Looking to squeeze more life out of my i5 and the stock cooler is understandably not cutting it. I have had a Coolermaster 212 in the past and was not happy with the size or weight at all, so looking at aio water coolers and the h80i caught my eye. I gather from all the searching done that H80i is a great cooler, what I couldn't ascertain is whether it will support future sockets?
Depends on how far into the future you're looking. If you're not in too much of a hurry,wait til around March. Zalman has a couple of new fanless,and liquid coolers that look VERY interesting. In the meantime,the H80i will serve you well. If you want a more quiet liquid cooler,consider Antec 620. Antec coolers are much more quiet than Corsair. In my opinion. I've had both,and the Antec series is way better for cooling and quiet.
Not so sure about that. I think it's a complete crapshoot if you get a noisy or silent pump. My own experience and forum excursions have confirmed this. The all-in-one setups are all made by Asetek or Coolit (barring the new Swiftech model), so there's little to differentiate any of them. My experience: H100: slight rattle H100i: silent AC Hybrid gpu cooler #1: slight rattle AC Hybrid gpu cooler #2: silent
This has also been my experience, both brands are good and I'd go with which ever had the best deal on at the time of purchase. OP, the H80i should get you around 3.8 - 4.0 if your chip can do it and you keep your voltage in check.
I will also throw a vote in for the Kuhler 620, I'm not a corsair fanboy by any means. Whatever brand you choose I would recommend higher quality fans, and moving to a push pull set up and a higher quality TIM to get the most out of it. I would recommend MX4 or Liquid Ultra. I know the Kuhler line has had a lot of after market support on ebay. They had 2011 adapter brackets before Antec did. I know with the 620 you can get one that will have the slight tick. From my experience and some others this happens when you get one that runs over 1400 rpm, they usually run just under. If you get a hot unit (I have one, runs @1478rpm) you can return it, or fan control it until the click goes away (Usually 1350-1390 rpm) When I first got my 620 for my cpu I benched it, My 2600k@ 4.7 would prime95 out at 72C, after I changed the fans and TIM it now maxes at 59C with fans at 800rpm, 54C with fans at 1400rpm. They all work about the same and can all be tweaked for better cooling, just depends on your preference and budget.