Are there any drawbacks in Corsair’s liquid cooling system?

The main drawback of the Corsair Nautilus500 is its noisiness and lack of smooth fan speed adjustment. It also provides no means to cool the near-socket space on the mainboard, which is a common defect of many water-cooling systems. You have to use additional fans to cool the chipset’s heatsink and the transistors in the CPU power circuit.

The rest of the drawbacks come from the unavoidable compromises the developer had to agree to: the efficiency of the Nautilus500 is lower than that of the best air coolers on heat pipes because the heatsink is small and the pump performance is low to make the system compact and less noisy. You should also be aware that the Corsair Nautilus500 is more expensive than air coolers. Its recommended price is $159.99 US.

Besides obvious drawbacks, there are possible ones. For example, how many reinstallations will the plastic poles for mounting the water-block on LGA775 last? Will the spongy pad that ensures tight contact between the water-block and the CPU remain stiff after your using it for a while? Will the pump begin to rattle after a month or two? It’s impossible to get answers to these questions during a short test, you have to use the system for a long time to find this out. So, these are not problems proper, but you must be aware of the possibility of their arising.

Where can I ask more questions about the Corsair Nautilus500?

You can visit the Corsair forums or ask any question on our forums.