Introduction

Well, this was coming for a while now. As hilarious as it may be to use the term leak in the context of water cooling, news of CORSAIR getting into the PC DIY water cooling market broke not once, not twice, but many times over until they finally were ready to unveil all at Computex this year. Indeed, this was in the making for even longer, beginning with former EKWB employees joining the brand in what would become a new business unit entirely. Clearly, with special review kits and parts sent to the media and influencers alike to get the word out, the new Hydro X venture is high on the company's priority list. We begin our own coverage with a look at a CPU block, and thanks again to CORSAIR for sending a sample along.


Given the nature of a whole new business unit launch and associated products, we were sent quite a few parts to take a look at and asked to do a build using these parts if able. I have seen the latter happening already, but want to properly test the individual products first. As such, expect a plethora of Hydro X series product articles sooner rather than later, and we begin with arguably the most important piece of a custom watercooling loop, which is the CPU water block. CORSAIR has two options here depending on the CPU socket, which has us start with the review of the XC9 RGB block and, thus, a look at its specifications below.

Specifications