Cryorig H5 and R1 Universal Reviews

Cryorig H5 and R1 Universal Reviews

Manufacturer: Cryorig
H5 UK price (as reviewed): £45.99 (inc VAT)
H5 US price (as reviewed): $42.25 (ex Tax)
R1 Universal UK price (as reviewed): £72.09 (inc VAT)
R1 Universal US price (as reviewed): $79.99 (ex Tax)

Cryorig isn't a name that's been featured in a bit-tech review so far, partly because the Taiwanese company was only founded in 2013. To make up for lost time, we're looking at two of its coolers today; the single fan, single tower Cryorig H5 and the dual fan, dual tower R1 Universal.


While it's the smaller of the two coolers, the H5 is still pretty hefty. It measures in at 160mm tall, which is a safe fit for the majority of ATX towers, though the depth and length of the heatsink mean it will be rather prominent in any such build. It's arguably good, then, that Cryorig has spruced things up a bit by giving the H5 a white plastic top that's also removable.

The H5 uses four 6mm copper heat pipes to draw heat away from the CPU and these, along with the baseplate, are nickel-plated for a consistent finish. Cryorig uses a bee hive shaped fin structure just behind the fan but not at the rear of the cooler, claiming this helps to push air through the cooler faster and also reduce air turbulence.


The supplied fan is one of Cryorig's own; the slimline XT140, which uses a 4-pin PWM connector at the end of a neatly braided cable. Measuring just 13mm deep, it's roughly half has thick as a regular 140mm fan and means that the H5 is 98mm deep with the fan attached, which is enough to avoid conflict with tall memory modules on all sockets. However, the fact that it's so slim will affect its ability to push air through the relatively thick fin stack, though how much that hampers its cooling performance remains to be seen.

Next, we have the R1 Universal, which really is a beast – 168.3mm tall and over 1kg with its fans attached. As with the H5, its copper heat pipes and baseplate are nickel-plated but this time, we're looking at a cooler with a whopping seven 6mm heat pipes all arranged above the baseplate in a single layer. It also has two fin towers, and these are both formed of two halves - one anodised in black and the other a silver one with a white plastic covering. While there is no beehive structure here, the silver half (i.e. the front half) has less fins and wider gaps while the rear, black half has more fins with thinner gaps. Similar to the H5, Cryorig claims this helps to compress the air and increase exhaust speed.


Between the two towers there's space for a standard depth 140mm fan, with Cryorig supplying its own XF140. Also supplied is the same XT140 slimline fan that the H5 has, which is designed to be installed at the front as the primary intake. A fan splitter cable, which is well braided just like the fan cables themselves, is provided, although there isn't a low noise adaptor. The front slimline fan, along with the cooler towers being offset from centre, should maintain compatibility with tall RAM modules on all sockets except LGA2011(-v3), where the rear of the cooler hangs over some of the secondary DIMM slots. We also had to remove the rear exhaust fan on our LGA1150 system to ensure the cooler could fit because of how far back it extends.

If you're not sure about either cooler fitting, Cryorig has a neat origami feature whereby you can print and fold a to-scale paper model of the cooler and see if it's going to interfere with any of your existing components.


Cryorig's MultiSeg Quick Mount System is used for both the H5 and the R1 Universal and we have to say it's truly fantastic for all sockets. For starters, the fans all come pre-attached with rubber anti-vibration mounts and you don't need to remove them at any point. You get both an Intel and AMD backplate which both have screws built into them – you don't have to fiddle around clipping them into place or anything. The backplate is secured with screw pillars on the front side of the motherboard, and these even have rubber washers fitted for you. LGA2011(-v3) users can skip the backplate altogether, screwing a different set of pillars directly into the socket.

You then secure the two Intel mounting arms or the single AMD mounting plate with four thumb nuts and attach the cooler directly to these. This is achieved using the supplied screwdrivers, which passes through the appropriate fin tower to access the spring-loaded screws that form part of the baseplate. Of course, you'll need some thermal paste first, so it's good that Cryorig provides a nice big tube of its CP9 gunk with each cooler. You also get an extra set of fan clips and rubber fan mounts in case you want to add another fan yourself. Overall, it's a quick installation free of hassle or anything remotely fiddly and is at least as good as Noctua's SecuFirm2 system.

Cryorig H5 Specifications

• Compatibility Intel: LGA775, LGA1366, LGA115x, LGA2011(-v3); AMD: AM3(+), AM2(+), FM2(+), FM1
  
• Size (with fans) (mm) 143 x 98 x 160 (W x D x H)
  
• Fan size (mm) 140 x 140 x 13 (W x D x H)
  
• Fan(s) 1 x slimline 140mm, 700 ~ 1,300 RPM
  
• Stated Noise 20-24 dB(A)
  
• Extras Anti-vibration fan mounts, screwdriver

Cryorig R1 Universal

• Compatibility Intel: LGA775, LGA1366, LGA115x, LGA2011(-v3); AMD: AM3(+), AM2(+), FM2(+), FM1
  
• Size (with fans) (mm) 140 x 129 x 168 (W x D x H)
  
• Fan size (mm) 140 x 140 x 25; 140 x 140 x 13 (W x D x H)
  
• Fan(s) 1 x 140mm, 700 ~ 1,300 RPM; 1 x slimline 140mm, 700 ~ 1,300 RPM
  
• Stated Noise 19-23 dB(A); 20-24 dB(A)
  
• Extras Anti-vibration fan mounts, screwdriver, fan splitter cable