Unboxing and General Accessories

The CORSAIR Hydro XH303i PRO custom watercooling kit ships in a large and heavy box. The design language on the packaging is identical to that of other recently announced CORSAIR products we have seen, with a dark black front in a glossy finish acting as the base for other elements to shine on. It also allows the triangular textures to be more vividly presented, a design choice that carries over to the products, too. The company logo and product name are present, as is a list of the salient items inside and how they come together to form an example of a loop all lit up. I also like how the total number of LEDs across all these items—a whopping 104—is important enough a metric to be listed on the front. More renders are on the back, including one of each of the various items of interest, and the lime yellow color makes a comeback to replace the uglier lime yellow from before. A carry handle on the top helps move the kit around as needed, and two sets of seals and double flaps keep the contents in place on their way to you. Opening the box, we see a protective cardboard sheet over the individual items that come neatly packaged and stacked, including some of the more fragile entries in bubble wrap. The ensemble photo above also shows how the older, richer yellow packaging on some of the boxes would have been far better across the board!


Don't quote me on this, but I think that set of four stickers is for the new CORSAIR Hydro X lineup. This makes the new business unit a brand of its own and allows users to place the sticker on their PC case or elsewhere to flaunt brand loyalty. While I will cover most of the items individually, some are better served here because they are more general accessories. This includes the 1-liter bottle of CORSAIR's Hydro XL8 clear coolant, which is a propanediol glycol-based solution that has anti-corrosive and anti-bacterial agents for longevity. Keep in mind that having compatible elements in your loop is still recommended, meaning no mixing of aluminium and copper, brass, or nickel parts exposed to the coolant, and algal growth can still occur if you happen to need more than the liter and top this pre-mixed solution off with water from questionable sources. Helping fill the loop with the coolant is a 250 mL filling bottle with a flexible anti-spill spout.


While the product box leaves room for interpretation in what the "iCUE Controller" is, it is the $75 CORSAIR Commander PRO I have plenty of experience with already. This is an excellent controller if you are invested in the CORSAIR ecosystem. It ships in an aptly sized box with a user manual and more paperwork alongside plenty of additional cables and wires, including thermal sensors, LED cables that are more CORSAIR-centric in pin-out even if not really proprietary, and 4-pin PWM extensions and adapter cables.


Interestingly enough, CORSAIR silently updated the Commander PRO with the recently updated "Sails" logo. Otherwise, this is exactly the same device I have a few of already, one of which is in my personal system. It is about a credit card in length and breadth, but about as thick as an old-school audio cassette. It is all black with a full-sized SATA connector cable for power, as well as an internal USB 2.0 cable for data to and from the PC it is connected to. It gives you back the taken USB connector; actually, there are two. Additionally, there are four temperature sensor inputs—be it the physical sensors on the cables or in-line or stop-plug thermal sensor fittings more applicable with the Hydro X line. Use these to connect various different thermal sensors for both ambient and coolant temperature recording, and use them as controller inputs for custom fan and pump curves, among other things. The other side has six 4-pin PWM (or 3-pin DC) inputs for fans or pumps, as well as two RGB LED inputs each capable of driving plenty of LEDs to where you can daisy-chain multiple devices off the same header. The Commander PRO is easily installed behind the motherboard tray via double-sided tape, or may even be screwed in place.


Given the kit comes with three individually packed fans rather than the triple-fan SKU which comes with the Lighting Node PRO hub and controller inside, I did appreciate that CORSAIR packed an RGB LED hub in. It allows you to connect the three fans to the hub, which then goes to the Commander PRO via a provided cables. I fully expected this tiny brown cardboard box to house a generic PSU bridge adapter for the 24-pin ATX cable to power the pump on its own and fill the loop without having the rest of the system on and risking coolant from getting on powered components. But then I remembered the Hydro XD3, and as with the Hydro XD5 in the other kit, this is in the box instead!