Corsair H115i Elite 280mm AIO Review
Conclusion
With any cooling solution it is always a balance between noise and heat-dissipation. As we said in our introduction the 120mm AIO options are usually too small to be able to be run quietly or on high performance processors. As you move up the radiator sizing you can therefore lower your fan speeds and obtain a similar level of cooling on much slower fans. It’s all about surface area.
That’s all well and good but of course most of us don’t own cases that could fit a 480mm radiator in them, and indeed a lot of cases have issues with 360mm radiators. The Corsair H115i Elite hits that sweet spot between being compact enough that you can buy it without needing to measure your case mounting points, but not so small that you have to sit next to something doing a vacuum cleaner impression in its attempts to tame your temperatures.
Our test system is deliberately using the Core i9-9900K as it’s a well known high-heat CPU, but even then the Corsair H115i Elite utilised its 280mm radiator and twin AF-Elite fans to keep things fairly cool and quiet on the balanced profile. Clicking up to faster fan speeds had a dramatic effect on our temperatures, albeit at a noise level that we would find hard to live with on a long-term basis. That’s the great thing about CPU cooling though. Some of you will be trying to cool much more efficient processors than our Core i9, and thus lower fan speeds will still be able to keep things under control. Some of you won’t mind the extra noise of faster fan speeds in exchange for the security of knowing that even in weather such as we’re enduring at the moment or with a high performance processor under that RGB pump, everything will be cool.
The Corsair H115i Elite might not have the flash and flair of many AIOs we’ve seen recently. The pump doesn’t have a screen, the radiator fans aren’t RGB, but what it does give you is solid cooling in a package that will fit all cases, and at a relatively affordable price point. Sometimes doing a job well, even if its unglamorous, is enough. We really did feel like this needed to have a bigger price gap between the CAPPILEX unit that sits above it at £159. We personally don’t think the savings match the lack of RGB fans and the commander pro price wise. The Elite does however make the CAPPILEX model now look much better value and out of the two we really would spend that tiny bit extra.
Corsair iCUE H115i RGB Elite cooler has an MSRP of £144.99
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