Corsair A500 is this a good deal?

[Sousuke]

So I was thinking about upgrading the CPU cooler on my Ryzen 5 2600X, At the moment I am using the boxed cooler but may look at doing a small overclock on it.

 

So I saw that the Corsair A500 was on offer for £30 ($40) on eBuyer (UK) and thought it would be a good deal, I saw the review saw that it was way overpriced on release.

 

Do you think that £30 is a good deal for an A500?

[nox_]

 

[Jurrunio]

Not bad at all for 30 quid, just dont let its looks deceive you. It's not as good as it appears.

[Aereldor]

I suspect the Corsair A500 has quality control issues. Gamers Nexus and Hardware Canucks got shit units that actually caused their CPUs to throttle and Linus had a really loud one, but Gear Seekers loved it, with his review unit perfoming on par with an NH-D15. I suspect that @WoodenMarker may know more about its QC issues, he did put it near the top of his Cooler Tier List

 

 

[SPARTAN VI]

I voted yes. For $100 USD, it just isn't competitive against the likes of the Dark Rock Pro 4, Assassin III, NH-U12S, NH-D15, and so on. TL;DR its fans have to spin significantly faster and louder to achieve similar thermal performance of its price competitors at $100 USD. However, at $40 USD, we're looking at dramatically different competitors (e.g. CoolerMaster Hyper 212 Black Edition, Arctic Cooling Freezer 34) where it's actually quite competitive and the adjustable fan rail system is a relatively significant value add at this price point. 

[DailyProcrastinator]

As others have said, it is not as good as one would think based on how it looks. But IMO for £30 it's a good deal. And likely outperforms most options that are priced the same. 

 

 

[Sousuke]

Thanks everyone,

 

I think I'm going to give the A500 a punt, for £30 I'm just thinking that it has to give better performance than the stock cooker on my CPU at the moment. As I am rocking a Define R4 which has good sound dampening I think that if its preforms well but is a little loud it shouldn't bother me too much. 

 

My goal is to have a more directed airflow in my case so when I put in my RTX 3070 it shouldn't cause any issues with regards to heat from the CPU. 

[DailyProcrastinator]

1 hour ago, Sousuke said:

I think I'm going to give the A500 a punt, for £30 I'm just thinking that it has to give better performance than the stock cooker on my CPU at the moment. As I am rocking a Define R4 which has good sound dampening I think that if its preforms well but is a little loud it shouldn't bother me too much.

It's a good buy for £30, if it was £50+ then I would recommend another product, but looks like the best option for the price. 

[Jeppes]

1 hour ago, Aereldor said:

I suspect the Corsair A500 has quality control issues. Gamers Nexus and Hardware Canucks got shit units that actually caused their CPUs to throttle and Linus had a really loud one, but Gear Seekers loved it, with his review unit perfoming on par with an NH-D15. I suspect that @WoodenMarker may know more about its QC issues, he did put it near the top of his Cooler Tier List

 

 

They test it with 3700x. And if they used 100% fan speed, its still horrible vs Scythe Fuma 2.

[Sousuke]

Well I bought it and installed it, got to admit it is very very big, however it fit absolutely fine in the Define R4.

 

Got to admit I'm impressed by the temps, Put an overclock on the CPU so instead of boosting to 4.2GHz (Then going back down to stock 3.6GHz) I have it on an all core 4GHz overclock.

 

After running Furmark for half an hour on the CPU and GPU the CPU only got to 53*c and the GPU got to 72*c 

 

Not bad at all! 

 

Also noticed that eBuyer has now upped the price by £10 so ... no longer such a good deal at £40 ($53)