Water Blocks and Their Peculiarities

The COOL by Corsair kit includes two water blocks. The one with a flat bottom is universal. The other has a minor projection on its bottom for use in Socket A systems. Although the two blocks differ externally, they have identical characteristics. So we’re going to talk about the universal water block below, but everything said will be true for the Socket A block, too.

Generally speaking, the water-block largely determines the overall efficiency of a liquid-cooling system and Corsair evidently put much effort into designing one. At least, the water-block of the COOL system is very good despite its simple looks and small dimensions.

Unlike many other manufacturers, Corsair preferred a non-separable design. The block is all made of C110 copper. The black-painted shiny cap is soldered to the base. The input and output fittings are soldered to the top of the block, too. This relatively rare design of the water-block has evident advantages, however. A 100% protection against leakage is among them.

The drawbacks of the non-separable design are clear, too. You can’t see what is inside this water-block. This drawback hardly matters here, however, since we do know how the water-block of the COOL kit is designed. There are 240 copper needles on the square base of the block. The input fitting is positioned in the center and the output fitting is in one of the corners of the cap. Thus, the incoming water immediately hits the hottest spot, right above the CPU core. This circulation is considered as highly efficient.

It is important not to confuse the input and output fittings during the installation of the system. According to our tests, the wrong flow of the liquid in the water-block results in the CPU core being a couple degrees centigrade higher.

The sole of the block is flat and polished, although not to a mirror shine.

Like we said above, the water-block of the COOL kit has rather humble dimensions: it is a square with a 64mm side, and a height of 16 millimeters.

The water-block is fastened on the CPU socket with thick steel plates of varying shapes. The plates are pressed down to the mainboard with spring-loaded clips that are installed on the standard retention mechanism (Socket 478). Or you just screw the water-block down through the damping springs to the PCB (other sockets). Unfortunately, the COOL by Corsair kit doesn’t include a back plate for the reverse side of the mainboard, so you should be very careful not to deform the mainboard’s PCB.

Socket478 / LGA775

Socket 754/939 / Socket 462

You have to take the mainboard out of the system case to mount the water-block unless you’ve got a Socket 748 or Socket A system. On the other hand, you have to do it only once. If you will want replace the CPU later, you won’t need access to the reverse side of the mainboard.

The water-block comes with pipes already connected to it. The input and output pipes are about 60 cm long and are fastened to the fittings with non-detachable steel clamps. The external and internal diameters of the pipes are 1/2 and 3/8 inches (or 12.7 and 9.5mm), respectively. Funnily enough, there’s a label “food grade” on the pipes. It means these pipes are recommended for use in food engineering!

Corsair didn’t neglect such an important thing as thermal interface between the water-block and the processor: they put two small syringes with thermal paste into the box with COOL.