Cooler Master Seidon 240M and 12 More Coolers: The Retest and Mega-Roundup
by Dustin Sklavos on April 26, 2013 6:01 AM ESTSpec Tables
Today we're looking at six closed loop liquid coolers from NZXT, Corsair, Swiftech, and now Cooler Master. Representing Asetek are the Kraken X40 and X60 from NZXT as their packages are ultimately more feature rich than Corsair's curiously barebones implementations of the 140mm and 280mm Asetek coolers in the H90 and H110. Corsair's H80i and H100i are both popular models, so they fill in on 120mm and 240mm duty. As the best performing 240mm cooler I've tested, owing at least partially to the copper and brass radiator, the Swiftech H220 demanded to be retested. This time we're using a retail kit as well, instead of the preproduction press model we tested with before. And finally there's Cooler Master's Seidon 240M, which we discussed earlier.
| Corsair H80i | Corsair H100i | Swiftech H220 | |
| Type | 120mm | 240mm | 240mm |
| Dimensions (in mm) | 120x152x38 | 120x275x27 | 127x269x29 |
| Fans (Supported) | 2 (2) | 2 (4) | 2 (4) |
| OEM | CoolIT | CoolIT | N/A |
| MSRP (NewEgg) | $109 ($89) | $119 ($105) | $139 ($139) |
| NZXT Kraken X40 | NZXT Kraken X60 | Cooler Master Seidon 240M | |
| Type | 140mm | 280mm | 240mm |
| Dimensions (in mm) | 138.4x172.5x27 | 138.4x312.5x27 | 120x273x27 |
| Fans (Supported) | 1 (2) | 2 (4) | 2 (4) |
| OEM | Asetek | Asetek | N/A |
| MSRP (NewEgg) | $99 ($99) | $139 ($136) | $99 ($109) |
The competition is interesting. Corsair's H80i, at least for now, doesn't have to directly compete with anything on our charts except similarly priced air coolers. At 240mm, though, we have the H100i and Seidon 240M squaring off against each other, while the Swiftech H220 is more expensive owing to its higher quality radiator and vastly more powerful pump. Meanwhile the Kraken X60 is the definition of niche, though 280mm radiator mounts are becoming increasingly common in modern cases.
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For the Kraken X40, I decided to try something different during testing. The X40 performed pretty poorly in our last roundup against competing 120mm kits, and I wondered if NZXT and Corsair hadn't hamstrung themselves by only including one fan. To even the odds, I swiped a fan from the X60 and attached it to the X40 in a push-pull configuration, and you'll see it made a huge difference.
Meanwhile, for air coolers, I elected to drop all of the DeepCool coolers as well as the Noctua NH-L9i. The Intel stock cooler also wasn't tested. I actually used the Noctua NH-L12 with just the 92mm fan as an upper heat bound; this is a notably more powerful solution than Intel's stock cooler, but it still had trouble keeping our overclocked i7-2700K under 100C.
| Noctua NH-D14 | Noctua NH-L12 | Noctua NH-U12S | Noctua NH-U14S | |
| Dimensions (in mm) | 158x126x120 | 93x128x150 | 158x125x71 | 165x150x78 |
| Fans (Supported) | 1x 140mm & 1x 120mm (3) | 1x 120mm & 1x 90mm (2) | 1x 120mm (2) | 1x 150mm (2) |
| Weight | 1240g | 680g | 755g | 935g |
| Rated Noise in dB(A) | 13.2~19.8 | 13.1~22.4 | Up to 22.4 | Up to 24.6 |
| Price at NewEgg | $81 | $69 | $65 | $75 |
| SilverStone Heligon HE01 | be quiet! Dark Rock Pro 2 | CM Hyper 212 EVO | |
| Dimensions (in mm) | 140x119x160 | 147x138x166 | 120x80x159 |
| Fans (Supported) | 140mm (3) | 1x 120mm & 1x 135mm (2) | 120mm (2) |
| Weight | 926g (w/o fan) | 1250g | 580g |
| Rated Noise in dB(A) | 18~41 | 13.5~26.4 | 9~36 |
| Price at NewEgg | $75 | $99 | $33 |
The two new Noctua coolers were included, but they don't have listings on NewEgg for pricing as of this posting. They're expected to be available soon. What will be interesting will be seeing how the addition of even a low-powered exhaust fan affects this group of coolers.
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Edkiefer - Friday, April 26, 2013 - link
really nice review with air cooler verse the water coolers . One comment though, looking at the air temps of PWM and 100% . They seem so close I would think you should get better results on 100% fan . Maybe the case still doesn't have good airflow for air coolers ?Just saying, I have the hyper evo and with stock MB fan profile verse modified (maxes to about 80% ) I say a least few c with app like prime95 .
biostud - Friday, April 26, 2013 - link
You could do a nice xy diagram with noise and delta temp on the axes.truprecht - Friday, April 26, 2013 - link
"You could do a nice xy diagram with noise and delta temp on the axes."Yes this 100x. It's so obvious - why is it not SOP for cooler comparisons?
DanNeely - Friday, April 26, 2013 - link
I put one together for a prior cooler review; it wasn't nearly as useful as a I hoped. With very few exceptions everything bunched up in a fairly narrow diagonal line.Noise is vertical; temp horizontal: http://orthogonaltonormal.com/midden/fans.png
JCheng - Friday, April 26, 2013 - link
DanNeely: On the contrary, I find that extremely helpful! Having to jump back and forth between the data points and the legend is kind of a drag, but to see the two dimensions really helps!DanNeely - Monday, April 29, 2013 - link
The reason I felt it was of limited value was that excepting some really bad performers on the quiet end of the range (designed for low power CPUs in SFF systems?) almost all the coolers fell along a relatively narrow horizontal line; meaning the best to worst ordering in the temp and noise tables was mostly equal with no major outliers.nail076 - Monday, April 29, 2013 - link
I agree, an X-Y chart of these values would better show the best performers in a sea of coolers.buhusky - Friday, April 26, 2013 - link
Why do fan & cooler reviews NEVER put the OEM fan/cooler numbers in there as a baseline? Never! It would be much better for me to compare to see how different of an upgrade the item(s) would be compared to what came with my stuff, not just as compared to each other....A5 - Friday, April 26, 2013 - link
The OEM coolers are terrible. They would make the graphs unreadable because all the aftermarket stuff would hardly look any different compared to the OEM cooler.matagyula - Friday, April 26, 2013 - link
In this case I don't think the OEM solution would keep the CPU cool enough -> i7 @4,4GHz, as written on the "Testing methodology" page.