Corsair H115i Pro RGB - When great performance meets RGB goodness!!
Last year at COMPUTEX Corsair dropped a hint that it is working on an entirely new series of AIO coolers which would not only be different in looks but also mark Corsair's entry into a new realm of CPU Liquid coolers. And here we are today with Corsair dropping two new coolers in the market namely as the Corsair H115i Pro RGB and the Corsair H150i Pro RGB which are not only in the much needed RGB flavor that Corsair AIO were lacking behind in but the H150i Pro RGB marks the first ever 360mm AIO cooling unit from the house of Corsair which with the current generations of Threadripper and Skylake X processors are a must for high end builds!
Thanks to Corsair India today I have with me the Corsair H115i Pro RGB CPU Liquid Cooler for review and I can't be any more excited than this to review this beautiful unit.
With a tentative price tag of $140 the Corsair H115i Pro RGB is the first of the two to initiate the Pro series of coolers from Corsair and is equipped with two 140mm ML140 Quiet edition high static pressure magnetic levitation fans making it a 280mm unit with an entirely new pump design which boasts RGB lighting and support for Corsair Link software for a bunch of features and customization. The cooler comes backed up with the Corsair 5 years warranty.
What's in the Box!?
Corsair has packed the H115i Pro RGB in a thick and heavy cardboard box just like all of its coolers and the color scheme of black and yellow is also there that we are used to now from them with all their products but this time we also see a hue of colors in the backdrop of the image of the cooler imprinted on the front that signify the RGB nature of the cooler. AAll the features are neatly printed on the front itself such as compatibility, use of ML140 fans, RGB pump header and the 5 years warranty support.
Inside we find the cooler & all its components packed safely inside a molded cardboard frame which is good enough to cushion a unit of this size and weight.
Content wise the package includes the H115i Pro RGB cooling unit, two 140mm ML140 Quiet edition PWM fans, a Corsair Link cable, AMD bracket, Intel backplate, stand-offs, washer and screws for installing the cooler and fans along with the warranty leaflet and installation guide.
A thing worth noticing here is that Corsair has not provided a separate backplate for AMD platforms which is a wise move since they already come with a metal backplate on the motherboards, also the AMD bracket has a different installation process now which is more simple and quicker to which I will come later on.
Let's take a Closer Look!
Corsair H115i Pro RGB is a completely different from any of its predecessors in terms of almost everything, at-least from the outside. The pump and cold plate unit on the H1155i is a quite sleek and made out of premium quality glossy plastic. The top has the Corsair logo which is RGB LED backlit along with the whole outer lining of the black portion.
Also the Intel bracket comes installed out of the box and can be easily swapped with the AMD one by a turn and pull method to simplify the process. The micro-USB port on one side is for connecting the Corsair Link cable that the cooler comes with.
The cold plate comes pre-applied with a thermal paste and looking closely we can see that the copper base plate is not perfectly smooth but has some machine marks on it which shouldn't be an issue in cooling as almost all Corsair AIOs that I've used so far had the same finish but delivered nicely in cooling.
Corsair has used a 350mm long Polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) tube braided tube on the H115i Pro RGB which is thinner than the ones which we are used to from Corsair but are extremely flexible and not too hard like the ones on the H100i GTX that caused issues when routing them inside tight spaces! I'm happy that Corsair made these braided tubes flexible and they can even rotate to a full 90° to the pump unit for easy installation and routing.
A bunch of wires vine out from the pump unit namely as a SATA cable to power the pump, a PWM fan connector to power the installed fans and a Y-splitter to connect the two provided fans. It can surely give a few a hard time to manage so many cables protruding out near the tight CPU area but this is a good arrangement as it sheds the additional load off the motherboard fan header to power the pump and fans all together hence there is no compromise upon the performance.
The fans that comes with the Corsair H115i Pro RGB are the Corsair ML140 Quiet edition magnetic levitation fans that are 140mm in size and are rated at 1200 a rpm max which can move up to 55.4CFM of air at a sound pressure rating of only 20.4 dB. Since this is a RGB lighting oriented cooler its a bit sad that the fans are non RGB since Corsair already has ML140 Pro RGB fans in their catalog which not only look great but would've been an apt addition to his cooler.
Corsair has used a aluminum radiator on the H115i Pro RGB which measure in at 143x315x29 mm and has a high fin density of 20FPI (Fin per Inch) which should be there for a product of this stature. The build quality of this unit is solid and doesn't feel light or flimsy from any angle, support for upto four 140mm fans making a push pull configuration for which the fan screws are provided by default inside the package earning it a few brownie points. As for the aesthetics Corsair has done nothing odd or out of the world here but just put their logo at one end creating a minimalist design.
One odd thing that caught my attention was that the radiator had some finishing issues in its design such as the uneven ends on one side where the two edges were not in plane with the rest of the design. This isn't a big issue nor would cause any installation errors but I expect no such errors from a product such as that of Corsair's. The only reason for this can be that what I have over here is a pre-release sample which can suffer from such issues, hope not to see any such issues in their retail samples once this cooler officially hits the market.
Time for the fun part - Installation
Over here I'm going to test the Corsair H115i Pro RGB with my Gigabyte X99 Gaming 5P motherboard which is an Intel platform and also can get really hot at times. For this we'll be using all the parts shown in the picture above.
We basically need the LGA2011-3 stand offs along with the retention screws for holding the pump in place. The ML140 fans provided with the unit are the simple ones and not the ones with a rubber grommet at the edges so using the provided washers is a good idea to secure the fans nicely upon the radiator. Also the Corsair Link cable is optional and is only needed to control the RGB lights or to set fan profiles otherwise if not used the cooler would work with the LEDs on and programmed to a breathing mode changing color each time.
Its worth mentioning that Corsair has simplified the AMD platform installation with the H115i Pro RGB to a great extent which no other AIO manufacturer has done so far. To use it on an AMD plaform one just has to use the AMD bracket and tighten the cooler upon the default plastic standoffs that the AMD motherboards come with making the installation extremely simple especially for users like me who use the Asus X370 Crosshait VI Hero that needs to have an extra plate removed from its back to install any other after market cooler that has its own backplate!
Once installed and ready I'm very happy with the outcomes as the installation is very simple for this cooler on any platform whatsoever. The tubes are flexible and can be turned and twisted in the desired fashion which eases the installation process manifolds. Even though there are a lot of wires going in and coming out of the pump area tucking them in is not big of an issue and can be done with ease and patience.
Let's put it to Test!
For testing the performance of the Corsair H115i Pro RGB we'll be using the following test bench -
CPU: Intel Core i7 5930K
Motherboard: Gigabyte X99 Gaming 5P
RAM: Kingston HyperX Predator 16GB DDR4 3000Mhz
Cooler: Corsair H115i Pro RGB
Graphics Card: MSI R9 380 Gaming 4G
Storage: Corsair Neutron XTi 480GB
Power Supply: Cooler Master MasterWatt Lite 700
OS: Windows 10 Pro 64-bit
Before I move on any further its noteworthy that the Zero RPM mode, which is a new addition and exclusive to the Pro series coolers, is enabled by default on this unit which doesn't allow the fan to spin at all when the CPU temperature is low specifically when the PC is left idle for long or has just booted up so nothing to panic about, like I did in the beginning! As my ambient temperature was low the fans on this cooler only started spinning once I had booted into Windows and opened up a few apps. Its a welcome addition as not only it eliminated the unnecessary noise production for idle systems but it also brings these coolers in sync with Corsair's PSUs that boast a similar feature such as the AXi series.
Coming back to the testing of the cooler firstly, the CPU is kept at stock speeds with boost enabled and temperatures are measured both at idle and at full load. Then we overclock our Intel i7 5930K to 4.5Ghz at 1.75v which is a bit more than what my chip requires to reach that frequency but I had to add some extra heat to it, the same process as that for the stock speed testing is repeated. Temperature is measured using HW monitor with an average being taken of the temperatures recorded on all six cores. MSI Kombuster utility is what I prefer to stress test the CPU at all twelve threads, I run it for a good 15 minutes before recording the temperatures since by then the temperatures reach a saturation point.
Secondly, the pump is plugged directly into the SATA connector while the fans are plugged into the motherboard fan header via the provided fan extension cable. Fan profile was kept at default from the BIOS itself to rule out any discrepancy whatsoever.
The readings would be shown in delta temperature that is after subtracting the ambient temperature of the room while noise levels are recorded from a distance of three feet from the cooler which is a reasonable and practical distance for such tests.
Temperature wise we can see that the Corsair H115i Pro RGB does a fabulous job for a 280mm AIO cooler especially at overclocked frequencies where it not only beats similar sized 280mm coolers but also rubs shoulders with a much larger 360mm AIO which is a direct compliment to the improvement in the pump that Corsair has brought in with this offering. Considering my ambient temperature is high and the fan profiles are set to default I'm sure if you set the fan speeds to full or to performance in a cooler environment the results would be even better.
The cooler is a bit noisy I'd say when the system is under full load but at idle state the units is barely audible. Considering its size and the two 140mm fans that come into play the cooler is one of the quietest coolers in its category if not the quietest. This is an improvement over the previous H115i which tend to be noisy hence the use of ML140 silent edition fans did the job for Corsair offering quieter performance for this unit if not RGB rich.
My Verdict
Corsair has always brought out some unique AIOs over the year most of them improving over where their predecessor fell short and the same can be said for the Corsair H115i Pro RGB. The H115i Pro RGG has some welcome features that easily outweigh its cons.
The radiator and pump are all solid in build and look elegant from every
possible corner with no unnecessary gimmicks! Sleeved tubing is really robust and flexible which is something I love as I've always felt that Corsair tubing has been a bit too rigid but not over here. Cooling performance is
really good for a cooler of this category and its true power is seen
when the processor is overclocked so yet again its proven that this
cooler is only meant for people who plan to run really hot/overclocked
systems as at stock you'll be better off with a smaller unit. Corsair H115i Pro RGB is one of the quietest 280mm AIOs out there today and that is all
because of the improved pump design along with the use of ML140 quiet edition fans. They've compromised raw
performance at the cost of silence but you can always swap them with
aftermarket fans including Corsair's own ML140 Pro RGB fans to not only reap the full benefits of this cooler in terms of performance but also to complete the whole RGB look that the unit is aimed at.The RGB lighting on the pump is really soothing and well balanced while the Zero RPM feature is something that every other brand should be taking noted from, a very simple but highly effective move.
"Corsair H115i Pro RGB is a Pro in terms of balance between much needed features, distinctive yet elegant looks and to the point pricing. Highly recommended for some who's looking at building high end system or just want a cooler to make his rig stand out from the crowd!"
Pros - - Solid Build Quality
- Excellent Cooling Performance
- Easy to install
- Zero RPM profile
- Corsair Link support
- Silent
- Included fans are non RGB
- Not compatible with AMD Threadripper
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