CHEAP 240MM AIO – Cooler Master ML240 V2 Review
AIO cooler tend to be fairly pricey, take the Corsair H100i Pro, it’s like £120, so when Cooler Master asked if I wanted to check out their latest ML240 – a version 2 model – and that it cost well under £100, I had to see what it’s about and show you if it’s any good, or worth your money so that’s exactly what we are going to do. But first, if you haven’t already, consider subscribing for more videos every monday, wednesday and friday!
A bit of background, AIO coolers are basically closed loop water cooling systems, where you normally have a pump built into the water block that attaches to your CPU, then a radiator and some fans. This one is no different, now it does have a new “dual chamber” design, where the pump sits on top of the water block, but other than that, it’s a fairly standard looking setup. The radiator has slightly more dense fins now, and they’ve included their newest “Sickleflow” 120mm RGB fans, with this shiny sticker on them and all.
Mounting wise, again not much has changed. You screw the fans in, screw the radiator to the case, then attach whatever arms you need for your CPU – I’m testing this with a Ryzen 3900X, so you need the AMD brackets which still suck. They work by hooking onto the plastic mounts that come on your motherboard, and always, always hurt to get on.
There’s no thermal paste pre-applied here, so once you remove the sticker from the heatsink, you’ll need to use the included tiny tube of thermal paste to lay a bit down. Cable management is also a pain, as both the pump and both fans each have a fan header cable, and an RGB cable – AND if you want to use their tiny included RGB controller instead of your motherboard, well you’ll need their 3 to 1 RGB joiner and a molex connection to power it. Seriously, who uses molex in 2020? SATA power is so much more convenient these days, and it’s just a better connection.
Anyway, once you get that all plugged in, and boot up the PC you are greated with what is actually a pretty nice looking cooler, when all lit up. Yes, you could unplug the RGB and keep it dark like your heart, but I think it’s not too bad.
Temperatures wise, it’s pretty good here. Using the 3900X and prime95 to stress it to around 130W or so of power draw gets you to about 80°c, which isn’t too bad. What’s more impressive is both how quickly it drops the temps when load drops, and how remarkably quiet it is in use. Seriously, it’s no louder than a couple cars going by outside, have a listen…
So it keeps your CPU reasonably cool, it’s remarkably quiet, and it doesn’t cost much. What’s more to like? Well, the mounting method still sucks, but for the average person you only do that once, and it’s not the worst I’ve ever seen so not all that bad. I think for these mid to high end CPUs, from the 3700X and up basically, this really isn’t a bad option. For the cheaper CPUs like the 3600X, an air cooler like the ARCTIC freezer 34 eSports DUO I think would be a better fit, but if you want a bit more cooling performance, and remarkably a similar amount of noise to an air cooler, this isn’t a bad shout.
ML240 V2 on Amazon: https://techteamgb.co.uk/ml240v2
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