Corsair H115i RGB Platinum Liquid CPU Cooler Review

Testing
With your system up and running properly, the first thing you will want to do is head to:

https://www.corsair.com/us/en/downloads

Grab the latest download for Corsair’s iCUE software. iCue is Corsairs comprehensive system management software used to control everything from your fan speed to your fancy ARGB lights. This new software has entirely replaced LINK, their previous hardware control and monitoring software. Within iCue we are able to change our ARGB profiles quickly and easily as well as set up our fans and pump to a profile that matches our needs. Corsair has built up a solid set of 15 stock profiles for the lighting and of course you can easily build your own LED by LED.

Corsair H115i RGB Platinum Corsair H115i RGB Platinum Corsair H115i RGB Platinum Corsair H115i RGB Platinum Corsair H115i RGB Platinum Corsair H115i RGB Platinum

There are four basic performance modes in iCue for your H115i RGB Platinum including Zero RPM which shuts the fans down when they are not needed. We’ve seen this feature used in PSU’s for a while and it’s nice to see it brought to other types of hardware. One thing we do want to draw attention to is the limited amount of graphing you’ll find in iCue. If you obsess over data points like us it’s likely you will not find the available graph tools to be sufficient. Other than that we find the latest build of iCue to be a fantastically polished piece of software. It even seems to be a bit lighter and more responsive than other versions especially when compared to LINK.

Corsair H115i RGB Platinum Corsair H115i RGB Platinum Corsair H115i RGB Platinum

In the past we have always used performance mode when testing AiO coolers as we want to get the absolute best out of them that we can. However we noticed with what is now “Extreme mode” in iCue that this simply wasn’t enough as it failed to get the fans even close to 100%. In fact in Extreme mode found the fans were nearly 40% slower than 100%. In light of that we tested with both Extreme and a Fixed Percentage of 100% for our final overclocked test and will present them where applicable.

Corsair H115i RGB Platinum Corsair H115i RGB Platinum

The test rig consists of the following parts:

Processor: Intel Core i7 3770K
Motherboard: Gigabyte Z77X-UD4H
Video Card: Zotac 560 Ti
Memory: Samsung Green MV-3V4G3D/US – 8GB
Power Supply: Corsair TX950
Storage: Mushkin ECO2 240GB Running Windows 7 64bit
Cooling: Corsair H115i RGB Platinum
Case: Phanteks Enthoo Luxe

As always testing was done using Intel Burn Test (IBT) with the AVX instruction set. The reason to use this instead of Prime95 with this setup is that it pushes our i7 3770K a whole lot harder. This gives us a better sense of extreme load temps. Most of the testing was done at the max memory setting for a single pass. While admittedly this in no way would qualify the chip as stable while overclocked, it gives us a realistic idea of what temperatures the CPU will be hitting. Additionally we are going to run 3DMARK Fire Strike Extreme to give you a realistic idea of performance while gaming.

Our baseline was established using a bequiet! Dark Rock Pro 2 with the 3770K on stock settings:

Ambient temps: 22.22C/72F
Idle temps: 38.75C/101.75F core average
IBT temps one pass max memory: 63.5C/146.3F core average

The first thing we did was to test the cooler with stock motherboard/CPU settings:

Ambient temps: 20.28°C/68.5°F
Idle temps: 26°C/78.8°F core average
IBT temps one pass max memory: 56°C/132.8°F core average
Ambient adjusted amount: +1.94°C

Corsair H115i RGB Platinum Corsair H115i RGB Platinum

Wow, the RGB Platinum is keeping our 3770K absolutely chill at the stock settings. At idle it sits 10.81°C cooler. Over 10 degrees cooler is pretty significant, and something that could easily extend the life of your processor if you plan to leave the settings stock. The difference under loads reduces a bit, but the Corsair results are still 5.56°C lower. We’re totally happy with these results, let’s see what happens when we throw a hefty overclock on.

Here are the results for our i7 3770K @ 4.5ghz with 1.248V vCore:

Ambient temps: 20.28°C/68.5°F
IBT temps: 71.75°C/161.5°F with the single hottest core hitting 76°C
IBT temps 100% fans: 69.75°C/157.55°F with the single hottest core hitting 74°C

Corsair H115i RGB Platinum Corsair H115i RGB Platinum

The trend continues. With an adjusted temp of 71.69 the H115i RGB Platinum with it’s new pump design and improved cold block takes a tidy 4th place in our rankings of 33 AiO coolers. There’s no denying this is impressive considering it beats out 360mm radiator equipped units as well as full on watercooling kits.

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Let’s see how it games.

Ambient temps: 20.28°C/68.5°F
3DMARK 100% fans: 55.5°C/131.9°F with the hottest single core hitting 60°C

Corsair H115i RGB Platinum

This should leave no doubt that the RGB Platinum will not only set the style of your rig down the right track with it’s excellent ARGB coverage, it will keep your system nice and chilly to boot. 57.44°C in game is absolutely acceptable and really leave you room for more overclocking if you feel that need.

Lastly let’s talk about noise. We ran the system with the fans at a solid 100% output and gave it a listen. Purely from a listener point of view they are down right pleasant. This pair of 140mm fans create more of a gentle whooshing sound than anything. When set to Zero RPM mode, you will never hear them. We did want to make this a little more scientific and accurate so we measured them using the Spectroid decibel meter App on our Pixel 3 XL. The loudest point measured at 100% fan was 58dB and that was right above the case.

Corsair H115i RGB Platinum