They don't think I was being fair...

[@danielhulan3058]

You were not harsh. You were honest. It only looks good in the vertical position. That's all you said. You said nothing about performance. You were right Jay!

[@danielhulan3058]

And let's be real. When you buy these things, looks do come into play a lot.

[@dobbi6083]

Doesn't even look that good in a vertical position personally, almost gives me that really old passive cooled gpu vibes visually

[@danielhulan3058]

Or old school gpus that don't have full cover shrouds! Your right!

[@danielhulan3058]

Also this is through open bench setup. Think if this was in say a Hyte Y60. Horrible temps.

[@ThatRandomMan1]

I have custom cooled a few GPU's Always gotta throw on some vrm heatsinks. With any cooler just about it. Full cover water block? The way to go.

[@shiba7651]

The worst part of the product is the fact that for the price of watercooling your 4070ti you can get a 4080 which will be faster and you can undervolt it to be as quiet

[@noticing33]

😂😂😂 somepeople r idiots so why not take their money too

[@RonaldMcdonaldTheThird]

Then for an extra £300, you can buy a 4090. Pricing on the high end is insanely stupid ATM.

[@heatnup]

It always bothers me when people with lower tier systems watercool. People need to get their priorities straight. If you are willing to build a pc with hundreds or thousands of dollars worth of watercooling equipment...just forgo the watercooling and buy a higher tier card

[@Simon-tr9hv]

​@@heatnupliterally, even if you get one tier lower like 4080, like why bother spending 300 dollars custom soft tubing it when you could have gotten 4090

[@MyouKyuubi]

You could also just buy a RX 6800XT, and you'll get the same performance as a 4070, that's as silent as the grave... And is cheaper. xD

[@SchmityFPV]

Would have to agree, the card looked so much better with the stock air cooler.

[@RaveDaver]

Let's not forget that cleaning this tiny fan inside a plastic case with tubes attached is going to be unnecessary more difficult. The stock triple fans ramps up at startup to "clean" itself. Because the 0% speed out the box settings under x-degree.

[@LDFilmsMotorsport]

Looks like it was made in 2008

[@cadcad-jm3pf]

With AIO it looks like a card straight from 2005.

[@VerGiLL1]

​@@RaveDaverWait is that true ? I always found it weird that it did that.

[@RaveDaver]

@@VerGiLL1 At boot up the GPU fan settings(if you use software) aren't loaded so they go full blast.😁

[@mammothkiwi]

This is 100% spot on. If priced much lower it would make more sense, but you also need to consider the opportunity cost of the rad, pump, fittings etc. For another $23 it's much better to get a full block

[@andresgallego5727]

If you already have a loop and you are replacing the graphics card and you end up paying 1200 for a 4080 I might want to get a decent block asap that does the job to get my card under water, the issue is this product is not priced in that way, it needs to be 50$ cheaper to make sense, you can get a full block from another brand for a similar price.

[@medic-chan]

Your use of opportunity cost implies that someone would purchase a water block in lieu of a rad, pump, fittings etc Opportunity cost refers to what you have to give up to buy what you want in terms of other goods or services. I think you're trying to talk about sunk cost? Or maybe just cost? Like: If your loop is already an additional $300-400 on top of your build you might as well spend the extra $23 for a real full block.

[@mammothkiwi]

@@medic-chan I am not an economist but what I was trying to say is that the return/value on a higher end full cover water block is subjectively higher (aesthetics, temp) than choosing a cheap water block when you factor the price difference into the total cost of going custom water. The total cost being much higher due to the sunk cost of other components like rads, fittings, pump and res

[@mammothkiwi]

@@andresgallego5727 yep fully agree. It's just doesn't make sense given to price difference between a full cover block given the overall cost of going custom water

[@jepulis6674]

And you can just upgrade the fans on the air cooler for like less than a 3rd of the price of the block alone.

[@Retadin]

I agree, that looks pretty terrible, and the price is insane.

[@AngelXjp]

I agree with you Jay. I'm shocked that Corsair put their name on this product though. It looks like hot garbage. I would not put that in my case. I understand what they were trying to accomplish, but honestly a GPU is not a trivial component to cool. Especially these days. I can't even recommend this for a budget office GPU because this is overkill for such a low performance part. This product simply shouldn't exist. You can either do cooling right or not at all. This product I predict will lead to an early death of a GPU if used.

[@MeshMN]

Good thing no one will buy it - why we love objective reviewers.

[@andrewvirtue5048]

Trial and error lead to innovation.

[@generalawareness101]

Which block is better, the Bykski, or the Alphacool? I have read the Alphacool has isses (4090 AMP owner here).

[@Nemesis-pe7mw]

@@MeshMN An objective reviewer? First off a objective HUMAN does not exist. Second he scored a cooler on it's looks. Which is weird since OBJECTIVELY speaking a coolers main function is to cool something, not to look cool. How "good" or "bad" something looks is purely subjective.

[@benjaminsmekens2344]

@@generalawareness101 I've had a 4090 AMP extreme since launch last September, and have had Bykski block on it for about half a year. Performed very well with no issues, because I changed cases and went to a larger rad surface, dual pump, and delidded 7950x configuration I changed the Bykski block to an EK one. There is zero performance difference but the blacked out "boxy" look matched the rest of the build so went with it purely for esthetics. The Bykski block cost me around 90$ + back plate, can't beat that :D

[@scoundrel6778]

It does look very bulbous. If you didn't mention it was from Corsair, I would have never guessed, any parts I've gotten from them look sharp and rigid. They should make a full cover one instead

[@DenKonZenith]

Or just go ultra-minimalistic; bare card with a metal cube on it has SOME aesthetic appeal to it.

[@kylewitzel3540]

Buy the full cover water block. I want to see it

[@DerangedCoconut808]

the card with the waterblock looks like the old dinky plastic stock heatsink cooling solutions from 20 years ago. its looks cheap especially when its so much smaller than the PCB. and not having a daisychain passthrough for the corsair ecosystem (how much more difficult would it of been to run everything through one controller block) is an oversight for such an expensive product. its a great beta product at most in my opinion.

[@Daveyc264]

Would be nice to see it go against that 150 dollar full coverage cooler. As for the Corsair 1. If you said it was a no name thing from Amazon for 50 dollar, I would of believed you

[@constantinesoldatos]

I second this!!! Would love to see that comparison.

[@MeshMN]

This is a cringe product from Corsair - frankly surprised they went with it. It literally has no market the way it is priced. for 50 bucks maybe but not for the same money as standard water cooling loops would be.

[@rustler08]

Honestly, this review shows how pointless it is. That's a lot of money and risk to drop 8 degrees. Granted, an Alphacool block would probably be sitting in the 30 degree range, MAYBE 40, but is it even worth it on this GPU?

[@Weneedaplague]

@@rustler08 it's all about your usage. If it's going to be at 100% all day then yeah the card needs beefier cooling even if it's not a flagship expensive model. The closer you can get to idle functions the longer the product will last.

[@ano_nym]

@@Weneedaplague I honestly want to do a water cooling build just for looks. I don't really care about performance. From that standpoint it could definitively be worth getting a waterblock even for this card.

[@MotoGoato]

I would 100% pay the extra $23 for the full cover block with backplate .. it would be worth it for the aesthetics alone, the fact the fcb would also perform a little better too is just a bonus. That corsair block makes the card look like it stepped out of the mid 1990s

[@bradtraq1]

Forget function over form when you're spending water cooling kind of money on a pc, it has to work well AND look cool, for me personally.

[@tonirak241]

Watercooling is for performance not aestethic, yes it does look cool when done correctly but the main idea behind was always for performance

[@MeshMN]

@@tonirak241 Remind me never to have you build me a PC, ty. LOL aesthetics matter to more people than not. If one can make the build look good for the SAME money and performance - you seriously think the choice is going to be hot garbage?

[@tonirak241]

@@MeshMN aesthetic matters to everybody, but function comes first, if its functional then you take care of the aesthetic, not the other way around, if you prefer something that doesn't work but just look good then you are stupid

[@Gnarfendorf]

​@@MeshMNyes, and i get 20% more fps when i activate all the rgb on my PC...

[@Th3Fly1ngCow]

@@tonirak241I’d argue with how good coolers are water cooling is more for looks these days unless your chasing 3D mark scores

[@lonelysdomain]

i am a corsair fanboy. i love their products as im running everything that can be corsair is corsair in my build...minus the monitor cuz i built my pc a few months before they announced the xeneon monitor. however im inclined to agree with you. that waterblock is fugly as sin. its just way too small and doesnt do a good enough of a job for the price point.

[@wolf16731]

I share the same philosophy. Full cover or nothing. And even if it's "just a lower tier card, doesn't need a full cover" my thoughts say you could have taken that $120 and bumped up to the next higher tier of card and gotten way more performance for the money.

[@tushoo4938]

Would have loved to see it compared to a full cover water block. I suspect Corsair wouldn't have liked to see that.

[@stereoman.]

The long term risk to the VRM's is not worth it even if they lowered the price to $79.99, this thing is just not fit for purpose and Jay I can see you tried really hard to be fair but I wouldn't risk an $800 GPU to save any amount of money,, anyway enjoyed the review keep it up!

[@rustler08]

They could lower the price to $0 and it wouldn't be worth it. Think about it, it's $150 for a good block from Alphacool, give or take who you buy from. Then you realize that you're dropping $400-500 in rad, pump, tubes, fittings, reservoir, etc. So, that $150 block only represents 27% of your water cooling budget. Meanwhile, you've now got a GPU running in a way it was never designed to, because there's not a single 4070 Ti out there running bare VRMs in stock form, and it is highly likely that it will fail prematurely due to heat from the VRMs. If not thermal throttle if you game for long periods. Hard pass, even if it were freee.

[@Seandude05]

70C for VRMs is nothing.

[@theftking]

You weren't harsh enough; you should've auctioned the block off for charity. Anyway, the only reason anyone water cools a 40-series card is for looks, which I feel like defeats the purpose of this.

[@sinchuon1550]

I just got the eisblock for my 4070ti and I don’t regret it after seeing Corsair’s. Even if alphacool’s version is $25 more, you get more contact including the vrm, a backplate, better aesthetic and don’t have to worry as much about dust build up. Simply put, if I had to choose, I’d still pay that extra $25 for the eisblock just for that piece of mind

[@Crunkmaster]

watercooling a 4070 is a strange move

[@thescrub5001]

To be fair they did send you a lot of things at once to look at all at once. The looks are just that looks. Personal opinion. As for price to performance you are absolutely right that they priced them selves out of the market. If someone is going to spend the time and money on a custom loop chances are they are not going to try and save a couple dollars on a cooler like this instead of a full block cooler.

[@goldenhate6649]

Thats corsair for you...not to mention I haven't been personally happy with their quality for a few years.

[@blakslee720]

This takes me back to my r9 290. I got one of those NZXT brackets that adapted a CPU AIO to the GPU, which was actually a lot better value. I think back then, I got a 120 AIO and the next bracket for no more that $100. This thing is $130, no pump, no rad :(

[@miskammon]

I bought a ID-Cooling 120mm AIO for my 1070, it was around $40.

[@vinak963]

GamersNexus did a video on attaching an AIO to a 1080 ti. I copied that with my gpu. AIO or "hybrid" cooling for under 80 bucks.

[@TotemSP2]

It really takes me back to when video cards didn't have cooling shrouds, and just had a cooler sitting on the card. To tell you how long ago that was, the Radeon HD 4870 did have a shroud and blower fan, but mine from Gigabyte had a big Zalman Fan cooler on it and no shroud. And also Zalman were a thing. Edit: I see you know what i'm talking about.

[@goldenhate6649]

Shoot, my 1050ti had a shroud. Card cost as much as this entire block. Absolute stupidity.

[@koza2]

Maybe Arctic's old GPU Accelero solution would've worked to add to the kit. The addition of the mini heatsinks and heatsink backplate I mean.

[@reinulf656]

Those always fell off after 1 to 2 years :) I had an accelero on a HD 4850 back in the days, great thing.

[@handyman1957]

Can we be serious here, they didn't even get the sticker centered : ( It's the first thing you will notice and cannot un-see. I'm sorry, but this thing just screems low quality to me. Would never want to see my bare gpu card in my system. There is a reason companies go through so much trouble to make coolers look nice and have back plates.

[@davidsmith4186]

If it were metal I'd be all in. Like you pointed out the screws going into plastic to hold the cold plate on. No go for me.

[@Sgt_SealCluber]

Personally I'm of the opinion that water cooling anything below the 80 class nvidia cards, unless you already have a loop, is silly. Use the money you would spend on the block and loop to upgrade to a 4080 or 7900xtx.

[@thierryfaquet7405]

Watercooling any GPU is silly. I understand people doing it for the look, or in some case for space gain in custom looped itx. But it’s still silly. Huge waste of money.

[@Sgt_SealCluber]

@@thierryfaquet7405 With GPU air coolers being better and the cards being pushed to their limits already not leaving OC headroom, water cooling is more about acoustics. I was going to mention how already water blocked GPUs are a good value at the high-end, but the prices on the water blocked 40 series cards is just stupid. My 1080ti with a water block was basically the price of a reference 1080ti and a water block. And with that I got a factory OC'd card that if it was air cooled would have been close to the same price. Though like I said this seems to be a thing of the past with the 40 series. They all seem to want to push AIO'd cards.

[@jasonluu3242]

I can't imagine paying 130 bucks to make my 4070 look like a GT340

[@illegalmexicain]

Screws that screws directly in the plastic speaks volume... they cheaped out.

[@AustnTok]

I've been talking about this thing since we heard about it and I was so surprised that corsair would release it! They obviously care a lot about aesthetics, but when it came to their GPU water block, all aesthetics went out the window. It looks so bad! I don't care if it could magically turn my 4080 into a 4090, I still wouldn't use it.

[@Melabor]

There is probably a use case that this product was designed for. The issue is, we don't know what that use case is and I for one, can not think of it.

[@shofla]

Even vertically installed- it looks like an early 2000's card with the visible cooler : PCB ratio

[@seriphim8542]

I went with a Suprim Liquid X, a hybrid, card to fit in my lian li o11d. At idle the thing sits at 31c, under load it never breaks 55c boosting to 3ghz with a bit of an overclock. Main reason this generation is just size. The stock coolers are a pain to fit in any mid tower case. Especially with the clearance for the 12vhpwr connector required. Being a hybrid card from the factory I think is the difference. The cooler is designed for this card specifically. That being said I did try the evga hybrid kit for my 3080 10g. The memory temps on it were just awful though. Constantly above 90c under load. The plate for that cooler 1. not being monolithic and 2. being so thin just was a bad design. For years I have thought about building a custom loop but upgrading piecemeal and passing those parts down through the house, not to mention moving often, has always stopped me. I don't think I've had a static build in a PC for more than three years at this point. But all my parts get cycled through three, soon to be four, machines in the house before they're out to retirement. Long story short I don't think there is necessarily a problem with hybrid cards perse, given proper design. But an aftermarket solution like this is definitely going to perform worse.

[@patrickhill8494]

Question: How do you get comfortable installing liquid coolers? I'm looking at building my next desktop, which will be both for gaming and for workstation tasks for architecture and rendering programs, and think I may want to use a liquid cooler. However, I am terrified of fucking it up and killing all of my components >.>

[@kevinroosa1315]

Including little VRM heatsinks (with thermal tape) in the box would go a long way in making this a better product. They're only ~10c each in bulk.

[@tylerbuhite5432]

Thanks for being the honest staple in this rollercoaster of a community Jay, Appreciate you!

[@DerrieNiall]

THEY ARE £170 IN THE UK OMG RIDICULOUS

[@Drovek451]

I'd have loved to see a comparison with it running with the (ridiculously large) backplate, just to see if there was any difference after the temperature stabilized.

[@TotalDbag24]

Main problem with that is the things the backplate helps doesn't have temperature monitors.

[@turtuhl]

Scientifically, you had no baseline for the VRAM temp with the stock setup. So, how can you imply that they were hotter with the Corsair cooler?

[@NPurvis7622]

The NZXT 20-30 dollar frame to attach an AIO to a GPU was, and still is, such a better value. Not to mention that bracket with a Fractal Design 360 AIO on a 1080TI ran RE4 Remake flawlessly. Sure, hotter than my 3080TI on a full custom loop, but it chugged along. That little thing Corsair made is.. a weird homage to that, I feel. I hope NZXT brings that bracket back.

[@RobTheSquire]

This block is more for older cards that you want to convert to being water-cooled that don't have heatsinks on vrms etc.

[@marshall104]

The designer of this is obviously a really big fan of old (early 2000s) single fan GPUs.

[@KwaPaN3R]

The fact that this thing is 150€ here in Germany really makes me mad. My alphacool 7900xtx block was 200€ but it‘s a 2kg block of solid nickelplated copper and no screws into plastic…

[@dweb1857]

the interesting thing is when they announced this new product line earlier this year, there was a full cover XG7 iQue link block. it has seemingly been removed from their website since launch (I assume to force people to buy the hybrid blocks) I was going to upgrade all of my Corsair ecosystem to link but not now if I have to use that hybrid block

[@toddbrewer683]

Nope, not too harsh. That is why we listen to you. We value YOUR opinion.

[@DKarkarov]

Funny you mentioned old Zalman CPU coolers, looking at this thing I thought "this looks like something from the early 2000's...". But yeah I recently got a alpha cool 4090 full cover block with backplate and it was like... 170? This thing costs way too much for what it is, but then.... it is corsair. In other news you know who has an open frame water cooling test set up with quick disconnects.... derbauer... you should be more like derbauer Jay.

[@GamesplayChris42]

Seeing it on the card it reminds me of the Kraken G12 AIO adaptor NZXT made awhile back. Also not very good looking but again it was a universal adaptor.

[@T51B1]

I think it costs too much when it isn't a full cover block, and even then it's dubious. If I'm going to watercool an $800+ GPU then I would spend the extra bit of money to get a full cover block. I understand that Corsair is trying to push into a segment of more affordable watercooling, but IMO if they want to do that they should just make an aluminum open loop kit like EK made.

[@imo098765]

Corsair did make a open loop kit a few years ago, Jay did a review of it on the channel too

[@boosted94sc300]

i agree 100%. it looks like something that should be a cheap alternative to an ek full block setup but its not. its only a little less and doesnt look good at all. that price it should have an active back plate.

[@miniminimini3626]

so glad you used the right gpu unlike someone else…

[@LukeBroadhurstfilm]

The only use for this is if you have a GPU that doesn’t have a waterblock made for it. This waterblock will work on anything.

[@alderoth01]

I agree with you just like everyone else. I don't see this being worth $129.00 when the better option isn't very much higher and keeps the back plate on like you said. This seems like a part for someone that wants water cooled, but can't afford the really nice super water cooled look. $69 would be a much better price on something like this.

[@greggreg2458]

I paid 159€ for a full cover chrome plated copper waterblock from Alphacool.

[@DarthChewie]

This "waterblock" looks like an old relic from the early 2000's when PC watercooling parts were few and far between. It looks cheap, it's outrageously expensive for the build quality and performance, and anyone designing a custom-loop will want a proper waterblock. Corsair is delusional if they think this product should even exist.

[@jrhowrey]

Did you test it prior to disassembling it or did you reassemble it and then test it.. should have tested it prior that way you can take any user error out of your end and place it on the manufacturer that's how gamers Nexus does it... Not saying they're the only game in town but I think that's the right way to do it

[@MrPuddinJones]

the price does not match, you are absolutely correct. i agree with your $60-$70 price point might be attractive- but even then- not having full coverage, components can wear faster due to increased temps.

[@Pzero619]

I don't know if someone already mentioned it, but with the 90 degree Icue cable the fitting and 14mm hardline tube fits. You just got to plug it in first then add fitting etc

[@helstromh]

The only benefit I see this has over the air cooler version, is that it allows you to install a 40-series card in a "smaller" case, at least from front to back...

[@MagentaBoy]

I had a card, where a cold plate was just not existing, I would have loved if this product was available that time, would have spend twice the price.

[@zencontroller]

I would of used that back plate as they actually work well. The whole thing dissapates hot air. Back plate will probably lower temps on the core about 3degrees. On my last Asus RTX3090 it benefited.

[@RandomTechG]

That cooler make that $800+ GPU look like a modern $60 GT 1030. 😂

[@premise187]

I love your honesty no matter what product you are reviewing. It's rare today to find influencers being honest about products because they are scared that they will lose sponsors. This is why I always come back to your channel. Keep doing what you do.

[@bfbunny]

I love this product as a concept, but its price is not doing it justice. Anything more than $30 for me would be a waste of money. I water-cooled my RX 580 2048sp a while ago and doing so, even with parts that are not mass-produced, only cost around $30, and that is with the budget pump, a small but serviceable reservoir, a 120mm radiator, a water block, and even some custom-made copper heat spreader for the GDDR5 chips. Btw, on that RX 580, I got a temperature drop from 79°C to 75°C while that card is consuming 115W more than before in FurMark (105W vs 220W). Modern GPUs already have good coolers on them, and it is often not worth it to upgrade to a water cooler for a tiny drop in temperature or a tiny improvement in acoustic performance (but if you are an ITX builder then sure, the water-cooled cards are smaller in dimensions).

[@CheekSplitter]

I tried this on a 4090 and was surprised. The preinstalled thermal pads were inhibiting die contact which lead to crazy temps. After a re-paste and removal of thermal pad material between the die and vrm, it performed very well. I added small heatsinks to the back side for about $10 just for the hell of it. Honestly, I'd prefer something like this over a custom water block. They should just add a small backplate to the mounting solution to help with thermals and aesthetics...

[@kawaii-sosu]

why u need to watercool a 4070 (ti)? it's a cold card by default. are we also gonna watercool 4050?

[@angerthosenear_yt]

It reminds me of the coolers you'd see on the GT 1030 or GTX 1050 Ti.

[@jackpooley4860]

The problem with it is the price. There is no reason that thing is above like $60. I got a full coverage block for my 6900xt for the same price but it dropped my temps by 50° not 5° lol.

[@Amin_CA]

You could've at least tried testing the VRM temps with K type thermocouples, to see the difference between the two coolers.

[@PasiFourmyle]

Full Cover Forevaaaaaaaaa!🙃 The fact that it's so small compared to the board itself makes it look like some kind of brand-x $20 fake card on ebay or something. I think just being bigger would help a lot with the aesthetic.

[@tomsun3159]

This product makes technically no sense, no improvement in cooling overall , cpu temp lowered on cost of VRM temps. The product is not only priced wrong, its just wrong (other discussion with included VRM and RAM cooling and Backplate). For a midclass card Watercooling is a questionable idea, better spend the money for the waterloop to a higher tier card, that will bring better results. That in that case the stock cooler was much more pretty worsens the comparisons furthermore.

[@MelodeathMassacre]

Craftsmanship and enginuity is superb. I was amazed at how it performed thernally. Great job

[@seitenryu6844]

A noise normalized test comparing the nearest in price full cover+backplate, the Corsair thing, and stock cooler, would be great. I run a custom loop, and intentionally run it a little warm, as the coolant can easily soak up intermittent loads. When I'm pushing the system I don't care much if it gets a little loud.

[@thatfordboy4297]

A noise normalized test is all but guaranteed to be irrelevant.

[@bitgod]

Zalman cooler, yes! That's what I was thinking too. TBF on the price...that's often a Corsair thing, that things are premium priced whether it's worth it or not.

[@Terry3Gs]

@JayzTwoCents ... great job on this ... BUT .. there is another thing you didnt factor into this ... does the fan part of the gpu cooler hang low too much that it would interfere with a M.2 Drive with a heatsink on it as you know most manufactorers place the 2nd M.2 drive slot for some reason directly under the gpu primary slot.

[@Brabant076]

That sticker being off-center is killing me lmao 12:45

[@eddyh252]

I know from experience with the kraken g12 bracket that you have to the fan at at least 1200rpm to effectively cool the vrms. It cooled then very well without producing noticeable noise.

[@bdiederick]

Plug the power to the fan in first before installing that hose. Or remove the fan, plug in the power to the fan and then reinstall the fan. but it looks like it would work

[@dagamore]

way back in the early 2000's like 2004ish time frame the zalman full copper flowers were great for doing near silent setup for home theater builds.

[@Sindalis1]

Thoughts from viewing. 1. DO NOT TAKE APART THE THING BEFORE YOU PUT IT ON AND TEST IT. I do no care how much 'work' it is to get it dry again. Once you take it apart you can introduce variables. What we want to know is 'does it work from the factory' because guess what. The vast majority of users are not going to take it apart first, nor is it recommended to do so. We're going to plug it in, as it is, straight from the factory. Shout out to GN and HUB for this tip. 2. VRM Liquid cooling, would be nice, though can say anything you do to one side, you need to do to the other. If you liquid cool the VRM on the front side, then you also need to liquid cool the back side. The point here is thermal expansion and consistency. You don't want it to get hot on one side and cold on the other. 3. Memory cooling, I'm not aware if the 4070 or 4070ti has memory on the back side of the PCB, but same remark as in no 2. IMO right call on not including the backplate on this card. Air to Air, Water to Water, heat pad to heat pad. Don't introduce something that's not on the other side. 4. ΔT over Ambient please. Your in SoCal, which is forever on FIRE. How hot is it in your warehouse? 5. Most important question. If it was free, would you bother to install it? I think the answer in this case is NO. The lack of cooling on the VRM and marginal at best performance on the GPU makes it a questionable purchase. VRM heat alone is a concern. Overall agree, garbage product. Not worth the effort removing, nor worth the risk to damaging the VRM components over time. Better to leave the air cooler & backplate on.

[@StopperJJ]

I was very enthusiastic for the hydro X link products, minus that GPU block. But after seeing your actual use and implementation of the parts, I am going to remain with my older corsair hardware. The whole point of the link products was to simplify the connection path and that did not happen with the pump or the block. And the fans, which were objectively the worst part of cosair's prior ecosystem, still aren't entirely resolved. Hopefully like the Lian Li revisions of their product stack, we get similar tweaks to this system. Corsair: 1. lose the 2nd break out control box and put passthroughs on everything. It will make everything so much cleaner and better for the end user. If that can't be done, include the break out box and extra cables at a lower cost with the hydro x parts. 2. provide 90 degree cables in box with the packs of fans and the hydro X parts. 3. try to shrink the cable connections so they don't foul on fittings. Lian Li had the same problems in their earlier fans. 4. Take the GPU blocks back to the drawing board. I really think there is still potential in this product line but the majority of it needs minor revisions and the GPU blocks need serious changes both in aesthetics and function.

[@coreykirkpatrick4392]

Yeah since it is basically injected molded plastic and a single copper plate, this is more of a $70-$80 product. And they should have provided some sort of additional VRM cooling solution.

[@g45h96]

I'll say it every time Jay does, if only for the few random people that read it. A thinner contact plate is *NOT* a bad thing. For heat transfer, the thinner the better. If you need an example, half the reason the 7000 ryzen series sucked was because of the thicker ihs. The heat couldn't transfer as quickly because the ihs was thicker, and you can see thermal spikes every time it loads. The only time mass comes into play when considering thermals is touching on equilibrium, because you need to calculate the total heat contained in the thermal mass. But considering the contact plate is in between the heat source and sink, it won't affect the equilibrium temperatures, it would just make it take longer to get there (not a good thing)

[@user-qi9be4lv7l]

In the U.S., they can't void warranty for disassembly. They can require it to be put back together as factory. But, just for disassembly, that breaks laws and you can sue if they refuse.

[@robertkb64]

Better solution than this is to go old school (think circa late 90’s water cooling) when we pried cards apart (pre-KZbin of course) and made custom brackets out of spring steel to hold our generic water locks down on the gpu, with the really fancy of us adding heat sinks (which were hard to come by if Radio Shack had already closed for you and you didn’t have Fry’s [RIP] around) and pointing fans at our monstrosities. 😅 Signed, Dr Frankenstein.

[@MrHonestZ1]

No Jay you were not wrong about how it looks definitely not my jam either and about the cooling I would not go with it . And it needs a backplate to cover the other items to pick up the heat so I will go to different block entirely.

[@jamesrose96]

That off-center decal on the fan was an extra nail in the coffin; but the lack of full coverage cooling is a whole box of nails. The design and marketing department really thought this was a great product?

[@andresgallego5727]

If they drop the price a bit more it would be a much more compelling product, aesthetically I would use it because I have a Hyte Y40 that can only have your graphics card placed vertically so it would not be that bad.

[@jasonluvisi]

8C is quite significant... can you put the back-plate back on with contact to the VRM? If the block is only 4 screws it looks like the back-plate can remain. Definitely not good looking though

[@NoMorePlz]

When you first showed the cooler on the card it reminded me of budget cards from the early 2000s. Maybe I'm just used to EKWB since that's all I use.

[@Pancake_Mama]

If I had that block, I would cut the extra off the backplate and still use it if there were VRMs on the backside of the card, or get some heat sink blocks and put them on the VRMs

[@arclyte1859]

That sticker wobble would drive me crazy!

[@YuProducciones]

17:33 do you really need to get rid off? I think after watching 8:11 you can still keep that blackplate installed, would look still great.

[@matthewbarrios1028]

The NZXT add dead middle of this Corsair product review was class. 🤣 🤣

[@herbys68]

They could solve the aesthetics very easily, not by adding shrouds that could interfere with air flow, but by adding Leads aiming down to the card, do it looks like one of those underglow cars. Cool, simple and cheap.

[@trinitygames5537]

Seeing the water block on the gpu kinda reminds me of some old gpu coolers from early 2000 🤣

[@lukeobbink528]

I have A Bykski waterblock for my 4070ti and it looks and performs amazing

[@mrburgermaster]

I love my 4070ti TUF cooler. It's so overbuilt for the wattage that the card actually consumes, it allows me to keep my Noctua Chromax build much quieter.

[@Abuelord]

I think to use this thing you'd have to dish out another $20 bucks on copper or aluminum short fins to put on the vrms ( I did something similar with my old 390x with an arctic accelero cooler since the vrms were running giga hot. So the pricing is a bit absurd on this product for sure.

[@weltenleser]

Interesting idea, however there needs to be some sort of solution to ensure proper cooling of the VRM and other components. This is not only about performance and throttling, but also about longevity - heat is the enemy of electronics.

[@MaheerKibria]

I didn't like the way that the hybrid block looked when i saw it when they announced the icue link. I still don't like it. But I can see why someone would like it. Namely if you got a card that wasn't reference design that also wasn't supported by other water block. Like Asus and MSI tend to get full waterblocks but a lot of the less well known ones are sometimes unsupported.

[@SACKOFPRIDE]

Just installed this on my gpu, doesn't look to bad to me. It was the only block available for my asus tuff 3080ti. Temps while gaming are around 50c. Temps with the stock air cooler were around 62c.

[@jondonnelly3]

Should have just saved your money a while longer and got a new gpu. No one is gonna buy your gpu fitted with that used. You burned your money.

[@SACKOFPRIDE]

@jondonnelly4831 not going to upgrade until next gen gpu's come out. I can always put the stock cooler back on. giving my gpu away to my little sister when I upgrade. I didn't burn anything my guy.

[@TerminalzPain]

I had the 2080ti Corsair water block, that was actually pretty cool, could see in to it and had a flow indicator. No idea why they've gone backwards, and all their LINK stuff is way too expensive.

[@XtomJamesExtra]

I'd say the price point would be good if they included heatsinks for the VRMs and a backplate that added heat dissipation. I suspect that if there were heat sinks that could sit on the VRMs with this hybrid unit, the fan's air flow would work better.

[@helljester8097]

Yeah I would totally be fine with sticking little matt black heat sinks with thermal tape if I had that cooler.

[@FedjaHvastija]

VRM isn't always in the same position, heatsinks would defeat cross-AIB universality.

[@1SaG]

LOL... thanks for mentioning those slot-coolers. That Corsair-block immediately reminded me of some HW-component of yore, I just wasn't quite sure which one it was. Extra points for mentioning those Zalman-coolers. Not sure if they were the ones you meant, but I had one of their "flower"-design CPU coolers (and its GPU counterpart) back in the days of...err... the P4 and Radeon 9500/9700, I believe? The ones where a horizontally mounted fan was sitting inside a circular fin-stack. Not sure if they were any better than contemporary coolers, but I did like their quirky look and design back then.