Today's Hard|Forum Post
Today's Hard|Forum Post
Date:
Tuesday , April 01, 2014
Author:
Marc Adams
Editor:
Kyle Bennett
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Cooler Master Glacer 240L AIO Liquid CPU Cooler Review

All-In-One or "AIO" CPU coolers have become the go-to cooling system for many [H]'ers out there. A quality AIO setup offers its users what is usually a quick and simple liquid cooling solution that many find superior to air cooling solutions on the whole. The Glacer 240L is not the run-of-the-mill AIO cooling solution at all; its "Semi-DIY."

Introduction

Here at [H]ardOCP we have reviewed so many coolers of varying shapes and sizes that it would be easy to write off the newest offering from Cooler Master as just another carbon copy all-in-one (AIO) water cooler and call it a day. Oh how wrong we would be! You see Cooler Master has been in the business for quite some time (22 years to be exact) and it has learned a thing or two about differentiating its products. So when Cooler Master teamed up with Swiftech to design the Glacer 240L you just knew it would be something special. So what makes it so special?

For starters, the Cooler Master Glacer 240L uses more powerful components than most AIOs. Like its 3500 RPM pump which gives the system a head performance of 2.65 mH20 and can flow 165 liters of water through its tubes every hour. That’s impressive by itself but what sets this unit apart is that is expandable. That’s right, you can add additional components to your water cooling loop without voiding your warranty. For today’s tests we are testing only the main unit by itself but given what we already know, I expect some exciting results.

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System Setup

Today's review introduces our fourth generation [H]ard platform. The test bed consists of the ASUS Z87-Deluxe motherboard, eight gigabytes of Corsair 1600 MHz DDR3 RAM and the Intel Core i7 4770K.

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Test Methods

CPU

The biggest change you will notice is the removal of hardware testing. In recent years, Intel has shifted their methods of testing to software based and so we find it acceptable to do the same.

GPU

Once again we have an integrated GPU in our processor which alleviates the need for a discrete one. With the removal of a discrete GPU comes the advantage of not having an additional variable to account for.

The iGPU will not create any anomalies in our testing as long as we practice consistent testing methods.

Case

Corsair was kind enough to provide us with their Carbide series chassis. It provides excellent airflow and interior space and is a good reflection on current case design.

Thermal Paste

Noctua's NT-H1 thermal paste was selected as the paste of choice for a few key reasons. The thermal paste has been shown to provide excellent thermal conductivity allowing the heat sinks to better do their job. There is no observed curing time. That is, performance does not get any better over time. Any curing time could have introduced variables into the equation causing at best dubious results and at worst unreliable ones.

Temperatures

Ambient temperature will be kept at 25C for the duration of the tests and measured with a MicroTemp EXP non-contact infrared thermometer and cross referenced with the Sperry Digital 4 Point thermometer. Any variance greater then 0.2C will halt the testing until temperatures return within spec for fifteen minutes.

Idle

Idle temperatures will be recorded after a twenty minute period of inactivity. Any fluctuation during the last sixty seconds will reset the timer for an additional five minutes.

Load

Load temperatures will be recorded after a twenty minute period of 100% load. To obtain this load we will be using AIDA64 Extreme Edition v3.00.2500. This places an even greater load on the CPU than before and includes some benefits. Because the load is so extreme we see the temperature vary wildly from 72C to 86C in some instances. To get an accurate reading we will utilize AIDA64’s ability to average the temperature over time. Given twenty minutes at 100% load we arrive at a temperature that accurately represents our heatsink’s performance.

Sound

Sound levels will be measured with a Reliability Direct AR824 sound meter from a distance of four feet away. With everything turned off and the room completely silent the meter registered a sound level of 38dB(A). This is a very quiet room where a simple pin drop could be heard. All sound measurements are recorded in the very late evening to further reduce any ambient noise.