Closed Loop AIO Liquid Coolers: 14-way Mega Roundup Review
by E. Fylladitakis on February 12, 2014 7:00 AM ESTCooler Master
Cooler Master is a company with a tradition of cooling-related products and thus it is no wonder that they jumped into the AIO liquid coolers wagon almost instantly. They have a healthy selection of products and decided to ship us their two Nepton series coolers, their most popular series at this point in time, along with the Seidon 120V, a very low cost, entry level solution.
Cooler Master Seidon 120V
The Cooler Master Seidon 120V is the smallest, simplest and least expensive AIO cooler of this review. The packaging reflects that, being a relatively simple brown cardboard box, unlike any other in this particular roundup. Looks aside, the packaging is well designed, full of information on the cooler, and the cooler is very well protected inside the cardboard packaging.
Inside the box, the user will find a leaflet with installation instructions, the necessary mounting hardware, and a syringe with thermal compound. Also included is a single 120mm fan with a wide speed range of 600 to 2400 RPM; it is an all-black model with wavy blades.
Both technically and aesthetically, the Cooler Master Seidon 120V is a rather simple design. The 27mm thick, 120mm wide radiator is the smallest and least expensive design available today. Wavy aluminum fins are formed between the liquid pass-through channels, which are not dense but not sparse either. There are imperfections in the fins but these are to be expected with a low-cost radiator.
The square block-pump assembly is entirely made out of plastic, which is not bad in terms of durability but gives a feeling of cheapness. The company logo is etched on the top of the block and a bright blue LED turns on when the pump is powered on. Only the base of the block is made out of copper, which is expected given the price. This copper base has been attached to the rest of the assembly with the aid of ten triangular screws and has a smooth, well-machined surface, although it has not been machined down to a mirror finish. The tubing is corrugated and a little hard to bend but at least the fixing points on the CPU block assembly are rotatable sideways.
Cooler Master Nepton 140XL
Unlike the basic 120V, the Nepton 140XL is a significantly more sophisticated, detailed product. It does however cost twice as much as the 120V. It comes supplied in a carefully designed black-purple cardboard box, well protected inside cardboard packaging.
The bundle is not much different than above, limited to the necessary mounting hardware, a leaflet with installation instructions, and a syringe of thermal compound; a Y-splitter for the attachment of two fans onto one header is also included. Two powerful 140mm fans come with the cooler, with a speed range of 800 to 2000 RPM. These "Jetflo" fans are supposed to have high static pressure and the rubber pads absorb vibrations, reducing noise.
Visually, the Nepton 140XL is not much different from the Seidon 120V. Technically, the two coolers are nothing alike. The 140mm radiator of the Nepton 140XL is not only wider but is also 38mm deep, increasing the effective heat dissipation surface by well over 50%. Size aside, the design of the radiator is similar, with wavy aluminum fins between the heat exchanging channels and with a frame offering the ability to mount either 120mm or 140mm fans on it. However, it would seem that manufacturing imperfections are still present, with several of the fins significantly deformed. It appears as if the radiator was struck with something, deforming half a channel of fins, yet we received the packaging in excellent condition and this side of the radiator was facing inwards, towards the center of the packaging. Quality control issues in Cooler Master's manufacturing paradise are the only reasonable guess we can make -- that or the cooler was previously tested and repackaged for our review, though that seems unlikely.
The square block-pump assembly is once again entirely made out of plastic. Even though it looks much better and of higher quality than that of the 120V, plastic rarely is the way to go when you want a worthwhile aesthetic outcome. The company logo is etched on the top of the block and is surrounded by a frame with a white LED, which turns on when the pump is powered up. A plastic frame is sandwiched between the cap and the base of the assembly, with holes for the mounting of the installation brackets. The copper base of the assembly is smooth but not machined perfectly; although they cannot be felt by touch, the sandpaper grooves are clearly visible with a naked eye.
Cooler Master Nepton 280L
The Nepton 280L is Cooler Master's heavy artillery. We received it supplied inside a well-designed cardboard packaging with a black/purple color theme, visually very similar to that of the 140XL. The main attraction of the kit, the large 280mm radiator, dominates the theme of the box. Inside the box, with the exception of a slightly different installation instructions leaflet, we found the exact same bundle as that of the 140XL, including two of the same 140mm "Jetflo" fans.
The Cooler Master Nepton 280L might appear like an oversized version of the 140XL but it really is not. They do share many similarities but the main part of the kit, the radiator, is very different. The radiator of the 280L, as the name suggests, is 140mm wide and 280mm long, with room for up to four 140mm fans. The frame also offers support for 120mm fans, if the user would like to use 120mm fans instead for whatever reason. However, the radiator of the 280L is only 30mm thick, which is about 25% less than that of the 140XL. Therefore, although the heat dissipation surface is greater, it is not actually double that of the 140XL. Once again, minor deformations of the aluminum fins can be seen, although not nearly as many or as serious as those we encountered on the 140XL.
The square block-pump assembly is entirely identical to that used by the 140XL as well. It features the exact same size, mounting mechanism, pump, core and everything else. The same white LED lighting frame at the top of the block has also been installed. Unfortunately, the same mediocre copper base is also present, which could use a little bit better polishing for a product of this league and price range.
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Dustin Sklavos - Wednesday, February 12, 2014 - link
Good lord.If I'd known my successor would produce results this thorough I'd've stepped aside a long time ago.
Really well done piece of work.
E.Fyll - Wednesday, February 12, 2014 - link
Thank you for the praise Dustin, yet I still stand unworthy of it. :)Dustin Sklavos - Wednesday, February 12, 2014 - link
I'm enjoying your work tremendously. Now that I'm at Corsair I'm glad we have someone we can send case/cooling/PSU hardware to that meets and beats the AnandTech standard.creed3020 - Wednesday, February 12, 2014 - link
Yeah Dustin....I have seriously enjoyed your labors here at AT and do miss them. Your successor has changed the paradigm so much that it's hard to compare, but it's a awesome reboot to this area of reviews here at AT.I, however, have to agree with many other commenters that a secondary dataset produced with the same 120mm/140mm fans does have it's merit as it will provide an objective evaluation of the radiator and pumps. This is one area where I am really curious to see quality differences in the products. I am fully aware that each OEM is very careful in their selection of a fan which matches their product. This is not done by lottery, that much is clear to me. The OEM behind the Silverstone/Enermax product intrigues me, as I am a fan of Silverstone products and use their cases exclusively for all of my desktops, gaming PCs, and HTPCs. The Tundra's seems like they are ripe for a revision!
BigLeagueJammer - Wednesday, February 12, 2014 - link
Under Noise Level Reference Values, your first one of <35dB(A) being "Virtually inaudible" doesn't match up with most sources I've seen. Most rate that as "very quiet" and say the limit of human hearing as 10 db(A). If other sources say things like a ticking watch is around 20 db(A) which in a quiet room is easy to hear, then 35 seems too high for your qualification of "virtually inaudible".E.Fyll - Wednesday, February 12, 2014 - link
True, I am afraid that the lot of "copy/paste-ing" online has produced a lot of bad information going around. Some are works of fiction, some are misinterpretations of confused people, some...I don't even want to know.So, copying my answer from above:
"Sub-35 dB(A) levels are generally impossible to notice by a human ear. Sub-30 dB(A) levels are next to impossible to record with anything less than science lab-grade equipment. There is no handheld or desktop dB(A) meter that can perform such readings. If you have seen reviews stating sub-30 dB(A) levels, make sure to check their methodology (given that there is any). Either the meter cannot read lower than 30 dB(A) (and/or will display a bogus reading, as most cheap Chinese meters do) and the review is a fictional text or their methodology is based on dB readings, not dB(A) readings, which is useless to a consumer."
I think it will suffice for me to say that you cannot possibly hear what an instrument designed for this specific purpose cannot even record. In theory, the human hearing threshold is 1 dB(A); in practice however, that is true only for specific frequencies. The background noise of a typical room is almost always above 32-33dB(A).
Jon-R - Wednesday, February 12, 2014 - link
What is your opinion on the tests done over at SilentPCReview? They test using lab-grade equipment. A rundown can be found here: http://www.silentpcreview.com/article875-page2.htm...They use reference fans which measure around 13dBA at their slowest fan speeds, and they don't think highly of AIO water-cooling at all, as none of the tested ones have come close to the best air-coolers when it comes to quiet cooling.
E.Fyll - Wednesday, February 12, 2014 - link
From what I can see, they are using a highly sensitive microphone and a computer's sound card to record the results, connected through an amplifier. Although the equipment is very good, this is not "lab grade equipment" but just a customized setup. A very good setup nonetheless, including an anechoic chamber. They have a microphone with a self-noise of 8 dB, which measures 11 dB(A) inside the aforementioned anechoic chamber.It will suffice to say that their results are just in no way comparable to mine. Actually, as noise level measurements are environment-specific, you should only compare the results of a same setup, never in-between different setups. Unless they are all science labs with multiple ISO certifications, of course. Given that my room floor noise level is over 30 dB(A) and they are using a sub-12 dB(A) anechoic chamber, I believe that I do not have to stress how different the results out of these two setups are.
As far as equipment goes, for example, this is a cheap lab grade sound analyzer and still costs 5 times more than the whole setup that you showed me, microphones and secondary equipment aside:
http://www.nti-audio.com/en/products/flexus-fx100....
Jon-R - Wednesday, February 12, 2014 - link
But you're not saying that their measurements are inaccurate, only that they've got a significantly lower noise-floor than what you're using? So it boils down to the difference between what is considered silent? Because 30dBA is louder than their reference fan it its loudest setting, and far beyond what they consider acceptable. Just as a reference, they measured 43 dBA for the Silverstonde TD03 at 12v, and 30 dBA at 7v.E.Fyll - Wednesday, February 12, 2014 - link
"Inaccurate" is a harsh word when it comes to sound pressure level measurements. Although I would not hesitate to use this word for most other types of tests, there are far too many variables at stake here. I believe that their setup may be better than mine. I am just using a good handheld sound level meter, with the product positioned in the middle of a standard room.I would simply stick with "different".
Sound levels are additive. If you have a noise source of 20 dB(A) and added another source of 20 dB(A), the room noise would not be 20 dB(A) but 23 dB(A). A third source would make it 24.8 dB(A) and so on. So, a fan that would measure 18 dB(A) inside an 12 dB(A) anechoic chamber, will still add to the 30.4 dB(A) floor noise of my room. The difference is the magnitude, as the scale is logarithmic. As you said, the TD03 added about 18 dB(A) and 30 dB(A) to their setup, when it adds 8.3 dB(A) and 17.7 dB(A) to mine, because of the higher background noise. These differences are in no way comparable to each other; that is only possible when the scale is linear. The further you move up the decibel scale, the largest the increase of SPL becomes per single decibel.