Corsair A70 Dual 120mm Fan CPU Cooler Review

Installing the A70

The A70 comes with all that is needed to mount the cooler to AMD AM2 and AM3 sockets, as well as all Intel LGA sockets.

The A70 also comes with a Y adaptor for powering both fans from one fan header, two inline resistors to throttle the fan speed from 2000 RPM to 1600 RPM, and a tube of thermal paste.

The instructions are also quite nice. Even if you cant read the language, or at all for that matter, the illustrations are very well done and very clear.

I will be installing the A70 on our Core i7 test system. The Intel mounting parts consist of a backing plate, top strap, and screws.

The backing plate is adjustable for the socket. Simply slide the post to the notch for your socket.

The bracket for the post has notches that hold the post in place quite nicely. So no fumbling around with keeping the posts lined up while installing it on the board. The backing plate also has a full cover insulation sheet.

The top strap mounts to the cooler base with 4 screws.

Then the thumbscrews hold it all together. Here we can see how the base clears the components around the socket.

Then I put the fans on. Here we can see the clearance from the top of the RAM to the fan housings. This seems like the norm with all the coolers I have looked at recently. The 40-45mm RAM clearance is an issue for a lot of users wanting to run heat spreaders on the RAM.

And here it is with the rest of the system.