Corsair H115i installation and performance (initial observations)

[whisper]

For my new build I chose the Corsair H115i as my cooler of choice. I've been happy with it, despite some trouble with a loose backplate during installation on my MSI gaming pro carbon. This is a known problem with some people saying to use washers for the backplate and others saying to just tighten down the pump head. I decided to use nylon washers to make sure the backplate was tight before attaching the pump head to the cpu. I am now idling around 28-30C and hitting about 67-68C under full load. Considering I did not delid my 7700k I think these temps are ok.

Here is a link on using washers with the backplate of the similar H100i, and here is the washer set I ordered which contains the appropriate size.

I noticed that by default, the H115i fan speed control is set in Corsair Link according to the "H115i" temp reading, which in my case never really exceeds 26-27C regardless of how hot the cpu gets. As a result, if you don't change this setting the fans will always hum at a quiet ~700-800 rpm even as the cpu exceeds 70C or more. I changed the fan speed control to "CPU package" which aligns closely with core temps, and now the fans ramp up as load/temp increases.

Anyway, not really a question here I guess, but just wanted to provide my initial experience with the H115i in terms of installation and performance so far. If anyone has similar or different experience with this cooler I'd be interested to hear.

 

[Nebulous]

Nice! Not only can you use rubber/nylon washers on the backplate, you can also use washers on the thumbscrews that secure the pump/block assembly down as well for more mounting pressure if need be. I'm sure alot of ppl will find this info useful. Thanks for posting!

 

[atarione]

hmm... I would have returned that.. u should have to modify the mounting for a $130 AIO to get it to make decent contact.. that is kinda crap if you ask me...

hasn't Corsair had this "issue" on other AIO's ?? maybe they should fix their mounting hardware.. but I wouldn't give them my money for that kinda hassle personally.

 

[Guarana [BAWLS]]

hmm... I would have returned that.. u should have to modify the mounting for a $130 AIO to get it to make decent contact.. that is kinda crap if you ask me...

hasn't Corsair had this "issue" on other AIO's ?? maybe they should fix their mounting hardware.. but I wouldn't give them my money for that kinda hassle personally.

I'm getting his "fixed" temps on my i6700k w H115i and I didn't do anything but install it properly.

 

[whisper]

I'm getting his "fixed" temps on my i6700k w H115i and I didn't do anything but install it properly.

I also installed it properly. Except in my case, proper installation required the use of appropriate size washers to ensure the backplate has a snug fit. Had I not used the washers, I would have installed it improperly and cooling performance would have suffered. There are plenty reports of +10-12C deficiencies in cooling due to this problem. Of course, I wouldn't expect this solution to somehow give better performance than what the product is capable of, so the fact that you are seeing the same temps probably means both of our coolers are properly installed.

I blame MSI for this more than Corsair for their use of a thinner pcb board, but I suppose if Corsair wanted to go the extra mile they could have tossed in a few of those washers

 

[whisper]

I'm getting his "fixed" temps on my i6700k w H115i and I didn't do anything but install it properly.

Oh man, just noticed you're running a 6700k.... that chip should be running much cooler actually by a good 10C. The 7700k doesn't offer much performance over 6700k but it does run quite a bit hotter. Intel claims this is normal for the chip and not a problem, yada yada, but it was one of the reasons I chose the H115i over one of the smaller AIOs. I think 67-68C load for my 7700k is decent enough without delid but those temps on a 6700k are a bit troubling...

 

[Speedeu4ia]

Oh man, just noticed you're running a 6700k.... that chip should be running much cooler actually by a good 10C. The 7700k doesn't offer much performance over 6700k but it does run quite a bit hotter. Intel claims this is normal for the chip and not a problem, yada yada, but it was one of the reasons I chose the H115i over one of the smaller AIOs. I think 67-68C load for my 7700k is decent enough without delid but those temps on a 6700k are a bit troubling...

What speed and voltage is your 7700k at?

 

[whisper]

What speed and voltage is your 7700k at?

Yup good question... info is in my sig. Currently running 4.8 ghz at 1.3v. Seems to be pretty stable.

 

[Speedeu4ia]

Yup good question... info is in my sig. Currently running 4.8 ghz at 1.3v. Seems to be pretty stable.

Nice I found 4.8 at just under 1.3v to be a good spot for my 7700k also.

I'm using air tho, true spirit 140 power(stock fan which is quiet, just ordered a ty-143 2500rpm fan to see how loud it is, people report 6c cooler but loud)

Im wondering what stress test your using as I would like to compare.

I'm fluctuating just under 60c when gaming and some stress tests it reaches 80c, others it's in the 70's

 

[EvilViking]

Just installed my h115i on my 8700k. It's a big som bich. I didn't use any washers but the pump head tightened snug without any play. I'll see how it works soon

 

[IdiotInCharge]

Just installed my h115i on my 8700k. It's a big som bich. I didn't use any washers but the pump head tightened snug without any play. I'll see how it works soon

Same; this is my third Corsair AIO, so I thought I'd remembered something about the plate being loose until the block was tightened down, so I didn't worry about it during installation, and it's tight now.

Still playing with clocks and voltages, trying to get OCCT to pass. I've had it up to 4.9GHz, and had it fail as low as 4.6GHz, so I may need to adjust my angle.

 

[whisper]

Nice I found 4.8 at just under 1.3v to be a good spot for my 7700k also.

I'm using air tho, true spirit 140 power(stock fan which is quiet, just ordered a ty-143 2500rpm fan to see how loud it is, people report 6c cooler but loud)

Im wondering what stress test your using as I would like to compare.

I'm fluctuating just under 60c when gaming and some stress tests it reaches 80c, others it's in the 70's

Well I mostly use Prime95 for stress testing. Where I’m just trying to establish temps, I will run it for about 10 minutes and then look at the temp. For a true test of system stabilty you’d want to run longer than that.

I also do a fair amount of h264 encoding in handbrake, and sometimes I’ll have several files in the queue. This doesn’t always require full 100% load, but it does usually run around 85-90% load on all 4 cores for however long it’s running. After about an hour of this, I found my temps were about the same as for the 10 minutes Prime95 stress test (67-69C).

 

[Hurin]

OP, I've got a 6700K and a H115i. May I ask what you're running to apply "full load" and for how long when you take those load temps?

 

[AlphaQup]

Just chiming in to say yep, this thing is huge! (BARELY fit up top of my Cosmos SE, had to get a bit creative and mount the rad to the top grate, then the fans on top of that.)

I also had the issue with the cooler not making CPU contact on my mobo (see sig) and ended up using the mounting bracket from my old EVO 212 which was a bit thicker then the one provided by Corsair. Only then was I able to get the block snugged down.

My temps usually hit between 60-70* during gaming on my 4690k @ 4.6GHz, but then again, my case is super full and that damn HHD cage in the front of the case is definitely restricting airflow a bit. This SE was a bit of a letdown coming from the original Cosmos I ran previously.

All in, I'm very happy with the results this provided.

 

[EvilViking]

Haven't had a chance to game or stress test with my new h115i on my new 8700k. But F me these fans can get LOUD. 80%+ and it's a vacuum cleaner next to me. Any suggestions on replacements?

 

[OutOfPhase]

I replaced my 115i fans with Noctuas and it's much quieter. There's still a limit to what fans can do though, as a lot of the noise is due to air turbulence going through the radiator fins. Unless you know you need fans running that high, just consider lowering them down until they are tolerable, and retest temps.

If I were doing it today, I'd use corsair ML 140 fans. I love these things - and have 3 as my case fans. They're expensive, but are really great fans. Move gobs of air with very little noise.

 

[pendragon1]

opposite to what op said, i would suggest running the fans based off the pump temp not the cpu temp. you will have way less fan speed spikes/noise. but you need to change to custom profile and set them to ramp up with the the water temp as the default setup for pump temp doesnt work very well. im just fidling with a h110i and a 4790k. it defaulted to pump temp and quiet fans so i set the fans to ramp up to 60% @ 35C water temp and cpu stays ~70C. making it work in a old soprano case has been interesting...

 

[EvilViking]

Think I'm going to try running speeds based on pump temps too. See how that works. And maybe pick up some a couple Corsair ML140s

 

[OutOfPhase]

Yes, you should absolutely have it based upon water temperature. Your fans are cooling the water.

If the water is already cool but the CPU temp increases, running fans harder doesn't have any benefit. Over time of load, the water temp will increase and you can ramp fans along with it to keep it as cool as you require. I think my max fan is 60% at 40c or something, but it never gets there. The big radiator will work its magic even with mild airflow, assuming cool input air.

 

[IdiotInCharge]

Why are your fans running at 80%?!?

Yeah they're loud at that speed, but you'll never need them that high, see what PhaseNoise said above.

 

[whisper]

Yes, you should absolutely have it based upon water temperature. Your fans are cooling the water.

If the water is already cool but the CPU temp increases, running fans harder doesn't have any benefit. Over time of load, the water temp will increase and you can ramp fans along with it to keep it as cool as you require. I think my max fan is 60% at 40c or something, but it never gets there. The big radiator will work its magic even with mild airflow, assuming cool input air.

Okay, understood - this actually makes much more sense. Believe it or not, 15 years of building PCs and this is my first water cooled rig, so still getting it all figured out. I reconfigured the fan control back to water temp and it's definitely a quieter system now. My cpu temps are about where they were before under similar loads, thus I would say so far that the fans do not have to spin that hard to achieve efficient cooling. This is what I'm getting in terms of cpu temps under various stress conditions:

100% load in Prime95 with 8-thread torture test: ~75-77C
Stress testing in CPU-Z: ~65-67C
h264 encoding in handbrake: ~65C

I am still standing by my decision to use the washers for installing the back plate. I think the temps are reasonable if not pretty good, and they are identical across all 4 cores. I'm not sure if that indicates even pressure across the cpu lid, but that's one interpretation.

 

[doyll]

I don't like the idea of using washer on back plate because it changes the load bearing from back of CPU to 4 points on motherboard around CPU. But I've seen it done many times. Thing is mount being loose before cooler is mounted mean nothing as long as everything tightens down when waterblock (or cooler) is mounted to it.

As for coolant temp vs CPU temp regulating fan speeds, the only real difference is fans spin up sooner using CPU temp than using coolant temp. Reason is coolant takes longer to heat up and stabilize at maximum temp then CPU does. Heat source is still CPU. I prefer fans based on water temp because many of the higher load uses of CPU are short time .. often less than a minute or two, so fans would spin up on CPU temp, but no on water temp control.

 

[Speedeu4ia]

Okay, understood - this actually makes much more sense. Believe it or not, 15 years of building PCs and this is my first water cooled rig, so still getting it all figured out. I reconfigured the fan control back to water temp and it's definitely a quieter system now. My cpu temps are about where they were before under similar loads, thus I would say so far that the fans do not have to spin that hard to achieve efficient cooling. This is what I'm getting in terms of cpu temps under various stress conditions:

100% load in Prime95 with 8-thread torture test: ~75-77C
Stress testing in CPU-Z: ~65-67C
h264 encoding in handbrake: ~65C

I am still standing by my decision to use the washers for installing the back plate. I think the temps are reasonable if not pretty good, and they are identical across all 4 cores. I'm not sure if that indicates even pressure across the cpu lid, but that's one interpretation.

Are you using AVX offset?

 

[Pandur]

What people need to realise is that the screws holding the backplate are not a tight fit, they screw in until there're no more thread and that's it. And once you screw down the pump/block everything will tighten up nicely. If that is not the case then you either assembled it wrong, or you got a broken unit. Adding washers willy nilly is a good way to put undesigned pressure on some part and break your whole motherboard. Just be happy the engineers designed this with decent tolerances.

 

[whisper]

What people need to realise is that the screws holding the backplate are not a tight fit, they screw in until there're no more thread and that's it. And once you screw down the pump/block everything will tighten up nicely. If that is not the case then you either assembled it wrong, or you got a broken unit. Adding washers willy nilly is a good way to put undesigned pressure on some part and break your whole motherboard. Just be happy the engineers designed this with decent tolerances.

This is only partly true, if the mobo manufacturer elected to use a pcb board having at least a certain minimum thickness. However it is a known issue with the Corsair backplates and incompatibility with certain mobo pcb boards, if the board is slightly too thin. In that case you will turn the screws until there's no more thread, exactly as you said, but the pump head will not be properly seated on the cpu and there will be a tiny but significant gap. I posted one link on this, however you can just search around and find multiple threads and videos on this issue. I don't have a full list of all the mobos with "thin" pcb boards but I think certain MSI boards would be included (such as the one that I've installed it on). I would not suggest using the washers "willy nilly" but they may be necessary depending on the hardware you're using.

 

[whisper]

Are you using AVX offset?

Yes, currently I have it set to -4.

 

[greyboxer]

Would you guys ever consider replacing the fans?

 

[IdiotInCharge]

Would you guys ever consider replacing the fans?

The fans that Corsair includes are actually pretty good- I'd only consider replacing them if I found a material benefit to running the stock fans high enough to be intrusive.

 

[whisper]

Would you guys ever consider replacing the fans?

I've heard some mixed opinions on the Corsair fans, however after running them for several weeks I'm pretty satisfied. They are loud at higher rpm, but now that I'm controlling the speed based on water (pump) temp they hardly ever go above 30-35%, which is very quiet. I think at this point I would only replace them if they broke.

 

[greyboxer]

Replacement fans are just so pricey