It is a shame really, but Corsair's first foray into air coolers in quite a few years just is not up to par. Performance is average at best, and that is if the cooler fits. Not to mention that it is by no means quiet either. Best-case scenarios have it perform similar to the much more affordable Scythe Fuma 2, but even then, it is 12 dBA louder, hitting 52 dBA vs. the Fuma 2 at 40 dBA. As for other top-tier air coolers, it barely matches the NH-D15S, which offers better memory compatibility due to its single fan setup while delivering a far quieter experience with slightly better performance in the OC FPU test. Meanwhile, the regular NH-D15 sacrifices memory compatibility, but offers far better performance for the money while being much quieter. The key takeaway here is that for the same performance, Corsair's A500 is just too loud.

When it comes to memory clearance, it was lukewarm at best, which is similar to most top-tier air coolers. Yes, the fan can be raised, but you end up sacrificing performance, so for the best performance, this cooler should be paired with memory that is 45 mm or less in height. That said, the A500, like a few other high-end coolers, also blocks the first expansion slot. This means the cooler is not going to work on all motherboards either, as some Mini-ITX and Micro-ATX boards have the primary PCIe x16 slot as their first expansion slot. Not the end of the world as many boards now place an M.2 slot in that area, it is still something to keep in mind. The biggest nail in the coffin is the socket clearance. The cheaper heat-pipe base design conflicted with the caps on my motherboard, making for a bad mount that resulted in terrible performance. I rotated the cooler to verify performance, found the issue, filed the heat pipes down by about 1–1.5 mm to correct it, and got the same temperature results as when I had rotated the cooler. That said, problems like this should not make it into a retail product, especially considering how nicely the various CPU manufacturers define the "keepout" zones in their specifications.

Overall, the cooler is not a complete loss as a revision dealing with these issues could still be a decent offering, Corsair does offer an exceptional warranty at five years and includes nice extras, like a screwdriver and zip ties. Even the overall design is reasonably attractive, with the sliding fan mount being a great inclusion if you forgot to install your memory before mounting or need to swap it out for an upgrade, or just plan to do some cleaning and maintenance. Even the mounting hardware is solid, the design being quite secure and easy to work with overall.

Hopefully, the teething problems with this design won't result in Corsair abandoning the air-cooling market again, as the design does have some good things going for it. With a revision fixing the socket clearance issue and some tweaks to improve performance, it could be a nice option, but as of right now, the A500 is not a cooler I can recommend because it just doesn't manage to compete with other top-tier offers currently on the market.