Corsair A500 Dual Fan CPU Cooler Review

Performance

Straight away, you can see that the Corsair A500 isn’t just all show and no go. It’s very closely matching the performance of the Noctua NH-D15S at idle. However, at gaming and full load, it actually outperformed Noctua by a small margin. Not bad for the new kid, and on a CPU as demanding as the i9-9900K.

Pushing the clocks up to 5 GHz, the Corsair cooler STILL has an edge. Noctua was a little cooler at idle, but honestly, I’m splitting hairs given its 1c here or there for both. Another day another few tests, I bet either one will come out ahead as often as the other.

Now this is where things get very interesting. Noctua have, let’s be honest, the best fans in the business (sorry Corsair). Plus, Noctua are rocking a single 140mm fan, and a larger heatsink to boot. Corsair make do with dual 120mm fans, which have to spin faster to move the same amount of air. The end result is that the A500 is a little louder. Albeit, at stock clocks, both are actually pretty quiet.

Pushing the clocks up, and you see the difference. Noctua tops out at just 39 dBa, pretty quiet. While Corsair is more audibly at 43 dBa. That’s still a great result though, but the 120mm fans did have to work a little harder at such high loads. That being said, who’s OC’ing an i9-9900K on air? Not many people I’m sure.