A Closer Look

Corsair's A500 is certainly a large cooler, and rather than using dual fin stacks, it uses a monolithic one. The fans attach via slides that allow for height adjustment with metal tabs acting as a spring to apply pressure and thus hold them on the heatsink. The fins themselves have a saw-tooth-like edge with a top plate for added style.


In terms of fin count, Corsair's A500 has 48 aluminium fins. This means it is a bit denser than some coolers; however, considering the choice of fans, this is likely a good thing as they have plenty of static pressure to handle it. It also means there is more surface area for heat absorption and, therefore, dissipation.


The top plate has a finish that looks to be brushed aluminium, which is certainly eye-catching with the small Corsair sail logo added for good measure. In general, the brushed aluminium look gives the entire cooler a nice understated appearance with just enough pop to be visually appealing, but not over the top. As for the base, it comes with thermal paste pre-applied in a grid pattern, which was interesting as the application is somewhat different to the norm. As for the actual base, it's a heat pipe direct-touch-style design with four heat pipes touching the CPU—two Ø6 mm heat pipes on the outside and two Ø8 mm heat pipes in the center. On my test samples, the base isn't perfectly flat with the heat pipes having minor height differences, and nickel-plated machining marks are still visible. Even so, it was smooth to the touch but for the previously noted height differences, which may influence performance.


As for the fans, they are 120 mm ML series fans that are the standard 25 mm thick. They feature an RPM range of 400–2400, which is quite high, so you can expect them to be fairly loud when spinning at maximum RPM.