Cooler Master Seidon 240M and 12 More Coolers: The Retest and Mega-Roundup
by Dustin Sklavos on April 26, 2013 6:01 AM ESTThe Cooler Master Seidon 240M
It's easy to mistake the Cooler Master Seidon 240M as another Asetek design; apparently Asetek thought it was close enough that it was worth suing Cooler Master over. How that suit pans out remains to be seen, but the Seidon 240M definitely has enough distinctive characteristics to make it worth evaluating on its own.
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Cooler Master may not have been doing well in our recent radiator fan roundups, but the two fans they've included for the Seidon 240M's 240mm radiator appear to be the same breed as the fan they use on the widely loved (and rightfully so) Hyper 212 Evo air cooler. Unfortunately, while the waterblock is copper and of Cooler Master's own design, the radiator uses aluminum fins much like competing units from Asetek and CoolIT, and you'll see later that this does have a tangible negative impact on performance.
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Where Cooler Master beats just about everyone else, though, is in their mounting system. The mount for the waterblock is freakishly simple and secure; there are a pair of brackets that get screwed on to the waterblock (one for AMD and one for Intel), along with an adjustable backplate that comes out of the box ready for LGA 1155/1156. Four screws come up through the mounting holes in the motherboard, and then bolts attach to those. The brackets attached to the waterblock then screw into those bolts. It's actually a very simple design and nowhere near as finicky as Asetek's, CoolIT's, or even Swiftech's.
As for fan control, Cooler Master is a step ahead of Corsair's H90 and H110 coolers: the pump uses a standard 3-pin connector and can be connected to any motherboard fan header, while there's a splitter for the two PWM fans included to use the single CPU fan PWM header on the motherboard. No proprietary software, just clean use of the motherboard's integrated fan control. I honestly prefer this approach to Corsair's Corsair Link software and NZXT's Kraken Control, but your mileage may vary.
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DanNeely - Friday, April 26, 2013 - link
In the last test it was 6C hotter than the worst cooler in this review. That would put the core temp in the high 90s and possibly result in thermal throttling.http://www.anandtech.com/show/6830/cpu-air-cooler-...
tsponholz - Friday, April 26, 2013 - link
It would be nice to see this a baseline.Hrel - Friday, April 26, 2013 - link
agreed, just mention the numbers outside of the graph, so it doesn't fuck up the comparative look.Torrijos - Friday, April 26, 2013 - link
It's a little sad not to have the H110 on that test since it tends to be quieter than the X60 for the same level of performance.JustMoreFun - Friday, April 26, 2013 - link
It's very sad that you up to now didn't test one of the Thermalright Coolers, as they are commonly referred to as being the reference when it comes to air coolers.davidthemaster30 - Friday, April 26, 2013 - link
If the NH-U14S, was mounted so that it pushed air towards the top of the case, would it still block the PCIe slot?marc1000 - Friday, April 26, 2013 - link
I don't believe it would fit inside the case in this position... it looks like it would go past the backplate.epoon2 - Friday, April 26, 2013 - link
You should check with Noctua, they have an FAQ listing motherboard compatibilityspidey81 - Friday, April 26, 2013 - link
First I'd like to say that I thoroughly enjoy your articles. In your recommendation of the U12S/U14S over the D14 I think you may have missed something. At your current 4.4 Ghz overclock the smaller/cheaper heatsinks performed, let's say, more efficiently. However, wouldn't the D14 be able to handle a higher thermal load that come with higher overclocks? So it's kind of like you said, it depends on your usage. It would be interesting to see at what point in overclocking would the D14 become worth purchasing over it's smaller siblings.epoon2 - Friday, April 26, 2013 - link
it scales in the same direction for all coolers as temperature increases, common sense or wrong?