Review | CRYORIG H5 Ultimate CPU Cooler Redux

Liquid coolers seems to dominate the market nowadays with their simplified application and performance. Truth be told, most of my friends who’ve transitioned to liquid cooling solutions never intended to go back to our roots, but this is not the case this side of 2016, as CPU tower coolers are now returning with a vengeance. Enter the CRYORIG H5 Ultimate CPU Cooler. A medium sized CPU tower cooler with aesthetics made to inspire awe and performance at a relatively good price point of 2, 500 PHP. That’s half a buck, and is within the range of the current budget oriented 120mm liquid coolers. Now what sets this cooler apart from the current offerings found at the market are the combination of aesthetics and its defining features as a unique CPU tower cooler.

The H5 Ultimate houses CRYORIG’s signature features including the Hive Fin design, and the Heatpipe Convex-Align technology. It’s also a part of the H5 series – with the H5 Universal featuring a slimmer 140mm fan for better compatibility at the expense of a lower TDP.

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS:

Cooler
Socket Compatibility	Intel LGA 1156, 1155, 1151, 1150 / AMD AM2, AM3, FM1, AM4
Height	160mm
Width	143mm
Depth	110mm
Weight	764g
Heatsink Material	Copper, Nickel, Aluminum
TDP	180W
Fan Compatibility	2x 120mm mount fans
Fan
Model	CRYORIG XF140 PWM
Speed	700-1300RPM
Noise	19-23dBA
Airflow	76CFM

PACKAGING AND ACCESSORIES:

CRYORIG had the H5 Ultimate packed in a pronounced packaging – which is definitely befitting of CRYORIG’s aggressive stance at the market. Information about the cooler has been laid out nicely, and there’s basically nothing else more to say.

Inside, you’ll find sections of the inner packaging containing the installation tools and accessories you need to get started. The left section has the AMD mounting inside, while the right has the Intel mounting kit prepared.

The H5 Ultimate, together with the mounting kits for both Intel and AMD, also comes with an extra fan clip along with a syringe of CRYORIG’s own C7 Thermal Interface Material. A quick installation guide is also included.

DESIGN, LAYOUT AND BUILD QUALITY:

Aggressive isn’t exactly the best word to describe the H5 Ultimate – it’s more of a blend between it and simplicity which is what I really like the most. It stands tall at 160mm, has a width of 143mm, and is 111mm in length without the fan attached.

The H5 Ultimate is rather lengthy with the fan attached, and could pose compatibility issues with some cases if you wish to extend the fan’s height to alleviate the issue with memory kits. It’s a give and take situation really, but you can also try and mount the fan at the back of the cooler if that suits your setup well.

The 0.4mm thick cooling fins of the H5 numbers to about 38 units, and are stacked within 2.8mm of each other – creating a dense package. The H5 Ultimate’s surface area is actually within 90% of the R1 Ultimate – CRYORIG’s best performing tower CPU cooler yet.

There are four units of 6mm thick heatpipes connected to the nickel plated copper base. It’s not a mirror finish, but it’s smooth and definitely free of visible surface imperfections. Notice that the H5 also has a plastic shroud beneath the cooler.

The CRYORIG XF140 PWM fan is one of the defining differences between the H5 Ultimate and the H5 Universal together with the color scheme of the shroud. It’s a thicker rubber padded 140mm fan at 25mm, featuring a 1.44mm/H20 of air pressure. Noise levels are 19-23 dBA and has a rated speed of 700 – 1300 RPM. This fan is responsible for the additional 20W TDP performance of the H5 Ultimate over the Universal.

CLEARANCE AND INSTALLATION:

The H5 Ultimate is simple and straight forward to install, featuring mounts for either Intel and AMD. Since we are using an Intel setup, we are going with the Intel mounting kits. The kit consists of thumb screws, a universal Intel back plate, brackets, and that’s just about it. The less components we need to use, the better.

The Multi-Seg back plate is easy enough to install, featuring screws that you could easily slide for different socket mounting requirements. Once the back plate is in place, you can now slot-in the brackets for the CPU cooler.

Finally, we get to take a look at how the cooler influenced the aesthetics of our system. I actually like how CRYORIG designed this one with simplicity and a brush of little aggressiveness in mind.

TEST SETUP AND METHODOLOGY:

Coolers are far from the hardest components to test, but it doesn’t mean they are easy enough to deal with since there are multiple factors to take into account while benchmarking. Factors includes the ambient noise, ambient temperature, the enclosure, and the test system’s overall configuration.

TEST SYSTEM SPECIFICATIONS
PROCESSOR	Intel Core i5-6600K
MOTHERBOARD	ASUS Z170-A
CPU COOLER	Cryorig C1 Top Flow
MEMORY KIT	Crucial Ballistix Tactical @ 2666MHz 4x4GB Kit
GRAPHICS CARD	ASUS GTX 1060 STRIX OC 6GB
INTERNAL STORAGE	Crucial BX200 480GB
POWER SUPPLY	CORSAIR RM850X 850W
DISPLAY	27″ DELL U2715H + LG 43UF680T 4K UHD TV
OPERATING SYSTEM	Microsoft Windows 10 Pro

The AIDA64 Extreme Edition System Stability Test is used to stress our Intel Core i5 6600K. The CPU, FPU, Cache and Memory are selected at the options. AIDA64 has been chosen due to its inclusion of AVX, AVX2 and FMA – 3 important instructions that will help us push our CPU to its limits.

• Ambient Temperature – 27°C (±1°C)
• Ambient Sound Level – 34dBA (±1dBA)
• Stock Profile – 3.9GHz (1.088v)
• Overclocked Profile – 4.4GHz (1.248v)

NOISE LEVEL:

Noise levels are tested on a variety of fan duty cycle settings available thru our motherboard. To measure the levels, a sound level meter is secured on a tripod with a foot of distance away from the cooler.

The CRYORIG H5 Ultimate CPU Cooler is silent enough to meet our standards. It’s up there with the other coolers at 100%, while it is among the quietest along its peers at 50% fan duty cycle.

TEMPERATURE:

Temperatures are tested with attainable CPU clock speed configurations that should resemble common systems. To measure the cooler’s capabilities, the CPU temperature is logged with HWiNFO64 and is cross referenced with AIDA64.

The CRYORIG H5 with its included XF140 fan manages to cool my Intel Core i5 6600K CPU across all profiles really well. Temperature at its lowest is 28c, while hitting a maximum of 57c at 4.4GHz.

FINAL THOUGHTS:

The CRYORIG H5 Ultimate truly is a solid performer, but there are things that you should note about it before purchasing. That includes case clearance issues should you require to adjust the XF140 fan to a height of 168mm. My case for example, only supports a cooler with 165mm of height, so I really had no choice but to let the XF140 to physically create contact with my memory kits.

Clearance for the first PCI slot is also an issue for cards with a back plate attached. This means that the H5 is a no-no for motherboards with a full sized PCI-E device located at the first slot. ITX board owner? Well you gotta make sure your graphics card isn’t featuring any shiny metal at its back. Lucky for you, CRYORIG had a printable clearance checker via the depth checker and the compatibility checker.

The CRYORIG H5 Ultimate retails for around 2, 500 PHP, with an astounding 6 year warranty should you register the product at CRYORIG. While there are many options around this price point, this still makes the H5 Ultimate an affordable and value oriented piece of cooling solution with aesthetics and performance to back it up.

THERMALS ACOUSTICS AESTHETICS BUILD QUALITY PRICE WARRANTY

CLEARANCE