Possible to use Hydro-X without iCue?

[Kuro Houou]

Just curious if anyone has run a Hydro-X water cooling system without iCue? All my fans are Lian Li Uni 120's, so I don't need anything to control them, they are PWM and use their own software. Which leaves me with the XD5 Pump, XG7 GPU block, and XC7 CPU block. The GPU and CPU only have a cable for LED lighting and they both have ARGB fan connectors included if I wanted to run them that way.

 

FYI, I have an ASUS Dark Hero X570 Mobo...

 

Which leaves me with the XD5 Pump which again has 4 Cables.

 

1. Power, nothing to do there just connect to PSU.

2. LED, again like the GPU/CPU block, has a ARGB conversion included.

 

3. Thermostat, can this connect to a Asus motherboards W_IN or W_Out 2 pin connection? There is also a 2 pin thermostat plug, but I think the W_In and W_Out are meant for water cooling.

 

4. For the pump itself, it uses a fan connector.. I have an AIO_Pump 4 pin connector right next to the CPU Fan connector.. I assume I could just plug the pump into this?

 

Now why go through all this trouble instead of using iCue.. well namely performance. If I am going through all the trouble to water cool my system I must be wanting to eek out every % of performance and from my experience with the H150i AIO.. iCue takes up a good 2-3% of my system utilization which obviously hurts performance even if just 1-2 fps at most. Now I am not 100% sure ill go this route. Honestly if I could use my Commander Pro and iCue and save everything to a hardware profile then stop all Corsair services i'd be happy as well I think. Just looking for options is all :) I'll probably start with the Commander Pro and iCue to start and just get it all working, then maybe try running it all through the MB if I find I can't escape running iCue all the time.

 

Last would their be another piece of software anyone who has done this would recommend to control these things, i.e. pump speed/leds??

[LeDoyen]

the thermistor goes to the T-sensor header on your motherboard, not far from those watercooling headers (no polarity, it plugs either way).

Edit : the headers you refer to are also thermistor headers so you can use them too :) i guess it's W_IN for a sensor going to the radiators, and W_OUT for the sensor installed after the rads.. if you install some at these points

 

For the pump PWM connector, you can connect it to the CPU fan header. in case of pump failure your PC will beep, which is handy.

Edited January 5, 2021 by LeDoyen

[Kuro Houou]

Thanks. While I am glad Corsair has iCue and think it has some cool features, I do think they could do better to optimize it so its not always using as much processing power as it does. That said, I am happy Corsair didn't make everything proprietary where it wouldn't work in a "open" system.

[LeDoyen]

they are working on iCUE now, took a long while to get it started.. but i have no idea if they have set a deadline to get it as light as it should be..

in the meantime, AI Suite is your friend :p

[jamie1073]

Yes you can used the motherboard to control the pump speed and use the temp sensor on the MB since it has an input.

[Adrian007]

Hi hope all is well. i am curious did you try running Hydro-X thru mother board ? i am doing a new build . i read about the bloatware that comes with icue software, i would like to stay away from it if i can, until they can make there software run more light.

 

My mobo is : ASUS Republic of Gamers Crosshair VIII Formula AM4 ATX Motherboard

 

I am only doing a CPU waterblock for now with pump and 2 rads. futreproof for waterblock on gpu.

[LeDoyen]

i believe every waterblock comes with a traditional ARGB adapter so there's no obligation to use iCUE at all.

All you need is ARGB and some PWM ports. In Aura you just set how many LEDs are connected to the port you connect all the stuff, on AI suite /Fan Xpert you set your fan and pump curves, you can plug the corsair pump's temp sensor to the motherboard thermal sensor input to serve as fan speed control parameter, and you're good to go.