Review on Corsair Hydro H150i PRO RGB Liquid CPU Cooler, 360mm Radiator, Triple 120mm ML Series PWM Fans, Advanced RGB Lighting and Fan Software Control, Intel 115x/2066 and AMD AM4 Compatible by Cameron Novak

I recently upgraded my system from i5 3570k to 9700k. I reused my old H100i v2 but found the temperature was a bit high. With PRIME 95 overclocked to 5.0 GHz, I reached 92+ C on multiple cores in minutes. It's not good for my overclock and not good for my chip life. I have decided to upgrade my cooler and am very happy about it. First, the H115i Pro is much larger than the H100i v2. Not only is it longer (280mm vs. 240mm) and slightly wider, but the heatsink is much THICKER. Heatsink thickness is an important aspect of cooling, sometimes more important than overall length and width. Even a slightly greater thickness significantly increases the cooling surface with increasing length and width. Also, the pump included in the H115i Pro appears to be more powerful but louder. If you listen to the motherboard, the H115i Pro pump makes a lot more noise than the H100i v2. My guess is that this is because the pump is more powerful and the noise goes with the environment. Speaking of noise, the H115i Pro's fan noise is SIGNIFICANTLY better than previous incarnations. Newer "Pro" versions use either Corsair ML fans or Maglev fans. This means that there is no contact area between the rotating surfaces. Earlier versions of all Corsair All-in-Ones were sleeve bearing fans, which depending on the orientation of the fan were very noisy. I have previously purchased an H110i (an earlier version of the H115i) which used the sleeve bearing fans above and when the fans were upside down or sideways the fans were incredibly loud. Because of this, I returned it. All previous versions of the Corsair AIO had an annoying habit of booting up at full speed on boot before the software kicked in and killed the fans. The new ML fans spin at a maximum speed of 1200 rpm and at that speed I can barely hear them, the only thing I hear is a slight hum. On lower settings (power, balance and silence) they are almost silent. The H115i Pro uses 2 140mm fans compared to 2 120mm fans on the H100i v2. Larger fans move more air at much lower speeds and are quieter. Overall, the cooling performance of the H115i Pro is much better than my H100i v2. In a 30 minute PRIME 95 test my H100i v2 was 92, 92, 90 and 93 C on quad cores. With the new H115i, even after warming up, only one core reached 90°C after 30 minutes. The heatsink temperature stayed the same much longer than before. I am definitely happy with my upgrade and would have no hesitation in recommending it. If this review was helpful to you, please vote for me. Thanks very much! :)