Corsair Hydro Series H80i GT AIO Liquid Cooler Review
Final Thoughts and Conclusions
The redesign of the Corsair H80i GT provides a RGB LED on the pump, woven fabric covered tubes and silver colored trip, giving it a distinctive look for Corsair’s next generation of AIO liquid coolers. The thicker radiator and high static pressure fans allow it to be a great small 120mm AIO liquid cooler.
For the temperature benchmarks, the Corsair Hydro Series H80i GT Performance Liquid CPU Cooler performed exactly as I expected. It performs great against the other 120mm cooler in the tests, but against a larger dual-radiator model like the Corsair H105 we start to see the performance gap widen. In my testing, I have learned that a thicker radiator usually can’t out perform a longer radiator. However, keep in mind that a 240mm radiator might not be the optimal solution for some situations and that is where the Corsair H80i GT would be a perfect choice.
By default, the Corsair H80i GT is installed with the Performance profile enabled, not a bad thing but it does make the pump and fans loud. Out of curiosity, I grabbed my noise meter, and holding it 6 inches from the case, the system registered 49.1dBA in idle conditions. Of course when I used Corsair Link and set the H80i GT to Balanced, that quickly dropped to 41.25dBA.
Speaking of Corsair Link, it seems to be a little buggy. On one installation it took a few reboots to work properly, and another it worked perfectly right away. The nice thing though, is once it’s up and running you can make it look like your system and have it monitor various components. The LED on the pump can be customized to change colors for various temperatures, or be a solid color all the time. This allows the pump LED to be color matched to your system!
The Corsair H80i GT can be found online under part number CW-9060017-WW for $99.99 with free shipping, and a 5 year warranty. For it’s size, the cooling will be hard to beat, and the customization of the performnce with Corsair Link is a great added benefit. If you are looking to move into AIO liquid cooling and building a small system, the H80i GT would be a great choice.
Legit Bottom Line: What it all comes down to is whether the H80i GT will fit your needs. It is a great looking cooler that can be customized to fit any systems color scheme, small enough to fit into ITX cases and while still keeping a system running cool. If you prefer a larger radiator, Corsair updated the H100i GTX with the same features and design of the H80i GT.