The unit AIO arrived today and I spend an hour cursing it into my case. The unit can be installed on any Intel 115x, 2011, or AMD socket but the instructions were vague on with standoffs were needed. The parts themselves are not marked or separated well. The unit itself looks well made with dual 120 mm fans and a CPU block that can be set to any color to match you case. As mentioned before, installation was a pain in my case. It wasn't complicated but it's one of those installations where a three hands would help. One of the biggest hassles was attaching the fans to the radiator. I also had to reposition my case fans in order to get the radiator to clear. After I got everything installed, I booted up and installed the Corsair-Link software that controls the fans and pump as well as monitor temperatures via a USB header. I had to give up my front USB ports in order to use the header. My board only has one.
In the software, which is a bit clunky, you can choose predefined profiles (quiet, balanced, or Performance) or set up your own. I chose balanced and changed the LEDs on the block to blue. The color change didn't work until I rebooted the PC. That was annoying but I could live with it seeing as I never change my colors once set. Everything seemed to be working so I buttoned up my PC and started CoreDamage. I wasn't impressed with my idle temperatures as they were running 37 to 42 just like my H212. Under 100% load, they were getting upwards of 62 to 65. Not really impressive but the cooler wasn't much louder at the time than my H212 and I didn't feel like removing the thing after spending an hour installing it.
Next I fired up Dying Light. After ~15 minutes I heard the fans spin up like they were going to take off. I Alt-tabbed, saw my temps were in the mid-60's, and continued to play another 30 minutes. The fans would spin up really loud and then back down to normal for apparently no reason. I quit the game, opened Corsair Link, and started CoreDamage again. This time, my temperatures reached the upper 60's and the fans sounded like they wanted to fly out of the case. I checked that the fans were pointing the correct direction and that there was adequate paste on the CPU. I know everything was plugged in correctly because the Corsair-link was reporting the pump and fan speeds. I removed it from my case and put my H212 back in. The fan isn't rattling after giving it a good cleaning. Below is a picture of the unit installed. It's massive.
I don't know what's wrong with it and don't care. What I do know is that I spend $95 on a cooler that performs as well as a $30 cooler but is louder than an airplane. This experience has soured me on AIO coolers and I'll be avoiding them.
