CORSAIR launched their new AIO liquid CPU cooler a few weeks before the Intel Alder Lake launch because they are well aware that Team Blue’s new processors run pretty hot. Whether CORSAIR has incorporated any new design changes to better handle the high temperatures of Alder Lake. The new CORSAIR iCUE ELITE LCD Liquid CPU Cooler looks to be a minor upgrade over their iCUE ELITE CAPELLIX Liquid CPU Cooler that was launched last September. We decided to take a look at the 360mm variant i.e. the CORSAIR “H150i” iCUE ELITE LCD Liquid CPU Cooler to see if all that changed. CORSAIR also has H100i 240mm and H170i 420mm variants available with the new LCD displays.
CORSAIR isn’t the first to put an LCD display on its coolers. ASUS showcased the Ryujin with an LCD display in 2018 and we’ve seen brands like NZXT come out with displays on coolers of late.
packaging
The CORSAIR H150i iCUE ELITE LCD comes in a standard black and yellow Corsair box with all the necessary accessories to fit all modern CPU sockets. The Intel bracket is pre-installed on the cooler and supports LGA1700/1200/1156/1155/1151/1150 sockets. And for AMD, you get AM4/STR4/STR4X brackets and mounting hardware.
The fans included with the CORSAIR H150i iCUE ELITE LCD Liquid CPU Cooler are 120mm ML RGB ELITE fans that use magnetic levitation and deliver 14.86 to 58.1 CFM while running between 450-2000 RPM. These are constant pressure fans that are used with dense radiators. Each fan has a 4-pin PWM connector and a 4-pin RGB connector for powering the fan.
To control the LCD display and all the RGB on the fans, CORSAIR includes a Commander Core with the cooler. This thing can handle six fans and six RGB devices in addition to the LCD display on the cooler. And if you have six RGB fans, it can handle it all. A proper mid-tower cabinet like the 680X will come with some RGB fans of its own, so that’s easily handled by the Commander Core with three ML RGB ELITEs.
You also get a USB Y-splitter cable for connecting the two USB connectors on the motherboard to a single USB 2.0 header. This doesn’t always work as some boards will make it difficult to recognize devices when passed through a USB hub. When we used a splitter cable with our test rig, neither the LCD display, nor the three ML RGB Elite fans connected via the Commander Core were recognized. We had to bypass the USB Y-splitter to let the ICUE recognize the devices.
installation
The mounting mechanism for the Intel is fairly simple. There is a rear bracket with adjustable inserts that can fit LGA1700/1200/1156/1151/1150. A pair of double-sided standoff screws secure the bracket and the CPU block goes on top and is, in turn, secured with four nuts.
The AMD mounting mechanism is just as simple. You’ll need to replace the bracket on the CPU block and use it with a standard AMD backplate. There are separate two-way standoff screws securing the AMD backplate. And the CPU block goes on top as was the case with the Intel CPU block.
Then comes the commander core which controls all the fans, the fan’s RGB lighting and the pump. The CPU block has a thick flat cable running to the COMMANDER CORE which is in turn connected to a SATA power connector and a USB 2.0 connector. There is also a USB 2.0 connector in the CPU block. Both USB connectors need to be connected to the motherboard to let iCUE talk to the Pump and Commander Core. As we mentioned earlier, we couldn’t use a Y-splitter USB cable with two devices and had to connect them directly.
build quality
Corsair went with CoolIT for this particular model and because Corsair is such a big customer, they customize a lot more aspects of the AIO than other customers. In the case of the CORSAIR H150i iCUE ELITE LCD, they haven’t done much other than attach a display to the top of the pump block. Let’s start with the radiator.
Same old design made using full aluminum body. The radiator is 27mm wide and has roughly 20 fins per inch.
The radiator could easily have incorporated screw protectors or screw guards like we see on the Corsair XR5 and XR7 radiators that are part of their Hydro X series. The OEMs are different as the XR5 and XR7 are made by Hardware Labs and the AIO comes from CoolIT. We’re pretty sure CoolIT got it from some other OEM, but it’s about time this simple design modification was incorporated by all AIO manufacturers.
Moving on to tubes and joints, we see nylon-sleeved tubing held in place with crimped fittings that don’t rotate or swivel.
The CPU Water Block comes pre-fitted with an LCD panel and metal brackets for mounting on Intel systems. The tubing is connected using a plastic swivel fitting, the end of which has a metal crimp to secure the tube. All cabling comes out of the top of the CPU water block which is oriented to the side in this image. And then you have the LCD display which is a 2.1-inch 24-bit color IPS panel with a resolution of 480×480 pixels and a frame rate of 30 fps. The backlight is bright at 600 nits.
You can remove the LCD display fairly easily and this is what you’re left with. There is no connector to connect directly to the pump block if you don’t want the LCD display.
Corsair mentions the cold plate is 56 x 56mm, ours came a millimeter short but that’s ok. The cold plate is secured with eight Phillips screws and opening the cooler is quite easy. However, not recommended unless you have some glycol and distilled water mix to top it up.
Towards the bottom of the cold plate, we get to see the distinctive CoolIT design of micro-skived fins. Corsair says they have 128 fins per inch in this design.
Inside the pump head, we see a blue thermocouple for measuring cold plate temps and a rectangular washer in the center to send fluid into the center of the micro-skived fins.
Lastly, we have the CORSAIR ML120 RGB ELITE fans which is the other big change with this launch. On the iCUE ELITE CAPELLIX AIO, we had ML120 RGB fans with eight LEDs and the fan could run between 400-1600 RPM, pushing out up to 47.3 CFM. It did so without making much noise at 25 dBA. The ML120 RGB ELITE, on the other hand, has eight LEDs mounted in a slightly different housing with straight edges and can run between 450-2000 RPM, pushing out up to 58.10 CFM. It also gets louder at 30.4 dBA max.
Overall, the LCD display and fan at the top of the CPU block are the biggest changes on the design front. Let’s see how they perform.
Display
One of the important things about an AIO is to see if the micro-squished fins, where most of the heat exchange takes place, align with the actual CPU die inside the IHS. Intel and AMD have different arrangements of the die on the substrate and the performance of the AIO depends on how well they align with the actual die. Intel has a massive monolithic die on consumer processors whereas AMD has their chiplet designs which are die driven across the entire substrate. Since the H150i iCUE ELITE LCD cooler was launched around the Intel Alder Lake processor launch, we decided to see if it aligned well with the die.
On the top-of-the-line Intel Core i9-12900K, the die is approximately 10.2 x 20.4 mm and sits bang in the center of the substrate. And we may see the fins provide ample coverage for the new Intel CPUs.
Units were reviewed on the following configurations:
Intel 12th Generation Test Rig
CPU: Intel Core i9-12900K and Core i5-12600K
Motherboard: GIGABYTE Z690 AORUS Master
SSD: 2x WD Black SN850 1TB
HDD: Seagate FireCuda 2TB ST2000DX002
RAM: Corsair Dominator Platinum RGB DDR5 32GB (2 x 16GB) @4800 MHz
Cooler: Corsair H150i Elite LCD
PSU: Cooler Master V1200
The Alder Lake flagship processor is a guzzler and runs very hot, making it ideal for testing CPU coolers. We have looked at the power consumption values over a time period of 10 minutes and shows heavy load in the first 5 minutes and nothing running in the subsequent 5 minutes.
Under load, the P-core reached a maximum temperature of 97°C, while the E-core topped out at 85°C. During dormancy, the P-core remained around 21.5 °C and the E-core remained around 20 °C. The CPU package temperature was always between 98 and 100 °C under load. More importantly, the E-cor hit TJmax hard while the P-cor had difficulty staying away from TJmax. The TjMax averaged 3.1 degrees during load. This is with the ambient temperature being 19 degrees.
As for noise levels, the fans ramp up to max during the 10-minute thermal throttling test. At their peak, the cooler’s fans exceed 42 dBA, making the cooler sound as loud as the competition. During normal load, audio levels were on par with ambient levels.
Decision
The CORSAIR H150i iCUE ELITE LCD Liquid CPU Cooler is a fine AIO for the new Alder Lake processors, as long as you’re not crunching prime numbers all the time. The LCD display is a nice change and CORSAIR has done a great job of polishing up the entire iCUE interface and making it easy to control. On the other hand, the voice of the fans is a bit louder than before. Overall, the H150i iCUE ELITE is a fine addition to CORSAIR’s portfolio.
