THIS IS GOING TO BE a touch different to some of our usual reviews, as we’re actually going to be evaluating a number of products from Corsair, all under one review. Yep, we’re talking about Corsair’s iCUE LINK PC building ecosystem. You can see our full build process involving the hardware on page 16, but that said, how does this kit fair in isolation? iCUE LINK is a complex daisychaining solution designed to simplif y the build process, while providing a ton of customization and top-tier build features across Corsair’s new product stacks. It’s early days, but the company has launched a number of products, including a range of AIOs, both with and without screens, in a multitude of different sizes, fans of course (in black and white at 140mm and 120mm variants, each with its own temperature thermistor baked in), an armada of different cable types and accessories, to get to all those hard to reach places, and more impressively, a whole array of liquid-cooling componentr y, as well including ever ything from pump/res combos with integrated displays, to full GPU blocks and hybrid fan solutions.
It’s an impressive number of products for sure, but they all come with one small caveat: the price, and boy these things aren’t cheap. A quick look on Amazon or PC Part Picker, and you’ll find a standard starter-kit including three 120mm fans, will set you back $160 straight out of the gate. Want a 240mm AIO to pair with that? No screen? That’s another $200 on top. LCD screen version of that instead? $290. Admittedly, you do get ever ything you need to go with that, but it’s a tough pill to swallow. Take a look at our system build this issue, and you’ll see that the total iCUE LINK cost comes to $700. It isn't cheap.