Corsair A70 High Performance CPU Dual 120mm Fan Air Cooler Unboxing & First Look Linus Tech Tips
Corsair A70 High Performance CPU Dual 120mm Fan Air Cooler Unboxing & First Look Linus Tech Tips
2010-06-24
today I'll be unboxing a brand new
product from Corsair this is the Corsair
cooling air series a 70 this is a
high-performance CPU cooler and so just
this isn't Corsairs first foray into
cooling we had the age 50 before which I
have previously unboxed on my channel so
this was a high performance CPU cooler
but this one is water so it's h4
probably hydro yes there and so this is
a for air excellent air series so it's
compatible with LGA 775 1156 1366 as
well as AMD am2 and am-3 so pretty much
any modern socket is going to be well
supported by the a 70 let's have a look
at what we've got on the side of the
book so there's your dimensions fan
speeds and it's in a bunch of different
languages so you can go ahead and pause
the frame if you happen to be whoo boy I
don't know what language that is okay
well moving on here's the back where
they talk a little bit about the way
that the H 50 CN air I was about to say
the way that the a 70 handles fan speeds
so dramatically up performance your CPU
stock heatsink here they're showing the
performance but not the hmm they're not
showing the noise I guess that doesn't
really matter because they already gave
us the noise specs on the other side so
for eight millimeter copper direct
contact heat pipes so those are quite a
bit bigger than the standard six mil
once it uses aluminum fins as well as
dual 120 millimeter fan so that's one of
the advantages that the a 70 has over
the it's a younger brother it's the fact
that it includes dual 120 millimeter
fans as well as one additional heat pipe
so let's get the Box open here we're
gonna go ahead and zoom that back out
and start unwrapping this guy have a
look at what we've got in the store for
ourselves here now I mentioned the noise
of the fans I mean it's not something
I'm really concerned about because from
the fan included with the age 50 to all
the fans included with the 800 II case
Corsair has done a good job of sourcing
their fans and they tend to be quite
quiet and move a decent amount of air so
like I said yeah I really wouldn't worry
about it too much
so inside the
we find two boxes I'm gonna go ahead and
go with that small one first and I'm
going to guess that that's what contains
the heatsink I'm just kidding that's a
terrible guess obviously this contains
the accessories so let's see what we got
for accessories inside the box here two
fans that is all okay I like this so
they come with kind of a shroud style
clip that goes right onto the heatsink
you can see you got four clips one two
three four just like that another effect
that the shroud has is that it keeps the
fan slightly separated away from the
cooler I guess in theory actually why
don't I find out if that's true first
but what a shroud would do if it did
keep it separate from the cooler so it
would reduce the dead spot in the middle
because the fan blades spin like this so
if they're blowing air through a
heatsink they're obviously not blowing
anywhere here but if you move it away
then it can actually blow some of the
air sort of this way because it just
sort of randomly blows air out and the
shroud also keeps it from escaping from
the side so you're using all of the
airflow from the fan to cool the
heatsink ah okay so there were two boxes
but one of them I actually picked the
big one so this is the small box so this
I'm going to guess contains the mounting
hardware okay the first thing we find
are Lou I like these these are great
these are low speed power fan adapters
rather I think they are okay yeah these
look like inline resistors to slow down
the fans if you should desire to do so
and then this okay this is an adapter so
you can run both fans off your CPU
header as long as you have a half-decent
motherboard made in the last 10 years or
so your CPU fan header should be able to
handle a couple low-power fans like this
next we've got some a 70 thermal
compound which I don't recognize the OEM
for unfortunately sorry and then we have
quite heavy though so it's probably a
silver based one next we've got four
thumb screws four rubber washers and
then two of these rubber fan mount so as
what they're normally for but I can't
imagine that's to mention the fans in
this case here is the multi adapter
plate so this is for LGA 775 11 56 as
well as 13 six
you can see all three holes on there and
this has got to be 4 a.m. 2 a.m. 3 yeah
so that's where you're gonna get your
mounting pressure from you clip it on
the one side clip it on the other side
it's not coming off here's a little
coarser guide Y Corsair talks a little
bit about some of their other products
thank you for that corset and then we
have back plate nice ok so you don't
need a back plate on a.m. 2 a.m. 3
because AMD has graciously made that
part of their spec that every a.m. to
and AM free board has a back plate
already
so for Intel you will need a back plate
and it does come with one that's
adjustable
although okay oh yeah it's simpler than
I thought you just slide it it just has
a little like it has a little piece
right here
that sort of fits into the little
notches so that it only slides so far
and yeah that was more straightforward
than I thought it was very nice very
nice Corsair very nice next inside this
home we have the cooler itself finally
so you know third time's a charm on
guessing this is the cooler yes success
okay here we will also find a QuickStart
guide so this is going to show you how
to install your cooler regardless of
which socket you want to install it on
that's probably too much thermal
compound for the record I would use
probably about half of that okay stop do
not return this product to the store hey
I like that working out a retailer it's
always nice from the manufacturer takes
charge of their own RMA service so what
it means basically to us is that they
have a lot of confidence in their own
service that they feel that they can do
an excellent job of taking care of a
customer's concerns before it gets to
the point where they have to return the
product to the store so I guess it means
that they feel they can probably resolve
whatever issue they're having without
coming to that so here's some do not eat
don't eat it
next we have the a70 itself so you can
see the fins are quite tightly packed
but that's going to be an advantage for
a cooler like this because it does come
with two fans so I'm gonna go ahead and
see if I can figure out how their clip
system works yet you can see there are
little notches right here so that's
going to be where the clips go
I'm gonna go ahead and I'm gonna click
one one on and then I'll show you the
other side wow that was easy okay so
it's that easy to install the the a 70
fan just like that okay so let's have a
look at the cooler itself let's peel
this off and we'll do the obligatory
finger shot where we show the shininess
although I can pretty much guarantee
it's not going to be very shiny but it
does appear to be quite flat so this is
a heat pipe direct touch heatsink that
means that rather than having a base
clamped on top of the heat pipes and
then having the heat pipes run through
it the heat pipes make direct contact
with the CPU heat spreader itself so the
disadvantage is that it's much harder to
manufacture this way and it does end up
being more expensive and the advantage
is that you have fewer transfer heat
fewer places where the heat has to be
transferred between different materials
you're just going straight to the heat
pipes which then transfer the heat to
the fins and then it gets blown away to
the air rather than to the base to the
heat pipe to the fins and then away so
you're removing one step from the
process I think I didn't explain why
dense fins are good for a cooler like
this and it's because it does include
two fans you've got lots and lots of
static pressure regardless of well okay
not regardless and the fans are using
you've got lots of static pressure so
you're gonna get lots of airflow through
it
even though the fins are stacked quite
tight there that's what I was trying to
say here are the four heat pipes it's
very very obvious that these are thick
heat pipes compared to some of the
smaller ones that you typically see like
here let me see if I can find something
to compare it against really quick or
maybe I have like a stock cooler in my
bucket over here please tell me I got
something I got some old knock - a heat
sink oh yeah okay that'll do so here I
think this is not - as original heat
sink that they released like 100 million
years ago so if I could just get this
little lined up here then we could see
that the heat pipes are much much bigger
there you go so it's more expensive to
manufacture cost more more materials and
also transfers heat a lot better
what else did I want to say oh by the
way it looks like the shrouds do work to
a certain extent they do separate the
fan itself from the cooler but not by a
whole lot so I wouldn't rely on it to
reduce your dead zone by too much but
with 120-millimeter fans it's also not
that big of a deal I guess that pretty
much covers everything I wanted to talk
about you got your little aluminum brick
here which you attach the mounting
hardware to and now my cats picking it
the packing materials cut that out you
cut that out
okay last thing yes I love this nice
aesthetic on the top you got just a nice
black plate I mean I like the the shiny
chrome finishes as well but I also this
is gonna look really sharp in a case
like the 800 deep where the entire
inside is black so now all you've got is
a nice black finish top with just the
copper from the heat pipe showing
through I really like the look of this
cooler and while it is quite on the
expensive side I think it's gonna have
the performance to back it up thank you
for checking out my unboxing of the
Corsair a 70 and that's my cat stealing
the packing materials don't forget to
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blog as well as to my NCIX tech tips
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