Cooler Master Nepton 240M AIO CPU Cooler Review
Dave Alcock / 10 years ago
Introduction
Cooler Master are well known for their cases, power supplies and of course cooling products and with over 20 years experience it’s no surprise that they are a market leader in all of these areas. It’s always nice to see companies that are passionate about their products designing and developing new ones and more importantly see how they compare to whats currently on the market. One of the new products from Cooler Master is the Nepton 240M and we are going to look at it today. The Nepton 240M is a closed loop AIO cooling solution which promises high performance, good quality and an excellent user experience. With more and more AIOs hitting the market it will be interesting to see how this one compares. Cooler Master have promised a lot with this one so let’s see how well it does on our test bench and see if it can hold its own.
The box for the Nepton 240M follows the same theme as many of the other Cooler Master products, a picture of the product on a black background with purple trim. I really like this idea as when the products are on display at retailers they always look professional and you know straight away who makes the product. You instantly expect a certain standard from products you have already used and keeping to a certain style of packaging helps to remind you about products you may have used previously. Plenty of information is relayed on the sides of the box such as the specification and contact information. One interesting thing to note is that the Nepton 240M carries a 5 year warranty which is quite simply excellent, it gives you a piece of mind and it gives us an indication that Cooler Master have a lot of faith in this product.
The Nepton 240M, as the name suggests, has a 240mm radiator which has a very good quality black coating. A ribbed FEP tubing connects the radiator to the pump and during testing and taking pictures of this cooler, I was bending the tubing a lot and I was very impressed with it, the tubing never kinked and it certainly has a durable feel. Having said that it is a little stiffer than some tubing that I’ve used, it can still be manipulated enough to fit most positions but it is a little trickier.
The fans are a new addition for Cooler Master which are called Silencio FP 120. These fans are made to produce a high air pressure whilst keeping noise and power to a minimum. In terms of aesthetics the fans are simple yet stylish. I prefer all black fans as they easily fit in with many computer colour schemes. It’s also nice to see the cables for the fans are sleeved, to me all cables should be sleeved as aesthetically it improves everything and it is a very cheap improvement that a company can make.
The Nepton 240M fits most AMD and Intel sockets so there are plenty of fittings included to enable the smooth installation. There is a universal back plate, plenty of screws, brackets for Intel and AMD, a fan adapter which allows the use of 2 fans from 1 fan header and a rubber fan gasket. The gasket is made from a soft rubber which stops vibration from the fans being transferred to the radiator and the chassis which will reduce noise. Its an excellent idea and a great addition to the product, however it is a little tricky to install.
Installing the Cooler Master Nepton 240M is very easy, the instructions included are clear and easy to read and they explain how to fit everything well. It’s just a case of fitting the bracket for your chosen socket type, then using the universal back plate and the screws provided to secure it. The only bit that was a little trick, as mentioned, was installing the fan gasket. It’s made from a very soft rubber which means you could just do with the extra hand whilst trying to hold a fan the screws the radiator and the gasket.
Once installed there is plenty of room between the cooler and the ram, this allows you to use RAM with large heat sinks. One other feature that this cooler has is a glowing logo, which unfortunately I couldn’t capture on camera very well as I needed to use a flash. The addition of this LED is nice, it stops the Nepton 240M from being a plain black box and gives it a little extra class. It’s not over the top or tacky, it just has a certain feel of sophistication about it.
