series coolers and I really like the new mounting system for the pump/coldplate.

The H60 is the first cooler to come from the Corsair and CoolIT team up. A few nice things have come of this new partnership. One is the new fan is quieter than the previous kits from either Corsair or CoolIT. Next is a very simple, very easy mounting system for the kits. The mounting system used in past Corsair kits is the Asetek mounting system; it can be tricky to install with having to twist the cooler into place and lining up the base to the locking ring. The CoolIT mounting system of the past is nice, but the new setup on the H60 is even easier to install.

The last nice thing to come from this partnership is the new cold plate design. It follows more of what CPU water blocks in the custom market are doing: cool water in on the center of the CPU then out through micro channels to the side and out of the block.

The H60 could have benefited from having a second fan for a push/pull configuration. With the system overclocked to 4.0 GHz the radiator got warm. Once that happened the performance dropped and I could see the temps climb. In the exhaust configuration I could smell the rad getting warm. When I switched the fan around to be in the intake configuration I didnt notice the smell, but the rad was warm to the touch.

In all, the H60s performance was close to that of the CoolIT Vantage. The Vantage has a single radiator with dual 120mm fans. So, they dropped a fan and kept similar performance, and then improvements to the overall design were made. With a thicker radiator, maybe made of copper instead of aluminum, and a pair of fans, we could see some nice numbers from these little kits.

Corsair has some new competition with Antec in the mix. This is a good thing. This could get both sides working on new ideas for getting on top and staying there.

Currently, the best price I could find for the Corsair H60 was at Newegg for $73.99 plus $7.56 shipping. At that price the Corsair H60 costs slightly more than its closest competitor, the Antec Kuhler H2O 620. The Kuhler H2O 620 can be found directly from Antec for $62.95 plus $11.46 shipping. When it comes to performance the Antec Kuhler H2O 620 was up to 5C cooler than the Corsair H60. To top it all off, the 2 year warranty on the Corsair H60 falls short to that of Antecs 3 years on the Kuhler H2O 620. The Corsair H60 is a solid product, but it gets beat by its closest competitor when it comes to price, performance and warranty.

Legit Bottom Line: The Corsair Hydro H60 is a solid CPU liquid cooler, but it faces fierce competition in the self-contained water cooling market that is becoming more crowded by the day.