Corsair Hydro H150i Pro RGB 360mm review

When it comes to thermal dissipation, nothing truly compares to a good liquid-cooled setup. Say what you like, but for clean builds, ridiculous efficiency, and noise reduction, AIOs are the way forward. Those early teething days are now long gone, and with most AIOs packing an impressive five-year warranty to boot, you can rest assured that if your cooler decides to self-destruct and spray its conductive juices all across your precious hardware, the manufacturer will go out of its way to ensure you get either hard replacements or cash up front as soon as possible. That’s more than enough for us to recommend them.

Admittedly, if you do need absolutely concrete cooling, with zero downtime, the more premium air towers still fill that niche far better—but for the average enthusiast, consumer, or tinkerer, the AIO is the perfect partner for any thermal predicament.

That said, maximum core counts have almost doubled in the last year alone, so the need for more powerful cooling solutions has grown, and although this isn’t the first time we’ve seen a triple-rad AIO (Swiftech was first to market), it’s the first we’ve seen from Corsair, and one that isn’t based around Asetek’s rather aggressive patenting at that.

Aesthetically, the Hydro H150i Pro RGB is a whole different beast from the now-legendary “old-school” H100i we used to know and love. The design, bezel, fans, lighting have all been redeveloped from the ground up around Corsair’s (and the whole industry’s) new obsession with RGB.

Not that it’s entirely a bad thing. The Hydro’s appeal lies within the small details Corsair has integrated into the unit. Whether it’s the aluminum-flecked logo embedded into the side of the rad, the braiding covering the tubing between the block and the radiator, or the RGB-lit block itself, it all combines to make an exceptionally clean-looking piece of hardware. Almost.

It’s that octagonal block that is arguably the most divisive part of this mixture, with the stark silver of the thick bezel standing out perhaps a bit too much for our liking. If it were a simple black brushed finish instead, or even absent, it’s not something we’d particularly miss. But let’s face it, designing a cooler that doesn’t encroach on the competition’s style, yet is still decisively a Corsair product, is a challenge, and there are limited things you can do with a waterblock. NZXT has the Kraken’s mirrored finish, Cooler Master has the subtle sand-blasted styling, and Thermaltake has, well, all the RGB and cables—cables for days—so we understand that those designer decisions are pretty slim pickings right now.

The real beauty of the Hydro H150i Pro RGB, however, lies in the cooling—or rather, the very obvious lack of noise associated with said cooling. It’s the fans. Corsair has upgraded the stock fans usually included with AIOs, using a set of three ML120 maglev variants (some of our favorites) instead. Combine that with the addition of a zero-RPM fan mode in the Corsair Link software suite, and fan noise can be reduced to an absolute minimum with ease, with the fans only kicking in when the CPU reaches a temperature of your choosing.

Corsair’s Hydro H150i Pro RGB is a fantastic addition to this mammoth company’s arsenal. It’s just that the CPU block is going to be so divisive, especially among people who prefer the sleeker, more professional designs associated with Corsair’s Graphite series of cases and more. What we’d love to see in the future is a way of replacing that bezel with potentially different colored frames, or perhaps a sleeker block entirely, integrating Corsair’s love and talent for RGB, while retaining the Graphite’s serious sensibility. All that said, if you’ve got the space for it, and are after the quietest AIO on the market, the Hydro H150i Pro RGB is the perfect fit for any silence-loving, cool-craving PC tinkerer.

This article was originally published in Maximum PC issue 150. For more quality articles about all things PC hardware, you can subscribe to Maximum PC now.