Conclusion

Owners of reference AMD Radeon R9 290X or 290 graphics cards will undoubtedly enjoy Corsair’s HG10.

The Corsair HG10 arrives with a street price of £30 ($40) which includes a bracket, fan shroud and selection of screws. In our testing we paired it up with the Corsair H75, costing an additional £60, bringing the total cost to £90. For that price we were not able to beat a cheaper air-cooled alternative, the Raijintek Morpheus, in cooling or acoustic performance, which is telling for performance enthusiasts.

The HG10 does bring with it some significant benefits over cumbersome air-cooled rivals, however. The main advantage is that the design expels the graphics card’s heat directly outside the case, improving the longevity and temperatures of other system components. Additionally, with some manoeuvring, the HG10 can be restricted to a dual-slot footprint – another significant improvement versus the air-cooled competition such as the Raijintek Morpheus and Prolimatech MK-26, which can easily swamp four slots with appropriate fans fitted. However, Corsair misses a trick by not integrating tube-routing functionality into the HG10.

Owners of reference AMD Radeon R9 290X or 290 graphics cards will undoubtedly enjoy Corsair’s HG10. The noteworthy cooling upgrade it offers is easy to achieve and brings tangible performance benefits in games, and on the ears. It may not be perfect, but it's a decent start.

The Good		The Bad
Chanels heat outside case Simple installation Dual-slot form factor Dramatic boost over reference		No simple cable routing Weak VRM cooling Limited compatibility

HEXUS.awards

Corsair HG10

HEXUS.where2buy*

The Corsair HG10 is available from Scan.co.uk.

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At HEXUS, we invite the companies whose products we test to comment on our articles. If any company representatives for the products reviewed choose to respond, we'll publish their commentary here verbatim.

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Change the GPU cooler, reduce system-wide power draw by 10%.

Wait, what?

Interesting to see how good the stock solution is at keeping the primary VRM cool, though. Apparently the cooler design wasn't all bad….

scaryjim
Change the GPU cooler, reduce system-wide power draw by 10%.

Wait, what?

Not sure, but I think it has to do with the internal TDP/Turbo clock calculating which gets less stressed with a proper cooling solution.

Really is poor value for money, especially considering the temperatures are no better than most custom coolers. It takes up so much room in the case, the VRM's are exceptionally hot compared to other solutions. Just buy a non-reference card, works out cheaper, cooler, more practical and quieter.

Wouldn't it be fairly easy to fix the VRM heating issue using a fairly straight forward fan profile that makes them up the RPM at lower core temperatures? If someone is savvy enough to install a cooler such as this, i'm fairly certain they can handle doing that.

Biscuit
Wouldn't it be fairly easy to fix the VRM heating issue using a fairly straight forward fan profile that makes them up the RPM at lower core temperatures? If someone is savvy enough to install a cooler such as this, i'm fairly certain they can handle doing that.

Perhaps, but part of the benefit of these kinds of cooler is the reduced noise levels and by having the fan ramp up you'll be losing some of that benefit.

Regarding the cooler bracket, whilst it is a good concept I think the execution has been a bit rushed. VRMs should never get that hot surely.

I agree above with the comment about a good third party cooler.