Conclusion
Today we looked at the performance of the CORSAIR H170i ELITE LCD Cooler and stacked it up against various competitors that we’ve previously reviewed to see how it would perform with its 18 cores clocked to 4.7GHz dumping 500w of heat into it. We’ll recap the performance below and see how the CORSAIR H170i ELITE LCD stood up to the heat in our kitchen!
Summary of Temperatures
From a temperature performance perspective, when the fans were at or above 1500 RPM, the CORSAIR H170i ELITE LCD did a fantastic job keeping our Intel 10980XE in check at stock clocks. Moving up to a mild overclock (representing about 350W of power), the CORSAIR H170i ELITE LCD started to sweat, but we still saw far better performance than any 360mm AIO that we tested. Stepping up to maximum overclock (representing about 500W of power), the CORSAIR H170i aced the test and at a lower fan speed than any other cooler we’ve looked at.
As the fan speeds drop on the CORSAIR H170i ELITE LCD, you don’t lose a lot of cooling performance until you drop below 1000RPM. Even at the slowest fan speed at stock clocks, we’d be reasonably happy with its performance without having to crank it up at all.
Summary of Sound Levels
The CORSAIR H170i ELITE LCD was quiet, but not the quietest AIO cooler to cross our test bench. At full blast, it announced its cooling power at 47.8 dB(A) but quickly stepped down to inaudible as it sunk below 1000 RPM.
Overall, your ears won’t notice if you’re running the CORSAIR H170i ELITE LCD at 1000RPM which gives it a great intersection between performance and sound levels.
Final Points
Looking at the charts, there’s a bit to unpack here with the CORSAIR H170i ELITE LCD‘s performance. Previously we saw the MSI MEG S360 slap the playing field around with a silent trout as the king of the 360mm AIOs that we’ve reviewed, but then the CORSAIR H170i ELITE LCD dropped temperatures beyond that like it saw a state trooper (which it should, for having a much larger radiator).
Subjectively, the CORSAIR H170i ELITE LCD presents a well-put-together package that works within CORAIR’s iCUE ecosystem. If the rest of your rig has CORSAIR components and accessories, this unit will fit right in. The inclusion of a category of best LCD and other creature comforts makes it an impressive high-end cooling unit.
The difficult thing to swallow with this unit is its pricing. While we see CORSAIR selling it at the $309 price point (currently $279.99 special pricing at the time of writing), we also see the CORSAIR H170i ELITE CAPELLIX being sold at $199. The main difference between these units is the LCD screen is traded out for a static RGB-lit display. Of course, this is about the typical markup that we see in the market for the integration of the screen.
With all this considered, we have a new performance of the AIOs that we’ve reviewed here at The FPS Review. Sure, it may not be fair that it’s the only 420mm unit we’ve looked at so far, but it sets the standard for the future ones we’ll have on our test bench. If you’re looking for the best cooling you can buy with all the CORSAIR bling, the CORSAIR H170i ELITE LCD is certainly the way to go.
Discussion (19 replies)
Join Discussion →What case would house a 420mm cooler??
You know I question even if my monster of a case can handle a 420mm rad. Reaching out to thermaltake on my View 51 TG ARGB case. Product page only lists 360mm rads.
Exactly.. I've been looking for cases to handle 360, and now there's a 420? To be honest this is the first 420mm cooler I have ever heard of.
I mean, it's a beast with the performance it has but that price just says NOPE.. That and finding a case for this thing.
I've found mixed reviews saying my case can handle it. What I need really is a template I can place to confirm and make me feel good. Corsair needs to offer a template to potential purchasers. Something cut to size or printed to size so we can place it to make sure.
https://www.thefpsreview.com/2022/09/15/cooler-master-haf-700-black-case-review/ should work :-)
A 420mm setup is basically 3x 140mm fans plus room to connect the hoses. Same length as a 360mm AIO, just a bit wider. Cases that support it will have essentially two rails to accommodate 360/420 in the same place.
Capellix version should be the same cooling setup, just sans LCD, which should shave about 100 quid off the cost.
BTW spell correction gotcha, I don't think the fans are supposed to support " low notice" Probably low noise.
The list is growing and it's something I'm passively tracking, but both the Carbide and H7 Flow I have can, and with a little work you can use one with a 360 mm GPU AIO as well. Presently, I won't buy a case that doesn't support both as I try to plan for future CPUs and their power-hungry appetites.
Thanks, @David_Schroth for the review. This has been on my radar but I held off on it due to price and took a chance on an Amazon/Newegg China brand called Vetroo (a horrible name I know but it had a lot of good reviews). It's done well other than that at low-mid speeds the fans have a bit of a whine to them but at $115.99 (360 mm) I'm still happy.
So I just read the article... nice job. Seems to me that a better set of fans would both increase performance AND reduce noise appreciably. Yet with the high cost I would be loathe to spend another 60 bucks or so on some high performance high pressure fans.
I think this may be true for quite a few AIOs out there these days. At one point I was thinking of doing that but decided that I can live with it.
Well... sort of kind of maybe but maybe not.
The difficult part here with the comparison with the raw numbers here is that, for the most part, it was up against 360mm AIOs (and a 280mm AIO). 140mm fans tend to have a much lower top speed (and in this case, 1500RPM), so the performance and noise levels observed aren't exactly an apples to apples sort of comparison. The 120mm fan sweet spot for fan speed tends to be in the 1000-1500RPM range with a max in the low 2000's,l but the 140mm fans max around 1500rpm and do quite well around 1000 or a little lower.
In everyday use, this unit will be just as quiet as any other 360mm unit that I've tested. At full blast, it's still quieter than most of them...
My Thermaltake Core WP100.
My 7000X case. It's still in that case so I may go back to it at some point, though I really didn't see a big benefit over a 360mm AIO. It's an Artic 420mm.
More than you'd think; I'd have to go back through our review list, but I can add at least the Phanteks case we reviewed as well. The bigger challenge with 420mm AIOs is usually figuring out how to route everything.
Vendors almost never put their best fans on their AIOs. I guess it makes sense given the bundling effect and that their 'lesser' fans do still work. The other part is that the very best fan designs are simply not available in 140mm. Given that the performance difference between 280mm, 360mm, and 420mm systems isn't that great overall versus say a stock cooler, there's a reason 360mm has become more or less the standard, even in custom loops.