SilentiumPC Navis F240 AIO Liquid Cooler Review

I've always had something of a soft spot when it has come to SilentiumPC. No, they're certainly not the biggest PC hardware and component manufacturers in the world, but they are one of the few (in my opinion at least) that never seem entirely comfortable merely resting on their achievements. - They want to innovate. They want to improve. And, let's be honest, there are few manufacturers that really give you that impression anymore! So, with this in mind, we take a look at their latest AIO liquid cooler release. SilentiumPC and Synergy Cooling have combined to bring us the Navis F240. No, flashy it ain't. Being designed to offer a high level of cooling performance within a sleek and stylish package though, this shouldn't look out of place within any PC system no matter how potent or humble it is! SilentiumPC Navis F240 Available in both ARGB and non-ARGB variants, for this particular review we'll be sticking with the latter to purely (or at least primarily) focus on its cooling performance. - Coming as a 240mm AIO design, this doesn't just pack a lot of performance and excellent features into a relatively small package (well, when compared to 360mm coolers at least), but SilentiumPC has also clearly taken focus on ensuring that its understated but stylish black aesthetics shouldn't look out of place within any system build. Better still, if you'd prefer the ARGB variant, the cooling performance between this and the non-ARGB models we'll be reviewing here should be pretty similar (if not identical). So either option you pick, this review should hopefully give you a pretty solid idea as to what you should expect! Entirely suitable for all major AMD and Intel sockets, care has also been taken to ensure a very easy installation method making this a doddle for either new starters at AIO liquid coolers or those of you with more experienced hands! Features DEVELOPED WITH SYNERGY COOLINGPOWERFUL AND DURABLE FLUCTUS FANSPOWERFUL SPEED-ADJUSTING PUMPIMPROVED WATER BLOCKPOWERFUL RADIATORBRAIDED HOSESPACTUM PT-3 THERMAL PASTE Technical Information For more in-depth specifications, please visit the official product page via the link here! Socket Compatibility Dimensions What Does SilentiumPC Have To Say? "The SilentiumPC Navis F240 is a new high-performance AIO CPU cooler designed in collaboration with Synergy Cooling. The ultra-silent asymmetrical PWM controlled ceramic-bearing block-pump is paired with a 240mm radiator with two pre-installed Fluctus 120 PWM fans. The Navis F240 Series is designed for the most demanding users, those who expect not only exceptional performance but also near silence. In terms of cooling efficiency, the Navis F240 series ranks among the top 240mm radiator systems, yet also features a drastically improved acoustic experience. The cooler is compatible with AMD AM4 and popular Intel sockets, including the latest LGA1700 platform. The entire kit is covered by a 36-month manufacturer’s warranty." Exterior Packaging It is no understatement to say that SilentiumPC has utilised pretty much every aspect of the external packaging to either display or relay information about the Navis F240. There is literally nothing you could want to know about this AIO liquid cooler that isn't detailed somewhere on the box work. This includes dimensions, specifications, features, compatibility, and even some nice clear images of the cooler itself! Admittedly, the colour scheme doesn't exactly 'pop' at you and sat on a shelf, I suspect that this would look rather boring. With that being said though, I'd rather have boxwork like this detailing every aspect of a product than a lot of razzmatazz that ultimately tells you nothing. For the overall packaging here, SilentiumPC gets a bit thumbs up from me! Accessories In something mildly surprising for an AIO liquid cooler, there are surprisingly few parts. Admittedly, this is certainly helped by the fact that the cooling fans come pre-installed to the radiator (more on this shortly), but on the whole, this is a surprisingly limited but unintimidating set of components you have to work with here. You even get a pretty decent quantity of SilentiumPC's PACTUM PT-3 thermal compound which judging by the amount should be more than suitable for 2-3 installations (not that you should, of course, be looking to undertake this in quick succession). A Closer Look We have a bit of an unusual set of circumstances here as the SilentiumPC Navis F240 is, pretty much, ready to go right out of the box. In fact, to show some details to the specific components, I've actually (something frustratingly from purely a review aspect) had to actually disassemble some parts here. - On the whole, though, having it ready to go (pending the mounting bracket to the motherboard) is certainly a nice and highly unusual consideration. What about those individual components though? Well, let's take a closer look! CPU Water Block While not specifying any particular manufacturer, the water block is well presented with a sleek black aesthetic with a brushed-metal effect surface to the top. It's a surprisingly slim design and comes with pre-fitted mounting points for all major Intel and AMD sockets. Nope, there's nothing to remove or alter here prior to installation! With the SilentiumPC logo in the centre, based on the image below you might think that this looks rather nice embossed into the surface. The truth, however, is that you really do have to capture it from a certain angle for it to stand out. It's a little too understated for its own good and lacking any direct light source, it's barely visible at all. I see what SilentiumPC was going for here in terms of a subtle aesthetic touch, but ultimately it doesn't work. From most angles, it just blends in. One minor aesthetic grumble I could have is the fact that with it having pre-installed compatibility for all supported sockets, those that aren't going to get utilised might look a little messy when installed. I think though that I'm happier to have the trade-off in what will be a notably easier installation at the slight cost of a slightly less clean aesthetic. Contact Plate The contact plate is nice and large and as can be seen below, has been designed in a slightly elongated shape. Although not specifically listed, we suspect that this has been done to provide better overall coverage for Alder Lake processors which have a more horizontal shape when compared to prior Intel processors (and, of course, AMD Ryzen). In regards to AMD, although no specific AM5 compatibility has been confirmed (yet), given that the Ryzen 7000 series is also expected to take a similarly shaped design to Alder Lake, it does seem that this cooler will almost certainly offer solid levels of not just CPU coverage, but compatibility for either Intel (Alder Lake and the upcoming Raptor Lake) or AMD Ryzen 7000 processor models! Radiator It's a radiator... Yep, that's pretty much all I have to say about it. Ok, I can elaborate a little further if you'd like, but I warn you, I'm only telling you what you probably already know. It's a 240mm design, it carries no aesthetic touches or branding, and looks pretty much identical to any other 240mm AIO liquid cooler radiator. I'd call it boring, but truth be told, the vast majority of manufacturers seem to think that there's very little to be done with radiators to make them interesting. In regards to its functionality though, keep reading as I do have a number of points to raise about this in the installation aspect of this review! Fans Given that this is a 240mm AIO liquid cooler, it should (hopefully) come as no surprise to learn that you are supplied with 2 x 120mm cooling fans. While clearly lacking the lighting components of its ARGB counterpart, SilentiumPC's own Fluctus 120 PWM fans still carry a very eye-catching aesthetic and especially so in regards to the blade edges. Coming with nice thick rubber padding to each corner, all going well these should provide strong levels of airflow while keeping any vibratory noises to an absolute minimum. The good news for you is that these come pre-installed on the radiator right out of the box. The bad news for me is that I've now got to reattach them before I can get to test it! Overall In terms of design, on the surface, the SilentiumPC Navis F240 looks to be an excellent AIO liquid cooler. Admittedly, the aesthetics are somewhat limited due to the lack of any ARGB lighting effects, but in truth, with such a variant there if you want it, keeping a more understated model like this is probably an exceptionally wise move. ARGB is divisive, whereas this wouldn't look out of place within any kind of system. - Before we find out though if the looks match the performance, let's get this installed first and see how that works out! Installation The SilentiumPC Navis F240 is a bit of a curious creature as it pretty much comes ready for all sockets without the need for different backing plates or any modification to the water block. - With the fans pre-installed to the radiator as well, all you pretty much have to do is get your mounting sorted. That's it! So, in this regard, getting things off to an excellent start, the product manual is crammed full of useful information and diagrams. Admitted though, for certain aspects, some close attention will be required! To make things even better though, SilentiumPC actually has installations for both the AMD and Intel methodologies. - A great manual and some actual videos showing you how to do it? 10/10! Mounting In terms of the Intel mounting system (because the AMD one utilises the existing mounting brackets as often is the case), I have to admit that the methodology used with the SilentiumPC Navis F240 is not one I'm particularly fond of. - To start with, given that this is provided with just one backing plate, for certain socket types (such as our 155X) it has to be fitted at a slight angle. And trust me when I say that attempting to line up the holes was not an easy task and especially so when you don't have a general 'square' to line things up against. Even then, you have these 4 screws which attach directly to it which is a design I've always hated. Why? Well, when it comes to screwing the CPU block down, you often tend to slightly overtighten these mounts. This means that when it comes to removing the CPU block, you often take some of these out as well! - Put simply, better mounting systems are out there, but I don't really know why some manufacturers choose to stick with these that, while ok, could be hugely better! Some Concerns When it came to the installation aspect of this review, I did note a number of factors that have led me to question certain aspects of the overall product quality. - One such instance is on the contact plate which, despite being new and coming with the protective covering in tact, it still had a number of very slight scratches and marks on the copper surface. Another minor point is seen with the radiator. Now no, dents to the fins are not unusual. They're thin and very susceptible to 'dinging' even with the most seemingly minor bit of accidental contact. Given that the fans are pre-installed on the radiator on this model, however, had I not removed them for the purpose of this review, I wouldn't have noticed that one small aspect of the radiator had already received some exceptionally light damage. A major point? No. You wouldn't even see this when installed. It does, however, suggest that there could potentially be a shortfall in either the packaging process, manufacturing, or just overall quality assurance. I'm just being honest, but if I bought this new, I wouldn't be too happy to find this (and this is coming from someone who knows just how easy this can happen!). Finally, I also feel it worth noting that the length of the hose (connecting the radiator to the CPU block) isn't very long. Coming at 390mm, this is slightly smaller than the average of around 400mm and while we're clearly not talking about huge margins here, I honestly could tell that this was shorter simply by the fact that it was a bit more awkward to fit onto our test bench. Admittedly, within a case, a more compact hose is nearly always going to probably be preferable. For those of you with pretty big chunky cases though, that missing 10mm could make things a lot trickier and tighter than they have to be! Particularly so given that the protective braiding on this is exceptionally high-quality meaning that, by proxy, it's not very flexible at all! Overall Thoughts Despite some concerns, I've certainly encountered more problematic installations than what I've seen here. In many respects though, it almost feels like SilentiumPC, in something of what I believe is an entirely honest legitimate attempt to keep things as simple as possible, may have 'overly' optimised certain aspects. It just feels like they attempted to make absolutely everything easier, and by the usual proxy of how these things go, it ended up making the entire process just slightly more awkward. - Let's just hope that with this fitted, the slightly awkward installation methodology will be mollified with some impressive levels of cooling performance! Test System & Methodology As you may appreciate, we review a lot of coolers here at eTeknix. As such, our prior results sheet was getting more than a little crowded. We have, therefore, applied a new system in which we have picked those coolers we consider most popular or most relevant to this design. Please note that we re-tested the Noctua NH-D15S as our base benchmark for cooling results. Test system: Gigabyte Aorus Gaming 9 Z270Intel Core i7-7700K Delidded w/ NT-H1 under IHSRadeon R7 Passive GPU with 2GB VRAM16GB Crucial DDR4 2400 MHz (only swapped to 8GB in the unlikely event of RAM compatibility issues) - If this has been done, it will be noted within the review!512GB OCZ SSDbe quiet! Dark Power Pro 800WLian Li T80 Test BenchAll testing conducted using NT-H1 thermal paste We’d like to say a big thank you to Gigabyte, Noctua, Crucial, Intel, OCZ, be quiet!, and Lian Li for providing us with the above testing equipment and their on-going support. Testing Methodology We always use Noctua Noctua NT-H1 thermal paste to make sure testing reveals the efficiency of the tested coolers not the efficiency of the bundled thermal pastePrime 95 is run for 10 minutes to calculate "load" resultsUnigine Superposition is run for 10 minutes to calculate "gaming" resultsThe average temperature across all cores is takenFans are left to operate at default PWM profile speeds unless otherwise statedFor water cooling tests, all pumps have been operated at 12 volts unless otherwise statedAmbient temperatures should be between 21-23 degrees in all our tests unless otherwise statedAcoustic measurements are taken 10cm horizontally and 10cm vertically away from the CPU cooler with the VGA fan disabledStock tests are performed using "out of the box" settings for the CPUOverclocking tests are performed with the CPU set to 5 GHz and 1.345vAll coolers were tested under identical settings unless otherwise stated.There is approximately a 1-degree Celsius margin of error in our temperature recording software CPUID HW MonitorThere is approximately a 1.5dBA margin of error with our Benetech GM1351 decibel meterIn all these graphs we may have a few "reference" results of particular products that do not fit within that category for comparative purposes. Software Used CPUID HWMonitorPrime 95Unigine Superposition (1080 Extreme) Performance The cooling performance offered with the SilentiumPC Navis F240 is not just good, but based on its price and 240mm size, it's actually nothing short of excellent. In terms of both stock and overclocked testing, it provided results that were, quite honestly, significantly better than what we were expecting. - Yes, even in terms of overclocking, this AIO liquid cooler is definitely a 100% viable option. In terms of noise, the SilentiumPC Navis F240 performs just about below the average noise level we'd expect to see from a 2-fan cooling solution. It is not exactly whisper-quiet, but at the same time, it's hardly noisy either making this an all-around excellent cooling solution! Stock Temperatures Stock Acoustics Overclocked Temperatures Overclocked Acoustics How Much Does it Cost? The SilentiumPC Navis F240 is available to purchase now with consumers looking at a price in the region of £74.99. - Its ARGB alternative is also available for just slightly more at £84.98 (a very fair price considering the only real difference between the two models is lighting effects on the cooling fans). When comparing this against other 240mm AIO cooling options, the Navis F240 seems to represent an excellent deal. Not only does it manage to outperform a lot of its competition, but it also carries the pretty huge bonus of being notably less expensive too! Overview The only real criticism you can level at the SilentiumPC Navis F240 is that it doesn't really do much to stand out from the pack. And yes, this even includes the ARGB variant which, while clearly catering to a more lighting-orientated customer, still doesn't really do much above and beyond what most of its competition offers in terms of visuals and aesthetics. If you can get beyond that point though, then the SilentiumPC Navis F240 definitely represents an excellent cooling option. Not only does it offer full compatibility for AMD and Intel sockets (including Intel's LGA 1700 for Alder Lake and the upcoming Raptor Lake), but it also does an excellent job of keeping the CPU cool while not making much of an audible fuss about it. While its somewhat bland aesthetics might put some off, for others this will be an ideal solution offering a sleek and stylish look that wouldn't look out of place in any system build. Should I Buy One? The SilentiumPC Navis F240, in a nutshell, is excellent. It offers strong cooling performance with low levels of noise that are no more audible than the vast majority of other 2-fan products. - While the aesthetics might be a little too basic for some people's tastes, the price tag comes along to easily solve that problem. This is, just about, one of the best budget AIO liquid cooling solutions around. And I use the word 'budget' somewhat grudgingly as I don't want you to confuse that with cheap. This is not a cheap AIO. A factor easily indicated in its excellent performance figures. Admittedly, SilentiumPC doesn't have the 'big name' attraction of a lot of its competition, if this pings on your radar though, I can promise you that, at the very least, it offers a solidly comparable level of performance (and in some cases better) while coming at a price point that easily makes this an absolute bargain for what you get! Pros Excellent levels of CPU temperature controlEntirely viable for certain mild to moderate overclocking effortsSleek aesthetics that wouldn't look out of place in any system buildEven under high workloads, it's not noisy!Better performance at a lower price than many (if not most) of its competing productsARGB alternative is available (for not much more money)Fans come pre-assembled to the radiator. This is basically ready to install right out of the box! - A huge timer saver that I don't recall (off the top of my head) seeing in any other AIO product before Cons It might just be our sample, but we definitely saw some admittedly very minor concerns over the overall QA process Neutral Not an installation mounting methodology I'm particularly fond of - It works fine, but it ultimately feels like an attempt to make every aspect easier that just ended up making every aspect a bit more annoying. Systems like this can just get very frustrating/fiddly when installing within a case and particularly so with the slightly shorter than average hose length SilentiumPC Navis 240 AIO Liquid Cooler