Corsair iCue H150i Elite Capellix AIO Unboxing and installation guide

hello this is the provoke prawn and this is the corsair iq h150i elite caplex all in one cooler this is an unboxing video i'll be talking to you about this 360 millimeter radiator cooling system for your cpu showing you what it's like as it comes out of the box and talking about all the highlights and low lights of it as well as the installation process now for reference the iq h150i elite capital x obviously has rgb on the pump and the fans and i'll be talking to you about that as i go through as well as showing off at the end in the software as well this is a cooler that is compatible with various different socket setups including everything from intel's 1150 1151 1155 1156 2011 2066 and the 1200 socket which i am going to be using for this video it's also compatible with amd am2 am3 am4 fm1 fm2 str4 and str x4 so it'll work with a number of different cpus and that makes it very flexible and easy to set up actually the cooler itself is also very interesting not least of which is that pump which as you can see as some pretty nifty rgb lying on it which is controllable in multiple zones as are the fans and the fans are another highlight that i'll be going into a bit more depth about as i unbox and give you an overview of what it's like but these are ml 120 rgb fans they are not to be confused with the ml rgb pros available from corsair because these are a special sort that are only included with this and can't be bought separately as of yet which is interesting but they have some pretty good specifications as well they go up to 2400 rpm from zero they also are incredibly quiet on the quietest setting and it runs really quietly and that's definitely a highlight to this now i'm going to be doing a separate video on the pros and cons of this cooler if you want to see something a bit shorter but this one's going to go into a lot more depth on it be sure to check out the description for links to that video as well as all the other information and where to buy it now another highlight as you can see is it also comes with another front plate so you can actually swap out the look and feel of the pump head as well and you have all the screws necessary for installation process now i'm going to be installing this pump in a corsair 4000 d airflow which is a new case i'm going to test this out with and you'll get to see the installation and all that glory we'll talk about that in a bit more depth a bit later on and here included in the box is another thing of interest and this is the new corsair iq commander core which essentially takes the place of corsair's lighting nodes and commander pro and puts it all into one device which is fantastic it really streamlines the process and makes the setup a lot easier from here you can control the power and rgb lighting for up to six fans it also has a temperature sensor built in and you plug the cpu pump head directly into this control box and then the control box itself is just plugged into your sata power and the usb header on your motherboard which makes the setup really easy a lot less faffing around with multiple boxes at the back of your pc and i'll show you where i installed mine a bit later on but it's really easy because you've got one side rgb the other side fan which is the power so you basically plug them sequentially in so for example the top fan on your radiator will go into number one for rgb and number one for power the second one goes into two and so on and so forth and it makes it a really streamlined process is less worrying about which boxes go where obviously only works for six fans but that's perfect for the case i'm setting up because you've got three fans on the radiator itself and the three fans in the case so ideal setup process there this is a 360 ml radiator but there are smaller variants as you can see the pump itself is pretty chunky it stands out quite a bit but has a very nice look and feel to it and as always it comes already pre-installed with thermal paste so you don't have to worry about that which is always nice there is a few dings in the radiator as it came out the box though which is weird because you see it was nicely packaged but mine has been roughed up in transit or something it doesn't look as good as previous radio as i've had not necessarily an issue if you're stalling the fans on there obviously it's going to cover that up anyway but a bit strange unusual now as i said these are the ml rgb fans they have eight leds built into them that are individually programmable in the software and i'll show you that later on in iq software you can set that up and you can select them individually which is pretty neat this is also a low noise cooler it has a zero rpm mode where you can set it so the fans will stop entirely if the temperatures are low enough and it keeps running really quiet also has a quiet mode which is insanely quiet i was really surprised by how quiet it does get and we were talking a bit more about that later on one point of note is these ml fans for some reason don't have the antibod vibration mounts on them which i thought was unusual but then they are going to be installed quite tight on the radiator obviously they all have the two cables attached and one for rgb and one for power now here you can see for comparison's sake ml 120 rgb pro fans which were bought separately and you can see that those do have the anti-vibration rubberized mounting on them those fans interestingly spin slower than the ones that come with the cooler as a top spin and actually have less airflow so the fans that have been included with this cool are actually very efficient in that way quiet but also at the high end they can spin faster and get some good airflow going now corsair recommends installing your fans in this way in that they're going to be pulling air from outside the case through it and over the top of it i actually recommend top mounting it and then doing it that way so pulling cold air in from above through the top of that and obviously going to vary depending on your case if you can get a 360 mil radio at the top personally i don't necessarily think that's a good option now another thing i want to show you which is a gripe that i have with corsair's all-in-one callers unfortunately that still is an issue so if you're going to do this you're going to buy one of these and set it up i'd recommend going through this process first of all what i'm planning on doing is basically setting this up to have the fans at the front of the case and pull air across the radiator into the case keep the radiator cool but also make the most of the rgb lighting so put the fans on the front rather than the rear so you can still see the rgb i knew that i was going to have problems with this as i have done with most other radiators from course there in the past in that the fins on the radiator itself unfortunately get in the way of the screw holes and you can see that here with a close-up macro shot you can see the fins through the whole screw holes that you're meant to screw into if you try and install the fans on here with a screwdriver and you will find it takes no end of pressure and is really tricky to do it's very hard to do especially if you're trying to do it like i'm doing where i'm installing through the case and into the radiator rather than installing the fans on the radio first i recommend if you can find something in my case i've got a screwdriver with a flathead option on it basically sticking that in as far as you can and wiggling it around a thin screwdriver top something that you can get in there just to poke those fins out of the way obviously we don't want to damage the cooler in any way but you're making it a little bit easier to then be able to screw the screws in someone else in a previous video i saw i made this comment said they used a drill i personally wouldn't risk drilling into there just because i'm pretty clumsy and could end up damaging it more than you'd want to as you can see here even after wiggling that thing around in there i'm still having difficulty screwing it so it's worth pre-screwing without the fans on there just trying to get those screws in as hard as you can making it easier for you when you go through the process this bit is always painful and i hate it and never seems to get any better with corsair's coolers for some reason their coolers are generally fantastic and i've used them for a long time but this part of the sub is always a nightmare once the fans are on is obviously not an issue but beforehand it's a problem this is not something i had with the nzxt kraken x73 that i looked at recently that was much easier to install check out that video as well that's well worth looking at in terms of a 360 ml cooler very nice but once you've gone through the process you can see i'm doing it again here actually what i am going to do as you'll see in a minute is put the radio into the case and then screw through the fans but this is what the end result is i'm trying to achieve you're using the longer screws to go through the front of the fans and into the radiator to hold it in place and that is what course they would recommend except the other way around and on the back you'd then install the radiator itself on your case by either using the fan mount or the case itself just use the smaller screws and washers to hold it onto the case but what i'm going to do is basically screw through the case through the fan and into the radiator and you'll see that process in a second as i said um this is going to be installed on the front of my case with those fans facing outwards so it's sucking cold air from the front in over the fans and then pushing it through the radiator sucking warm air essentially into my case which is not ideal but hopefully it won't be too hot i did want to do a push-pull setup on it but unfortunately as you'll see in a minute i couldn't do it on this case now the pump head as i said quite chunky very easy to set up though as i said instructions in the box that'll let you attach it to multiple different cpu sockets from both intel and amd and there are guidance on how to do that and different plates it comes pre-installed with an intel bracket you have to take it off for an amd one but the setup is fairly straightforward and then the highlight is almost certainly the iq commander core which is just a dream so much easier and it's nice because you normally would have to purchase the commander pro separately and i've done a video before on this and the setup if you've got multiple fans i'd like something like six to nine fans in different cases previously commander pro and two lighting nodes and it was a hassle this one is all in one and it's much easier very easy setup and i'll show you a bit more on that later on now here you can see the different plates that you come install as well it comes with a black one as standard but you can take it off and install the clear one and i'll just quickly show you the process for that basically you get a little allen key included in the box and you unscrew it fairly simply and take that off and then you can put the other one on and obviously that's interchangeable so if you don't like it and you find it's a bit too much the clearer one obviously lets a little more light through and as you'll see a bit later on it's quite white so if you perhaps want something a bit more understated the black one might be nicer i thought it would just be nice to go through the process of doing this and showing how easy it is and it is really easy those just come off and then it just goes back on really simply it's really easy to put together in that way and the highlights so this cooler is is that pump head in that you can customize the lighting on it and i'll show you some examples of that a bit later on in the video but basically it has different rings around it and you can control the lights on a individual basis within iq which means you can customize that lighting but you can also obviously choose from all the different usual rgb schemes and designs which then means you can get some really funky colors going on especially if you've got corsair fans throughout your case anyway as i will have because i've got these ml fans and then some other ml rgb pro fans as well combination of that and then using lighting link and stuff looks really nice and here you can see the back of the radio again you can see what i was talking about with the damage to the fins on the radiator and that was actually how it came out of the box that wasn't what i did to it or anything haven't been like heavy-handed with it and this is the process now i've taken those fans off the rad again because i only installed them there to make sure that they would fit and i wouldn't have hassle while trying to do this because what i'm trying to do now is basically i'm going to install the fans on the front and then screw the radiator into the back of that so i'm setting those fans up so you'll see them and this is obviously going to get the nicest amount of rgb because this is the front of the case so you'll see all the rgb lighting from those ml 120 fans shining through and you can make the most of it if you put them on the back this course that suggests obviously then have the radiator pressing against the front and it doesn't look great now i will have some comments on this video no doubt on the case video because people have watched the gamers nexus video suggesting that you should put your radiator with the pipes below the pump so ideally with the pipes at the bottom of your case rather than at the top if you're mounting in this way unfortunately that isn't always possible in the 4000 d it is not possible to get a 360 mil in that position the cables will not go at the bottom so you have to put them at the top and it ends up looking like this which might not be optimal but it does still work perhaps the better thing to do if you're going for 4000 d and i'll talk about this in that video if you want to watch that is to get a 240 mil instead and top mount it and then just put three intake fans in the front and exhaust through the top instead and that's another option but this is what i wanted to do because i thought it would look good and still give me good cooling and i will show you what the cooling was like a bit later on as well as i go and do some testing did some various benchmarking with it and ran it all day long using various intensive programs to see what results we could get out of it i was surprised and pleased with the results as i said it runs nice and quiet when you put it into quiet mode once you've got those screws installed you got it into position as long as the screw holes are eased and it's much easier to set into place the setup is also a lot easier than previously thanks to that command core now while i'm just going through this setup process it's worth noting a few things and i'll include these in the description but this cooler is designed to have a low noise pump which still delivers a good flow rate with less than 20 decibels of noise it also has a split flow copper cold plate technology and it's basically designed to give the best cooling possible from an all-in-one system the end result as you can see here is the radiator successfully mounted on the front of the case and looking good it will look even better when turned on and those rgb fans are spinning and you get to witness the glory of all that as well now one of the things i thought about doing before i actually had my hands on this case was to do a push pull set up i've done this in a lienly case which is my daily driver and this is for a project i'm working on so i wanted to see if i could install the standard fans that come with a case on the rear of it to have a push-pull setup but unfortunately you could only install two because of the way that case works so it's not possible to do it however i am going to do a separate video in the near future on this pump with some sp fans so static pressure fans from corsair wanted to test out what that's like versus the ml see if you can get better performance because it is recommended by the pros that use stat pressure instead of airflow fans to get the best cooling on a all-in-one cooler and i want to see what difference that makes so stick around subscribe if you haven't already to check that out now in terms of installing that commander core you just need to find a spot on the rear of your case or in a good location where you can install it now i'm not using any ssds in this machine i've got nvme drives installed in it so i thought about just taking the base off the two bays at the back of this case and then working out a way to install it at the rear obviously you need to work out where all your fans are going to be where those cables going to reach and also account for the fact that you're going to have to plug this box in to your usb header on your motherboard and also plug the cable from the pump into it so it kind of needs to be in the sweet spot where nothing's going to be too stretched and you are going to be able to reach everything so before i mounted it on the case i wanted to check that the fans that were furthest away and other bits would plug in as i said on one side you essentially have to the rgb hub plugging into the rgb section and the other side is power really easy to do and do them in order of the way you want the lighting to appear so and here you can see the end result the front little plug plugs into the sides you can see from the pump itself this side up so it plugs in there and that it replaces what used to be usb connections you have mini usb connection to the usb header and that makes that a lot easier you do need to plug the pump itself into the cpu fan header on your motherboard as well though and obviously the control box also needs to be plugged into sata power so you basically got the power and the control but that control box then means that everything appears in iq you can see all the fans that are plugged into it and the pump and control them all directly from there in terms of rgb lighting fan speed and everything else so if you have six fans in your case and then this is perfect if you have more you might need to opt for either fan splitters or plugging things directly into your motherboard now in my case as i said i'm stalling this pump on and the instructions in the box are a little bit confusing because it does say on the box itself that it will fit with the 1200 socket it doesn't really tell you in the manual what the instructions are for doing or what you're meant to use now you need to use the intel back plate which is the same as what you'd use for the 1155 i believe basically this back plate has a 3m sticker on the back of it you need to adjust the pins that are in the right place and then push it into place there are then some standoff screws that i'll show you in a minute for the 1200 that are the same length on either side that you then screw into the front and i'll show you that as well but basically you just need to watch out because the instructions 1200 aren't in the manual but if you have any other of the cpu sockets whether it's amd or intel you'll probably find the instructions are fairly straightforward they basically involve putting a back plate on although some of them don't need a back plate and then screwing on the standoff screws and setting the pump head down over your cpu and then using thumb screws to tighten it up fairly straightforward process the cabling is probably the more tricky thing but that has been simplified thanks to the commander core which is really nice so back to the front you can see i have my cpu already installed in there now i just need to put the standoff screws into the holes in all four corners and then the pump head will sit over the top of that and here you can see but there's no labeling on this packet but it was the 2011 or 2066 standoff screws and you want the ones that are the same length on either side and those will work with the 1200 socket as well so if you're interested in that and this is the setup process for you and this is how to do it so basically just sit those in there and screw them in to the four corners and then put the pump head carefully down on top and screw it down with the thumb screws for the most part apart from screwing the fans into the radiator itself the start process of course says all-in-one coolers has always been streamlined and easy and that is also not just because the instructions in the manual are usually very good but also everything like the bracketing and screwing down the various standoff screws and all that is really straightforward as well but also i've always really liked the style the pump head and the fact that it comes pre-installed with its own pace you don't have to worry about putting too little or too much thermal paste on you may choose to remove the thermal paste that's installed on there and perhaps get your own perhaps an uprated one um i don't think there's any necessary reason to do that unless you're a mega snob i've found it works really well every time i've used it i've never had any cooling issues once that pump heads down on you and just set it down with the thumb screws now you'll note that the cable that goes into the rear of the machine and plugs in to the commander core is quite thin and that's a nice addition too it's thin and long and you makes it easier to hide and you also have another cable that comes out of that like i said goes into the cpu fan header on your motherboard so that then that's your pc and commander control it and make sure that it's running at the right speed to keep your machine cool there is the optional extra of a temperature gauge on the side of the commander core as well so you can also get some extra temperature readings and monitor what's happening there i didn't use that i don't think it's necessary i never really bothered with it because the motherboards generally know what's happening and report that data well to the pc anyway and it runs smoothly and here you can see the end result now it's installed and running immediately turned on and you can get rainbow wave of course which is far from my favorite rgb lighting i really don't really like it generally i like to set to other colors but you can immediately see what i was talking about with the pump head itself letting off so much rgb lighting in different zones and you can see it traveling around that area and just how much there is also now we're at the front of the case the 4000d even though you've got the mesh there you can see the rgb lighting from it as well and also obviously you can see the standard ml fan installed at the back the pump itself looks magnificent when it's set on a standard color and just note the difference between those top rear ml fans you'll see they only have four leds on them and compared with the front ones i'll show you in a second which have eight so with the ones that are included in the box you get a lot more rgb lighting but they aren't currently purchasable which is interesting because that means you can't basically make all the fans in your case look the same but you can see the difference immediately here just from how many leds you have they'll emanate from the center and then beam out over the fins and it does a really good job of it and you can customize it all within the software and you can really make those lights look great and you have obviously had the lighting link you can see the lights coming from the pump head itself and then spinning out to the fans as they're in order you see it starts from the pump head and goes to the bottom fan and then spins back up through all the other ones or you can just set it to a nice solid color and get a good rgb glow off of it i'm going to quickly have a talk through and show you the iq software so one of the things you can do is within the iq software once it's plugged in obviously everything is being powered through the commander course so it sees all the fans you can see it's got six fans in there and it will automatically recognize them but you can also set what they are as well and here i've got it set to quiet and the rpm's spinning really low and as i said i was really impressed with how quiet the machine runs when it's on quiet mode one thing i did know that i wasn't able to demonstrate very easily on video unfortunately is that what it isn't quite i could hear a pump wine just a slight pump wine not something i've noticed with other corset coolers and it could potentially be down to the way i've set it up with a radio in what people would say as a sub-optimal position however unbalanced and the other modes haven't really noticed that at all it was just i think because it was set so quiet it wasn't perfect in that way however it might be also perhaps there's just an issue with mine and maybe it'll settle down over time obviously it's been transported so it's gonna have been shaken around a bit so letting it run and seeing how it goes now going into the lighting setting and see the various lighting effects you'll know immediately that the pump has those rings that i was talking about you've got a ring around the outside a ring in the middle and then an led in the middle of that as well and all of the fans also have the same it's worth noting for some reason it's recognized the six fans is all having eight but you can go in and customize that and actually tell it which ones are which because they don't all have eight leds in them as i said only three doing three only a four but you can tweak it and you can set and go in individually and set layers of effects as well or you can choose from a selection of different colors and effects as usual in the iq software include predefined ones custom ones and the lighting link ones that will go across all corsair peripherals keyboards mice headsets and all the fans and ram and everything else as well so you can set it to go through in there and again another angle and a close-up view of that lighting on the front fans so the ml's that come with the cooler itself and you can see they give off a nice little bit of lighting really classy where it's done and a good glow to it you can obviously see where the leds are but i don't think it's too much in terms of the hot zones i think it looks pretty good i was quite impressed with it this is obviously taken in low light situation gives you an idea of what the lighting looks like but even under heavy lighting from video it looks really good too from a different angle you can see the individual leds and how you can control them and set them to different colors as well so within iq software you can choose a static color as one layer and then you can set another layer and you basically just hold down control and click on the leds that you want to light up in that specific color so for example i've gone through here and selected blue but then i wanted to start adding in other colors so i ended up adding some yellow to one side and then a bit of a red on the other side and just experimenting with it and end up with this which looks a bit weird but it was just for a test purpose it's blue on the bottom right in the middle yellow on top and it just shows that you can tweak it to that level and that's available to be able to be done with the pump and with the fans too so you can really get individual programming and get that rgb lighting the way you want it in terms of performance though in a minute i'll be showing you that performance of that and what it's like under pressure and it does a really good job as you'd expect from a large radiator satisfying cooling here you can see the pump head again looking once again at the different areas and the customization of that so i don't think i've seen this level of rgb lighting on a cooler pump head from corsair in the past certainly none of the ones i've tested rgb has been on pumps previously but to be able to customize it to this individual level as you can see i've got a static color on a couple of them and then another bit was actually effect going on so you can create all sorts of random little effects obviously it's not going to just show anything super fancy like gifs or logos or anything like that but being able to personalize the rgb lighting is certainly a very nice addition now one of the tests i wanted to do is to see how the machine stacked up what it ran like compared to my main machine but also just to be able to put it under some pressure to test how the pump did how the cooling went so i ran it through 3d mark and i also ran it through heaven as well i was testing it with all the different 3d benchmarking tech it could see what score it came within the results it did pushing it pretty hard to see what the results would be and i'll link to the benchmark results in the description so you can see what it was but then i also ran folding at home and i set it to maximum so it would use all the cpu and the gpu basically during the day so it would get as hot as possible and i left it running basically the entire day just to make it really hot and give it a good lot of work and i wanted to see what the results of that would be and how it handled it and as you can see the cpu itself is around 70 degrees and it has 100 and most of the rest of the stuff we got the rtx 2070 somewhere around 65 degrees the pump says it's running at about 40 degrees and the rams around 50. so it is quite warm in there but considering it's been under pressure all day long helping with folding at home goodness i don't think it did a bad job so all in all a really good cooler very nice setup really nice looking and lots of customization features the highlight for me is almost certainly that commander core but it does give you plenty of options and it is a great bit of kit i hope you found this video useful let me know in the comments if you've got any questions check out that gamer's nexus video as well get some information from those guys thanks for watching this has been the provoke prom thanks for taking the time to watch this video hope you found it useful interesting hilarious or all of the above be sure to check out the description for other information you might find interesting and subscribe and watch these other videos as well that i think might be useful to you and have a great life

Channel: The Provoked Prawn

Views: 326,038

Keywords: Corsair iCue H150i Elite Capellix, H150i Elite Capellix AIO, H150i Elite Capellix AIO unboxing, H150i Elite Capellix AIO installation, H150i Elite Capellix AIO with ML120 RGB, H150i Elite Capellix AIO setup, how to install H150i Elite Capellix AIO, how to fit the H150i Elite Capellix AIO, Corsair H150i Elite Capellix AIO unboxing, H150i Elite Capellix AIO overview, corsair h150i elite capellix install, corsair liquid cooler, elite capellix, pc build guide

Id: o_FajCnpN6Q

Length: 29min 24sec (1764 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 15 2020