Can the big brother do everything better? – Corsair iCUE XC7 RGB Elite LCD water block review including teardown and test loop 2.0

Teardown XC7 Elite LCD

Does the block really have the 120 fins as advertised? And how does the XC7 Elite differ from its XC7 Pro predecessor? A teardown is needed! After the tests for the performance data had been carried out, of course.

To do this, the 8 T7 Torx screws of the base plate and the associated O-ring must first be loosened. This can then be easily removed to reveal a nozzle plate with 3 outlets made of transparent plastic. The blob of heat-conducting paste is by no means a remnant of the last assembly, but is part of the block. This is used to thermally connect the temperature sensor to the base plate. Even if the software refers to “Liquid Temp”, this is actually the “Coldplate Temp”. Incidentally, this is also always slightly higher than the temperature of the outlet water, which makes sense given the proximity to the CPU cores.

4 more Phillips screws can now be loosened and then the upper housing with the electronics can be separated from the actual water-flowing part of the block. We will disassemble this part further in a moment, but first back to the wet compartment.

This can be disassembled even further with 6 more Phillips screws. Here, another O-ring ensures that the lower housing is sealed at the top.

The nozzle plate consists of two plastic halves that effectively act as an inverted funnel to direct the water flow from the inlet connection into the base plate. The water then flows around the outside into another circular acrylic element, which acts as a collector for the waste water for the outlet.

The funnel halves are only loosely plugged together and sit loosely on the 4 nubs of the collector element. The parts are only actually fixed in place by screwing the collector to the housing. When reassembling, it is a little reminiscent of a plastic toy egg. It is also noticeable here that there are no O-rings to seal the parts to each other and therefore only the fit of the components stands in the way of the inflow and outflow water mixing. This may be beneficial for a high flow rate and low back pressure, but it is certainly not ideal for cooling performance.

The “brain” of the block can also be taken apart even further by removing 4 more Phillips screws. The white circuit board and the illuminated ring made of white acrylic can then be removed from the housing, which makes a very high-quality impression with its grey anodized cast aluminium. Incidentally, the illuminated ring has 3 arrangement positions if you want the lettering in a specific position.

The white PCB houses both the 31 RGB LEDs and the round 480×480 pixel 30 FPS display on the back. There is no typical Corsair PCB number, but an “HJ” logo indicates Hsien-Jinn, which is not the first company to manufacture a PCB for Corsair.

On the front, the display is connected to its ribbon cable, the temperature thermistor is soldered to the board and additionally glued for safety. A small riser PCB is attached for the USB Type-C connection. A GP328520A multimedia SoC from Generalplus based on ARM9 is used to control the display and communication. The other package is an XT27G01BTSIGA flash memory chip from XTX Technology with 1 Gbit capacity. The GIFs or videos should then be stored on this, which can be configured in iCUE under “Hardware Display” for software-less operation. Interestingly, there are soldering points for a UART interface and an ARGB-Out interface. With a little creativity, it would probably be possible to add even more functions and LEDs to the block.

XC7 Pro in comparison

The XC7 Pro predecessor uses a similar design and is screwed through the base plate with 10 T7 Torx screws. Please forgive the fact that the block is no longer visually in top condition – I have been using it for several years.

Inside, a different approach to water routing is revealed here. In addition to the inlet and outlet, the large, round acrylic part also integrates the water supply to the nozzle plate. The inlet is divided into 2 slots, which then spray into the base plate via the nozzle plate on the left and right. The water can then flow back up to the outlet via the central slot or around the outside. Instead of 3 inlets as in the XC7 Elite, the nozzle plate integrates 2 inlets and 1 outlet. Here too, the transparent acrylic parts are only held in position with nubs and are only fixed in place by screwing them to the base plate. There is also no sealing between the inlet and outlet.

The much simpler circuit board is also white here and only integrates the LEDs, as the control is taken over by external controllers, such as a mainboard, via the ARGB cable. Typical Corsair lettering “50-002461” can be found here, with the Corsair board design.

If we now compare the base plates with each other, two things stand out. Firstly, both actually only have 116 fins or slats – yes, I really counted – but this should be practically irrelevant for performance. Secondly, the fins on the XC7 Elite are much finer and therefore the gaps between the fins are larger. Consequently, the surface area and the space available for the water flowing through is also slightly larger on the XC7 Elite.

In general, the XC7 Elite LCD makes a more sophisticated and significantly more complex impression in terms of its design and therefore meets the expectation of an upgrade to the XC7 Pro. In addition to the mere function of the water block, the XC7 Elite LCD also integrates a small multimedia computer with telemetry detection, display control, LED controller and onboard memory in a remarkably space-efficient and visually appealing design. For this reason alone, the block could almost be described as a small, colorful technological marvel. At the same time, this complexity is also likely to contribute significantly to the purchase price.