Cougar Aqua 240 AIO Cooler Review

A Closer Look

Despite being a 240mm AIO cooler design, the Cougar Aqua 240 has struck a nice balance of being reasonably light in the hand while still feeling reassuringly hefty to suggest a good level of build quality. The overall presentation is of a sleek black design that clearly drops more than a few hints to the RGB action awaiting us with the pump head.

The hose length is remarkably good and, when compared to others, is a good inch or two longer than you would usually expect to find. While not unnecessarily lengthy, this hose should ensure good compatibility within the vast majority of cases including the most colossal of unforgiving chassis designs to ensure that you can fit this exactly where you want it!

Pump Head

The pump head presents itself as a fairly standard design, however, that is no criticism and in regards to the mounting clip installation, we have a lot of good things to say about that later in this review! – Getting back to the aesthetics, however, coming in a square design, the Cougar logo can be found to the centre which, with the clear section to the edging, will be where all that RGB magic happens!

The main power to the pump head is provided through a SATA connector which can also be used to bring life to the RGB if you don’t have an ARGB sync capable motherboard. For having a manual option (both in terms of the remote control and power) this design gets a huge two thumbs up from us.

Yes, ARGB sync compatible motherboards are getting more and more common. It is, however, always nice to see a cooler manufacturer providing a ‘manual’ solution for those who do not have or choose to not go down that road.

Contact Plate

The contact plate comes in a square design with the copper surface clearly visible. Providing excellent coverage for the vast majority of processors, this should ensure excellent heat dissipation.

Radiator

If there is one aspect of AIO designs I do find a little boring these days, it’s when the radiator provided with it is just a black rectangle with no apparent styling or branding applied what-so-ever. It wouldn’t be fair to solely criticise Cougar here either as a lot of other manufacturers also do this. While this design does look perfectly acceptable, it does give me the feeling though that these radiators all come out of one factory and the only real innovation seen these days in AIOs comes from the pump head and fan designs.

It’s a minor point, but would it really have killed Cougar just to put their logo somewhere on here?…

Fans

As this is a 240 AIO liquid cooler, it shouldn’t come as any surprise to find that you are provided with 2 x 120mm fans. Although these do not have any RGB lighting effects, Cougar has still provided them with more than a little styling to make them visually attractive and surprisingly distinctive.

A look at the label seemingly confirms these to be Cougar’s own designs and, as such, this will hopefully be reflected in an acoustic and temperature performance that compliments the cooler’s performance well.

RGB Lighting

Although the RGB lighting is restricted to the pump head, what we do have is nice, bright, vivid and certainly more than a little attractive. Whether you love or hate RGB effects, this should suit practically all consumers and even if you hate it with a passion, you can always turn it off.

Controlling the lighting through the remote control, while the manual color selection is a little basic, you shouldn’t have any difficulty finding something you like among the configurations with plenty of variants available in terms of brightness and speed cycles.

Sure, having an ARGB sync compatible motherboard would certainly be advantageous, but with the excellent remote control, it’s certainly not essential to get the best out of this cooler!

Overall

In terms of the design and aesthetics, the Cougar Aqua 240 certainly looks to be a well made cooler clearly capable of producing some potentially great results in lighting, performance, and noise levels. Is it a difficult cooler to live with though? Well, let’s strap it to our test bench and find out!