When you’ve got constructed PCs for a very long time, some issues are so ingrained, you assume they’re simply the best way issues are. You all the time must fuss with tiny cables to hook up front-panel lights, switches, and ports. Hooking up cables for an armada of cooling followers? Fancy finger work is required to make your PC construct look neat. And any liquid cooler you hook up? Assured, it’ll be a bundle of bits, screws, and snaky cables that might make Medusa blush.
Corsair didn’t clear up these issues in a day, however this week, we noticed promising options to a few of that. We first received wind of Corsair’s iCUE Hyperlink at CES 2023 behind closed doorways. We then visited with the corporate at Computex 2023, the place iCUE Hyperlink made a splashy debut, successful a Better of Computex award from us. It’s an intensive, proprietary ecosystem of cooling and illumination gear designed to simplify placing collectively high-visibility PC builds. It reduces most connections to only one cable, and it helps you to plug in cooling parts in sequence.
Does it alleviate all the little cable quibbles that we have come to know and detest? No. For now, iCUE Hyperlink solely touches the elements of a PC construct that Corsair can exert full management over: cooling and lighting. (Corsair isn’t a motherboard maker, in any case.) However what iCUE Hyperlink does, it does nicely—in case you’re prepared to pay the premium for it.
Corsair despatched over a “VIP Package” comprising an entire host of its iCUE Hyperlink elements for a hands-on session with its new product line. We used it to construct out a fairly high-end gaming PC. Here is the way it went.
Wait, Again Up…What’s iCUE Hyperlink Once more?
iCUE, for these accustomed to Corsair’s product line, comprehend it as the corporate’s software program for management of lighting and enter gadgets. It is of the identical species as Razer’s Synapse, Logitech’s G Hub, and different vendor-specific entrance ends for his or her ecosystems of desktop-PC gear.
What iCUE Hyperlink does, nevertheless, is add a layer to the software program’s performance: Now, this system acknowledges and controls a subset of your desktop PC’s {hardware} you could join in sequence—particularly, Corsair’s new iCUE Hyperlink-compatible cooling parts. As a substitute of, for instance, every of your PC followers connecting to separate headers on a motherboard, and your AIO CPU cooler sprouting cables for its radiator followers, a CPU pump-control header, pump and fan RGB headers, and so forth, these gadgets’ connections are unified below a single proprietary cable and a management customary that may join all of them in line. This permits for super-clean cable routing, a discount in cables total, and single-software-panel management over gadgets, which may now be programmed to gentle up or in any other case behave in excellent sync. Plus, in iCUE Hyperlink, RGB lighting move management sees some cool enhancements and simplification, permitting for some hanging results.
What new {hardware} is compliant with the usual? Nicely, for now a minimum of, it is all Corsair cooling stuff. (We might see others supplying iCUE Hyperlink-compliant gear sooner or later if it takes off, however it’s early days for this.) The iCUE Hyperlink launch line includes PC followers and AIO CPU coolers, together with a wide range of cable and connector kits. At Computex (and on Corsair’s iCUE Hyperlink gross sales web page) we noticed some samples of upcoming iCUE Hyperlink gear: coolant reservoirs for customized liquid cooling, a few GPU cooling modules, and CPU waterblocks. A given iCUE Hyperlink PC setup requires a minimum of one iCUE Hyperlink Hub, a small sq. module you could place wherever in your sequence of iCUE Hyperlink gadgets. The iCUE Hyperlink Hub attaches to a USB header on the motherboard, and iCUE Hyperlink Hub-compliant gadgets chain off of it in both route.
The System Hub could possibly be on the finish of a tool chain, or in the midst of one. (You resolve, relying on how you’ve got your PC construct arrange, the iCUE Hyperlink elements you employ and the place you need the cable runs to go.) Some iCUE Hyperlink merchandise include a System Hub within the field, or you should buy one individually. One iCUE Hyperlink Hub helps as much as 14 iCUE Hyperlink objects on a sequence; you may add a number of Hubs in case you have a actually severe iCUE Hyperlink habit, or a wildly difficult construct.
Let’s Get Linking: Constructing Out the System
Corsair despatched us an assortment of iCUE Hyperlink-compatible {hardware} related to the launch. We did not use all of it in our check construct, however we did deploy most.
The corporate additionally supplied a Corsair Airflow 5000D ATX tower case to construct a pattern system into. We began with an ASRock Taichi B550 motherboard, an AMD Ryzen 7 5700G chip, some HyperX DDR4 reminiscence, and an AMD Radeon RX 6800 graphics card, together with a WD Blue SSD put in in one of many board’s M.2 slots. We complemented that with a Corsair Shift RM750x energy provide unit (PSU), a modular mannequin with nifty side-mounted connectors.
We put in simply the ability cables onto the PSU physique that we would want: the 24-pin mainboard connector, 8-pin CPU energy, one string of SATA energy connectors, and each GPU PCI Categorical energy connector strings. (We confess: The latter is a little bit of a cheat, as we solely actually wanted one set for our GPU. However just a little scouting-ahead within the iCUE Hyperlink gear made us plug within the second string preemptively; extra about that later.)
After that, we suffered the same old slings and arrows of the PC builder; tracing out and plugging within the front-panel port connectors, deciphering the header-pin layouts for the switches and LEDs, and hooking up that case wiring to the mainboard. The 2 essential 8-pin and 24-pin PSU cables went into the board, as nicely. With the core parts put in, it was onward to the iCUE Hyperlink stuff. Our plan was to put in three iCUE Hyperlink RGB followers up entrance, an iCUE Hyperlink AIO RGB CPU cooler up high, and a fourth iCUE Hyperlink RGB fan within the rear exhaust.
The Corsair 5000D case can accommodate three 120mm followers up entrance, two extra up high, and one within the again exhaust place. We eliminated the case’s present entrance and rear followers, that are non-RGB spinners, and forged them apart in favor of the three iCUE Hyperlink RGB followers from the corporate’s $159.99 iCUE Hyperlink QX120 RGB Starter Package up entrance. (The Starter Package additionally consists of an iCUE Hyperlink System Hub within the field.) Corsair additionally supplied a single-fan iCUE Hyperlink QX120 RGB Enlargement Package ($49.99) to complement that trio of consumption followers for the rear exhaust.
iCUE Hyperlink followers make use of a particular connector on the sting that connects them in blocks butted up towards one another, snapping collectively like Legos. This sort of factor, after all, is just not new or unique to Corsair. Another fan makers, resembling Lian Li, promote premium-design snap-together followers that hook up with your PC by way of one wire set. (A few of them join to 1 one other by way of magnetic edge connectors.)
Within the case of the iCUE Hyperlink followers, every fan has two rectangular ports on two of the other edges; they appear vaguely like USB Kind-A connectors. (They’re not.) In every case, one port is electrically lively, and the opposite is only a spacer for a plastic bit that helps lock the followers collectively. You utilize supplied “clean” and “electrical” connectors to lock the followers collectively in sequence; the joiner items resemble little USB dongles such as you’d get with a wi-fi mouse or keyboard. (You will get extra of those connectors as elective equipment in a field alone.)
The three entrance followers within the three-fan Starter Package we used got here pre-locked collectively, however right here’s how they appear going collectively in case you separate them…
Utilizing equipped atypical fan screws, we screwed these three followers, as a unit, into the entrance of the case after eradicating the entrance panel, the entrance case filter, and an present fan.
We checked to ensure they have been in consumption orientation, with the body aspect of the followers dealing with the within of the case, making certain air influx.
On the highest fringe of the top-most fan, we then plugged an L-bend iCUE Hyperlink cable into the electrically lively USB-like port within the fan edge. (Once more: Not truly USB!)
This could be the primary cable in our iCUE Hyperlink part sequence.
Onward to the CPU Cooler: So A lot Simpler, Even With no Handbook
Subsequent up: We put in the CPU cooler. The mannequin in our check equipment was Corsair’s 240mm iCUE Hyperlink H100i RGB.
We hunted for a paper handbook or a quick-start sheet within the field however as a substitute discovered a QR code inside the highest field flap. Following the code took us to a basic iCUE Hyperlink web page, however it wasn’t one particularly for the handbook for our cooler, which we nonetheless couldn’t simply discover. So, we determined to go it alone. (Postscript: You possibly can truly discover it right here.)
The meeting got here with the followers (fortunately!) pre-installed on the radiator…
…together with the same old assortment of brackets for various AMD and Intel CPU sockets. We did have to vary out the mounting bracket on the pump unit from an put in Intel to an AMD bracket set for the AM4 socket on the Taichi B550.
We additionally needed to take away the Taichi motherboard’s present AMD CPU cooler mounts (with 4 screws) and set up the CPU cooler bracket supplied with the cooler via the underside of the motherboard. We then screwed the supplied 4 posts into the bracket to prepared it for mounting the warmth pump unit.
Thus far, so typical for an AIO cooler. We then positioned the radiator and warmth pump meeting within the case. It will make extra sense to mount the latter portion over the CPU socket first.
With that in thoughts, we mounted the pump unit and its chilly plate (it has a pre-applied sample of thermal paste, as you may see a number of photos up) atop the CPU and screwed it down within the typical cross-wise sample, utilizing the 4 nuts supplied within the cooler’s accent pack.
You may word zero cables coming off the warmth pump unit. What’s nifty right here is that the iCUE Hyperlink management and energy cabling truly runs via the weaved sheath over the coolant hose. Whole camouflage: No energy or RGB cables to wrangle from the pump head to the motherboard! That’s tremendous clear and tremendous slick.
We then put in the 240mm radiator into the highest of the case. First, we eliminated the 5000D’s high fan filter, and screwed the radiator into place with the eight screws and washers supplied with the equipment. (We first made positive the hoses confronted ahead, and that the arc of the hoses wasn’t too tight.)
The followers for our AIO cooler’s radiator will blow air via the radiator, and the air will exit the highest of the chassis.
Now, ordinarily, on an AIO cooler like this, you’d be wiring up the pump header for energy, and presumably RGB, together with the followers on the radiator. As a substitute, right here, we merely plugged the iCUE Hyperlink cable from the entrance panel’s fan group right into a port on the forefront of the fan pair on the radiator. (Notice! This was a mistake, we realized later. See these ports within the background, within the two photographs beneath? These wanted to come back into play. Extra about that in a bit.)
(As we talked about earlier, on the followers’ finish, we used an L-bend cable from considered one of Corsair’s supplied iCUE Hyperlink cable kits; the corporate sells a number of varieties and lengths.)
Here is the factor: a brief iCUE Hyperlink cable that got here within the cooler’s field is meant to hyperlink the radiator portion of the cooler with the dual followers mounted on it. This loop is just a little kludgy, and just a little tougher to cover than we’d have hoped. (And full disclosure: We failed to attach it till the very finish of this check construct. It wasn’t apparent that it was wanted from the outset, working with out a handbook!) However nonetheless, this little connection is far more elegant than the outdated approach, with commonest RGB followers every that includes their very own RGB and energy cable. (Cabling was diminished by 75% proper there!) We then fished out yet one more iCUE Hyperlink cable from the equipment, and plugged it into the iCUE Hyperlink cable port within the rear-facing fringe of the followers to proceed the gadget sequence.
Here is the place we needed to do a little bit of strategizing. We might have run this twine straight to the rear exhaust fan, which might be our final iCUE Hyperlink gadget in line. The iCUE Hyperlink Hub that might management all these items, nevertheless, must go someplace. Slightly than working this cable to the rear fan, after which having to feed one other cable again out from the rear fan to the System Hub, we routed the cable from the radiator behind the motherboard. And right here we deployed the iCUE Hyperlink Hub that got here with the QX120 Starter Package. (We additionally received one within the CPU cooler equipment, in addition to one supplied individually. Hub-a-palooza.)
Hubba Hubba: Hooking Up the System Hub
The again of the iCUE Hyperlink System Hub has a magnetic floor that adheres, if not too firmly, to many of the easy metallic surfaces within the case. We dropped it within the higher proper on an open floor close to the CPU cooler cutaway. (As soon as we ended up cabling all of it up, we could not get it to fairly keep straight, however nobody can be the wiser as soon as we put the aspect of the case on.)
The System Hub, about 2 inches sq., has 4 edge connectors. Two are for plugging within the Hub inline with our iCUE Hyperlink gadgets. However the Hub additionally wants energy, and a approach of speaking to the remainder of the system to manage the entire chained-together shebang.
The ability a part of that equation could possibly be probably the most problematic, in case you have a high-end GPU however an absence of additional PSU PCI Categorical connectors. Why? For energy, the System Hub does not want what you’d anticipate a tool prefer it to wish (a Serial ATA energy connector), however requires a full-on PSU 6-pin PCI Categorical connector. This, after all, assumes that you’ve got a spare one unused in your energy provide. It goes right into a pigtail on the System Hub (like proven beneath).
When you’ve got a higher-end provide, that is doubtless no downside. However in case you have a needy video card that eats up three energy connectors, or an influence provide that has simply two for a two-port video card, you’ve got received a hurdle right here. You may be capable of get by with third-party converters, splitting off present PCI Categorical connectors or changing SATA energy to PCI Categorical energy, however it won’t be fairly, and you will be by yourself to determine it out. As a result of the System Hub is a necessary a part of any iCUE Hyperlink set up, this connector is just not negotiable. So, scout out your energy provide’s spare connectors earlier than you put money into iCUE Hyperlink gear.
We have been okay, in our case; Corsair presciently included in its demo equipment that 750-watt Shift energy provide with satisfactory connectors. We finally plugged in our Radeon RX 6800 graphics card, which wanted two 8-pin connectors, however the Corsair Shift PSU had an additional string of GPU energy connectors that might feed the necessity of the System Hub.
So, that complication apart, the System Hub’s “speaking to the PC” half is straightforward, in contrast. You simply plug in a USB 2.0 header cable that is supplied with the Hub, one finish into the underside fringe of the Hub, and the opposite right into a USB 2.0 header socket on the motherboard. Within the case of our B550 Taichi motherboard, we had two such headers, so no downside there.
With these two plugs in place, we have been able to wrap up our Hub connections.
As for the iCUE Hyperlink cable from the CPU cooler, we ran it to the System Hub and plugged into considered one of its USB-A-like ports.
We then plugged yet one more iCUE Hyperlink L-bend cable into the System Hub (with the identical type of USB-like port on the other aspect), and snaked that twine again via the case to the exhaust fan’s place in the back of the chassis.
We related that cable’s L-bend finish to the QX120 Enlargement fan that might go behind the chassis, utilizing one of many fan’s electrical connectors…
…and positioned the fan in place.
We then screwed on this rear exhaust fan into place (4 of the same old coarse-thread case fan screws), routing the cable the perfect we might to cover it.
That was it for the iCUE Hyperlink gear. We positioned the hub and smoothed out the (a lot diminished!) cabling behind the motherboard, and put the best case panel on. After putting in our graphics card, and fixing it to PCI Categorical energy, we buttoned up the opposite aspect of the case with its glass panel, reapplied the case high’s filter, and related as much as monitor and peripherals. It was time to fireside up the system.
That Inevitable First-Boot Stumble
We’ve to admit: As we alluded to earlier, at our first boot, one thing wasn’t fairly proper. The CPU cooler’s pump unit did not gentle up, as you may see beneath, however the AIO liquid cooler’s on-radiator followers did…
That is as a result of (as we talked about earlier) we hadn’t put in the loop cable between the AIO cooler’s pair of radiator followers and the radiator unit correct, thus not offering the iCUE Hyperlink sign and energy for the warmth pump on the CPU. Passively cooling a Ryzen 7 desktop chip? Yikes, that is by no means clever, so we shut down straight away, and with just a little looking rectified the issue (i.e., we plugged within the lacking cable).
After that every one was sorted, it was time to play within the iCUE Hyperlink utility. We received right down to putting in Home windows 11, adopted by the endurance spherical of Home windows updates and driver installs. An hour or so later, we have been prepared to put in Corsair’s iCUE software program on the Home windows 11 desktop. We snagged its newest model from Corsair’s website.
iCUE Hyperlink Software program Configuration: Time Warp and Extra
A wizard contained in the iCUE software program can stroll you thru the preliminary iCUE Hyperlink setup, in case you let it. Assuming all is working as meant, the appliance acknowledges the entire iCUE Hyperlink gadgets within the chain you arrange and maps them out.
If the objects are followers, the software program cleverly lights up a portion of every fan in a special quadrant, and in a special coloration, so you may determine which fan is which within the precise “actual world” chassis versus its depiction within the software program. You possibly can then drag them across the interface to match the sequence by which they’re put in within the case.
You possibly can monitor fan speeds and toy with parameters, and arrange customized monitoring dashboards for many of your system’s parts, made up of info-blocks that you just select, assemble, and drag round. Additionally, you get intelligence into temperatures, with a sensor in every fan detecting the temperature of airflow via every.
The true enchantment, although, is the granular management over lighting. You possibly can arrange common lighting schemes for the entire gadgets within the iCUE Hyperlink Hub chain, with a single coloration flowing via all, glowing steadily, or executing elaborate results. A few of the results, known as Murals, apply throughout the chain and cannot be individually tweaked. However you can too design your personal patterns and lighting sequences.
Some of the hanging patterns that we noticed demoed at Computex 2023 is the so-called Time Warp fan impact, which creates the phantasm {that a} quickly forward-spinning fan is definitely spinning slowly ahead or backward, or standing nonetheless. The iCUE Hyperlink system pulls off this optical phantasm by way of some intelligent synchronized strobing of the RGB lighting.
We tried it, and it labored fairly convincingly, although we have been extra enamored with the spinning and flow-through lighting results with the followers spinning in regular orientation. The flexibility to simply synchronize or move, say, from chassis fan to chassis fan to radiator cooler followers to cooler pump, entrance to again, was fairly hanging. That’s not fully new, after all, with the appearance of motherboard-based software program management over RGB by way of the likes of Asus Aura, MSI Mystic Mild, or ASRock Polychrome. Regardless, this makes setup and management a cinch, with out fighting ARGB versus RGB distinctions, fragile RGB connectors, and a rat’s nest of cables.
Now, after all, you may take this to extremes: a number of radiators with a number of fan units; a number of fan units in blocks located round a big case; the CPU cooler pump unit lit up, after all, like right here; a GPU liquid cooling block within the sequence; or iCUE Hyperlink-controlled reservoirs in your customized liquid loop. Corsair confirmed off greater than a dozen discrete iCUE Hyperlink Hub merchandise in its first launch wave, and we suspect extra will comply with briefly order. Even for constructing a comparatively “primary” and conventional high-end gaming PC, like we did, it simplified among the tedious facets of the construct to a noticeable diploma. Plus, the cable routing required to make our construct satisfyingly clear was minimal. You now not have any excuses!
The Verdict: Fairly Trying, and Fairly Easy…at a Value
What’s to not like about iCUE Hyperlink as an idea? On paper, it is nice: Fewer cables; easy cable routing; higher airflow, given that you just now have much less litter within the case; no extra urgent on the aspect of your case to smush it closed towards the cable mess you made with RGB and energy cables to a half-dozen followers, pumps, and extra.
The largest concern is pricing. As Corsair explains it, every iCUE Hyperlink gadget requires a microcontroller to manipulate its impartial operation and set its place within the iCUE Hyperlink chain. That provides expense. So do the System Hubs, and never a nominal one; they run a whopping $59.99 apiece in case you purchase them singly. It’s possible you’ll get a System Hub in a equipment with a cooler or a fan set like we did, however they’re definitely not free; they’re baked into the price of the kits. Rely on that.
To wit: Our 120mm triple fan Starter Package (with a Hub) prices $159.99, and the single-fan Enlargement Package we used for the rear-panel exhaust is $49.99. The iCUE Hyperlink H100i CPU cooler equipment is available in at a hefty $199.99. Examine that, say, with the vanilla iCUE H100x RGB Elite, with out iCUE Hyperlink (additionally a 240mm cooler), at $99.99. You are undoubtedly paying a premium for the straightforward iCUE Hyperlink performance.
You may get purposeful cables, after all, within the containers with the varied iCUE Hyperlink parts you purchase. However if you wish to do something customized or intelligent, resembling use an elbow-bend cable to route one thing cleanly out of sight, or get an extended or quick cable to make a cable run simpler or cleaner, that is further money. A pair of cables with an elbow-bend connector at one finish (200mm size), or a single extra-long (600mm) elbow-bend cable will value you $19.99. Quick 100mm cables are $9.99 every, and a Y-splitter for advanced installs is $19.99 as nicely. The cables add up!
The opposite facet, after all, to all this can be a little bit of traditional razor-and-razor-blade advertising and marketing on Corsair’s half. When you’re in a number of hundred bucks deep with iCUE Hyperlink gear, you are extra more likely to keep contained in the ecosystem, given the sunk value. It is not a foul factor, to make certain, if you recognize you will not be upgrading a lot, otherwise you’re proud of what Corsair has within the line. However in case you’re a compulsive tweaker and system (re)builder, you will be restricted to what iCUE Hyperlink-compliant gear there’s, if you wish to preserve every little thing in sync (the entire level with this!) with additions or modifications sooner or later. If one other vendor comes out with a slick AIO cooler or a nifty fan design that you just wish to undertake later, which will imply abandoning a part of your construct for brand new gear that is exterior of the iCUE Hyperlink chain.
Nonetheless, in case you’re prepared to be brand-loyal to Corsair, and you want the final construct high quality and look of the corporate’s gear, iCUE Hyperlink has an entire lot of road enchantment. And plenty extra compliant gear is deliberate, together with an AIO cooler equipment with a programmable LCD display screen on the pump head, and a wide range of reservoirs and waterblocks. In a typical PC construct, by the point you get right down to putting in the cooling gear, you are within the tiring house stretch of the job. iCUE Hyperlink is, certainly, the lacking hyperlink between most informal builders’ abilities and placing collectively a boutique-quality, cleanly cabled showoff PC.
Contemplating the “boutique tax” on many PC customized builds from elite desktop makers, the iCUE Hyperlink system might truly be one thing of a cut price, gaining you most of that take a look at a fraction of the fee. Both approach, although, you are in spendy territory, so be certain you recognize your PC-build goals earlier than you decide to getting all iCUE Linked-up.
