Review

Corsair A500 Dual Fan CPU Air Cooler Review

Corsair is popularly known for making great PC products in the market. From PC cases to RGB liquid cooling to lot of memory products and I have great experience personally used them for many years. One PC product segment I have seen Corsair less associated with are the CPU Air coolers, yes they have made them in past but received very little limelight until now.

Today we are very happy to announce a great comeback in CPU air cooling from Corsair by reviewing their latest high-performance dual fan CPU air cooler the Corsair A500, equipped with four direct-contact copper heat pipes and two CORSAIR ML120 fans. Compatible with AM4, AM3, FM2, LGA115x, and LGA20xx CPUs the A500 cooler is able to handle the temperature demands of increasingly powerful of latest high-end desktop processors.

Now let's see what this quad direct-contact heat pipe design CPU air cooler have more for us.

Features

GAME, RENDER, AND ENCODE FASTER
Drop your temperatures and get the maximum performance from your processor. The CORSAIR A500 boasts quad direct-contact copper heat pipes to draw heat away from your CPU, dual magnetic levitation bearing fans for provide superb customizable airflow and pre-applied CORSAIR XTM50 thermal material for optimal heat transfer.

HIGH TECH, LOW TEMPS
The CORSAIR A500 boasts quad direct-contact copper heat pipes to draw heat away from your CPU, dual magnetic levitation bearing fans for provide superb customizable airflow and pre-applied CORSAIR XTM50 thermal material for optimal heat transfer.

INTUITIVE SLIDE-AND-LOCK FAN MOUNT SYSTEM
Variable mounting height for wide DRAM compatibility and easy installation.

COOL, QUIET, AND EVERYTHING IN-BETWEEN
Adjust the two included high-performance ML120 PWM fans anywhere from 400 RPM to 2,400 RPM and strike your perfect balance between ultra-quiet operation and extreme cooling.

HOLDFAST RETENTION SYSTEM
Easy to install, ensuring consistent thermal performance with a secure and reliable fit on almost all modern AMD & Intel CPUs.

EFFICIENT HEAT TRANSFER
Pre-applied high-performance CORSAIR XTM50 Thermal Paste applied in an optimized pattern ensures even heat transfer. And just in case you want to re-apply it or re-install your A500, we've included an extra tube in the box.

FIVE-YEAR WARRANTY
For complete peace of mind.

Specifications

Package

Corsair A500 CPU cooler comes in a securely packaged box with product image, Model name and features highlights on front and the back of the box.

Inside the box

Box contains securely packed cooler along with a box with installation guide, all the necessary mounting kit for modern CPU sockets, Corsair XTM50 Thermal Paste (1g tube), 1-by-2 PWM fan splitter cable, few zip-ties and a fan mounting screwdriver.

Closer Looks

Test system configuration -

For testing thermal capability we set at stock and later manually overclocked Intel Core i9 9900K CPU up to 5GHz all cores. CPU is stressed using AIDA64 for 10 minutes. To average out we took three readings with 15 minutes of system idle time in between every reading. We compared A500 CPU cooler with Corsair H115i AIO coolers in same system.

Ambient Temperature 22C

At Idle the CPU cooler was very silent and at full load due to push-pull fans configuration cooler do product little fan noise but when case side glass panel is closed, the noise was not that noticeable. Also, I feel cooler produced little noise since I used Intel Core i9 9900K CPU for my testing which pushed the cooler to its limit.

Pros

• Easy Installation
• Four direct-contact copper heat pipes
• Two Corsair ML120 PWM fans
• Pre-applied CORSAIR XTM50 Thermal Paste plus an extra tube
• Variable Fans mounting height
• 5 Years Warranty

Cons

• Slight fan noise at max load
• With increased height Memory module and variable fan height, cooler can have side panel clearance issue with some mid-tower PC cases.

Conclusion

In the recent PC market scenario, where every new product comes with some sort if RGB lighting, it is good to see a product with no-RGB and decent clean design from Corsair. Clearly the Corsair A500 CPU cooler is designed to provide maximum cooling performance with low noise, easy installations and great compatibility with variable Fans mounting height.

In our thermal testing we used the Corsair A500 CPU cooler with a very demanding Intel Core i9 9900K CPU and motherboard's “standard" fan profile, which resulted in decent thermal performance but slight fan noise with constant max CPU load which pushed the cooler to its limit. Also using increased height Memory modules (Corsair Vengance RGB PRO) with this cooler was possible but resulted in side panel clearance issue with Corsair 465X case I used in this review. I was able to close the side panel, but cooler fan was just very close to the glass panel.

At a price tag of Rs. 7500(approx.), the Corsair A500 CPU cooler is slight costly than similar large air cooler, but offers decent performance, ease of installation and quick adjustment of fan heights. Finally, for me the Corsair A500 CPU Air cooling is one of the best looking Air cooler with great build quality and worthy of our PC TeK Reviews Choice Award.

Manufacturers Info

Thanks.

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