Cooler Master Seidon 240M Liquid CPU Cooler Review

Ryan Martin / 12 years ago

Cooler Master’s Seidon 240M costs approximately £89 right now in the UK but prices should start dropping off as more UK stock arrives. Even at current pricing £89 makes it cheaper than the ELC 240 with which it offers identical performance, around 10% cheaper than the Corsair H100i, which it offers about 10% less performance than, which costs around £95+ from most retailers and cheaper than the Thermaltake Water 2.0 Extreme which costs around £110-120. On cost then, the Cooler Master offers equivalent Bang-for-Buck to the Corsair H100i, if you examine performance in relation to price, and offers better Bang-For-Buck in relation to two other competing products from Enermax and Thermaltake. Depending on which websites and brands you favour you can probably get some good deals on the H100i or the Seidon 240M but generally speaking the Seidon 240M is cheaper on most.

The performance the Seidon 240M exhibits certainly isn’t mind blowing, in fact it is typical of what we would expect to see from a Asetek-style AIO unit of this thickness. This 27mm thick Seidon 240M falls a couple of degrees behind the 38mm thick Thermaltake Water 2.0 Extreme – which is logical. Unlike some competitors the Cooler Master Seidon 240M equips really wide ranging fans, ideal for getting silence – the ability to start at just 600RPM not the 1000 RPM some other units start at means you can have total silence when you want and maximum performance at 2400RPM when you need it. The build quality was to Cooler Master’s usual high standards, the mounting kit was very sturdy and the unit’s construction was good all-round. The accessory kit offered by Cooler Master was also much more extensive than similarly (and more expensively) priced products including a Y Splitter, a huge anti-vibration frame pad for the fans, extra fan screws and a reinforced AMD backplate.

There were also a few things I didn’t like about the Seidon 240M. Those were the aesthetics being blemished by unnecessary yellow stickers informing you to not put the product in the bin…which most people wouldn’t do, although you can remove these so it really is trivial. I was also disappointed to see the plastic instead-of rubbing tubing, it is really very awkward to work with and I think Cooler Master got away with this more on the Seidon 120M because it was an entry level model, but on this model it is more problematic because enthusiasts that pay more want more. The acoustic performance was also a little bit weak all things considered, mainly due to the fact the pump seemed more audible than pumps on other units, although it was definitely quieter than Enermax’s ELC series pumps.

In an increasingly homogeneous market of All-In-One water cooling loops the line between good and bad is incredibly fine. Just a whisker in the wrong direction in terms of price or performance can see a product being undercut by a similar competitor that got performance or pricing “more-right”. Thankfully, I think it is fair to say Cooler Master have got the pricing spot on and the performance is as expected. The 2 year warranty is a little on the stingy side, Thermaltake and NZXT also offer 2 year warranties but Swiftech and Antec both offer 3 year warranties on their 240mm AIOs and Corsair and Enermax offer 5 years on their 240mm AIOs. If you are looking to get into the All-In-One market then the Cooler Master Seidon 240M definitely offers excellent Bang-For-Buck, being the cheapest 240mm AIO on the market as we speak while only sacrificing a little bit of performance. Add to that the fact it doesn’t suffer from loud fans, intermittent or excessive pump noise, fan rattling or mounting kit issues means the Cooler Master Seidon 240M is just a solid good-performer.

As a result we think it does just enough to grab our Bang For Buck Award.