Corsair Hydro Series H55 Liquid CPU Cooler Review

As you can see below the acoustics of the fan in its stock form aren’t that great. Being a 3 pin fan, the fan speed is fixed at the maximum RPM of 1700. At 1700RPM it is quite loud and you wouldn’t really want it operating like that 24/7 – even inside a case it would be audible. However, with the low noise adapter, the Corsair H55 is highly competitive. The pump is generally very quite and only makes “water-moving” noises on start up and shut down, the fan is the only part of the system that makes any noticeable noise so by capping the fan with an adapter the acoustics improve  a lot and thankfully as seen on the previous page the temperatures do not suffer that much.

Fixed speeds means the acoustics do not change as we rise from a stock frequency to an overclocked frequency. Consequently the Corsair H55 moves up the rankings and actually finds itself in a highly competitive position if you use a fan speed reducer cable. However, with the default fan speed it is very loud in comparison to the competition. We really think Corsair should bundle a low noise adapter or PWM fan with the H55 to give it that competitive edge.