Tuesday, October 19th 2021
TechPowerUp Custom Water Cooling Survey and $1000 CORSAIR Giveaway
TechPowerUp loves cooling. We pride ourselves with bringing you hundreds of reviews, and thousands of news articles, covering PC cooling components of all shapes and sizes. With ever more powerful hardware comes the need to keep them cool and quiet. There are plenty of air coolers and pre-built AIO liquid cooling solutions available that you can install and forget about. If you still want to +1 that, then DIY custom liquid cooling exists as higher performing (and potentially quieter) option to pre-built AIO coolers, but it's also more expensive and complex. We are eager to know how you're cooling your PC, how you'd like to cool it in the future, and what your thoughts are on custom watercooling tech, so we've put together a survey to learn more.
The survey is for you, regardless of whether you've even used custom liquid-cooling before. We hope to better understand the custom watercooling market—people who never used it, veterans who've done it for years as well as recent members of the club. We also want to learn why you're not using watercooling, or why you are considering it for a future build. It will only take a few minutes of your time. Once data collection is completed on November 2nd, we'll put together an article summarizing the findings, with charts and everything. As a token of thanks, taking the survey also adds you to our Global Sweepstakes in association with CORSAIR, a leading brand for gaming peripherals and PC components. One lucky winner stands to win a Care Package worth $1000 from CORSAIR, which includes a K100 premium mechanical keyboard, a Virtuoso XT headset, a Sabre RGB Wireless mouse, an MM300 mousepad, an ST100 headset stand and two LT100 desktop ambient lighting towers; in a winner-takes-all prize. The survey and giveaway is open worldwide. In return for their support, Corsair gets access to the anonymized raw data. Please don't answer "Corsair is best" everywhere, just because they provide prizes, we're looking for honest opinions.
To participate in the Survey, please Visit This Page.
Update Oct 19th: Corsair saw your comments "why not watercooling prizes?"—the winner can now substitute the prizes for Corsair Hydro X components.
The survey is for you, regardless of whether you've even used custom liquid-cooling before. We hope to better understand the custom watercooling market—people who never used it, veterans who've done it for years as well as recent members of the club. We also want to learn why you're not using watercooling, or why you are considering it for a future build. It will only take a few minutes of your time. Once data collection is completed on November 2nd, we'll put together an article summarizing the findings, with charts and everything. As a token of thanks, taking the survey also adds you to our Global Sweepstakes in association with CORSAIR, a leading brand for gaming peripherals and PC components. One lucky winner stands to win a Care Package worth $1000 from CORSAIR, which includes a K100 premium mechanical keyboard, a Virtuoso XT headset, a Sabre RGB Wireless mouse, an MM300 mousepad, an ST100 headset stand and two LT100 desktop ambient lighting towers; in a winner-takes-all prize. The survey and giveaway is open worldwide. In return for their support, Corsair gets access to the anonymized raw data. Please don't answer "Corsair is best" everywhere, just because they provide prizes, we're looking for honest opinions.
To participate in the Survey, please Visit This Page.
Update Oct 19th: Corsair saw your comments "why not watercooling prizes?"—the winner can now substitute the prizes for Corsair Hydro X components.
62 Comments on TechPowerUp Custom Water Cooling Survey and $1000 CORSAIR Giveaway
- Question 10: An important point for choosing a brand/product is availability. Corsair being available at Microcenter is a big plus to me. I was able to get some Corsair fluid and fittings when I was in a pinch and couldn't wait weeks for stuff to come in stock online. It's nice knowing I have the option. While I like brands like Watercool, Optimus, Aquacomputer more than Corsair (depending on the product category), I'll go with a Corsair product if I "need" something quick and the availability is there. I do wish microcenter carried your tubing though as it is my favorite. 14mm clear, satin and black plz!
- Question 14: One thing I like about some CPU blocks is the option to customize the appearance or a variety of potential design options. Acetal, plexi, all nickel, colored inserts, etc. This aspect is really captured by the options in the question and is one reason I haven't considered Corsair blocks (mostly, I just really don't like the way they look). Also not mentioned is build quality (Optimus, EK Magnitude, Watercool, etc all have really good build quality). Same with GPU blocks, I haven't been impressed by Corsair's quality.
- Question 17: Pump and res should really be separate. I have a Heatkiller res, but an Aquacomputer D5 Next PWM pump. This preference/distinction isn't captured. Some people may have a res from one brand and a pump top from another.
- Question 18: Again for reservoirs, build quality (material choice), various heights offered, features like multiple ports or multiple mounting mechanisms are not mentioned. All reasons I didn't consider Corsair.
- Question 19: Missing price and variety of fitting type. Barrow offers a really wide selection of fittings (at a very low price). Personally, I can't justify Corsair's fittings (which are just Bitspower without the Dragon logo). Especially when they don't offer certain fittings and I now have to have mismatching colors/finishes.
Overall, Corsair wins points for making top quality OEMs like Mayhems and Hardware Labs more available and that terrific satin tubing. The biggest negative is aesthetics and build quality. Corsair's blocks and reservoirs feel and look pretty "cheap" compared to other brands. There are also few aesthetic/customization options. EK, the most direct competitor, has really stepped up their quality (at least in certain categories) and aesthetics over the years. Comparisons to Watercool/Aquacomputer/Optimus aren't fair since they operate at much lower volume and availability levels, but they do offer many very compelling products.I just don't feel like Corsair's water cooling products have any compelling differentiators. Perhaps more novel or well integrated RGB, brand specific special edition models (ROG, Aorus, MSi, EVGA) with matching aesthetic to the brand ID, more tight software integration (send me a text message if my pump reaches 0 RPM and shut off my computer), LCD screens on stuff (blocks, res, etc) or products that just aren't widely available (bendable chrome tubing).
2 RADS
3 pumps
4 CPU
Wait, there is not enough fittings...
I closed the survey when I saw it ended before it really began.
Top brand question
How many put corsair as #1
I was surprised to see optimus on the list :cool:
I don't have anything against Corsair. I actually rate them pretty high (depending on product), though somehow I have never owned anything they made.
I also don't like forms constrained to predefined answers. That usually means the initiator does not intend to make a meaningful analysis, they just want to conjure up some numbers quickly.