I spent a lot of time, to much looking at coolers and one day saw the Cooler Master Seidon 120M on sale for $50 AR. I jumped on it and got it from Newegg a couple days later.
I read some reviews and watched a few videos on this cooler. There is very little information and reviews compared to other coolers as it is relatively new. I read that this is one of the few closed loop coolers that isn't produced by the same company and re-branded. There were overall positive reviews about this cooler and for the price of $50, I thought it was worth it. Noting how good their Hyper 212 evo/plus are for the money also aided my decision.
The install was very simple and took very little time. I pretty much ignored the directions that looked poorly labeled in 100 different languages and opted to watch CM's youtube videos, which were very informative. It would have taken me only a few more minutes to install it over the stock Intel cooler, though I had to remove the old TIM and I decided to rework my cable management. The overall install was vastly better than some of the horrors I have heard people describe of other coolers. I did notice one small issue that will effect mid towers w/ PSUs on the bottom. If someone installs a fan in between the case and the radiator on such a tower, it might be a little difficult to put the side case panel back on. It took a little of elbow grease and I got it on, but the side panel on the top rear corner is not as flush as the other corners. It only sticks about 1mm and I don't think anyone will notice. This is from the large radiator hitting a support for the side panel.
The construction feels solid and the tubing feels a lot more ridged than I initially thought. The package included various mounting brackets for different socket mother boards and a small tube of TIM. All the power connectors had braiding sleeves over them and the fan had a 4pin PWM connector.
I decided to use a second 2,000 RPM fan in a push-pull configuration, with the heat exhausting out the back of the case. I went against the manufacture suggestion of using the fan as intake for a couple of reasons.
1) The great airflow of my Rosewill Challenger only showed about ~1c difference in ambient room vs case temp.
2) I was thinking the exhaust from the video and PWS would negate any advantages
3) Might disturb the natural airflow of the case.
4) With the lack of filter would add more dust into the case
After running some tests, using prime95 and Core Temp. I was able to get my 3570K up to 4.6Ghz, stable, though I started to get worried about the voltage settings. It peaked into the 80's at 4.6Ghz, while the 4.4Ghz and 4.5Ghz stress test l ran peaked in the 70's.
While running some tests I noticed a loud noise started coming from my fan. From the sound, it was a bad bearing in the supplied fan. CM website suggested I contact Newegg about returning it. As I would have to return the whole thing, instead of just a faulty fan they for some reason offered me a $10 credit instead of returning the whole thing, which I agreed to. After I didn't see any 4pin PWM fans for $10 at the CFM I had before, I contacted CM and I RMA'ed the single fan. I am currently using the spare 120mm fan to cool the radiator.
I do like the cooler for the price, though I wouldn't of bought this if it wasn't this cheap.The only reasons I went with this over the $20 Hyper 212 plus was the geek factor, slightly better cooling, and not having a huge tower heat sink in my little window. The LED in the pump does add a little bit of coolness to it as well. Overall i would give this a 4.5 out of 5, deducting a .5 for having to return the fan. I would drop it down to 3.5-4 out of 5 at full price as the Hyper 212 plus would be a better value.
Right now the cooler is on sale for a rock bottom $40 AR and the bigger brother 120XL is $60 AR. The bigger brother has two fans and a thicker (38mm) radiator compared to the 27mm of the 120M. I would also check out the Zalman LQ-320, which is on sale for $40 AR and also has biggest radiator of them all at whopping 52mm. Thought the CMs have a 2 year warranty to the Zalman's 1 year. While I like the idea of the larger radiator, I question if my case could even fit them as it is a tight fit with the radiator I have right now.
Edit: I also see the Thermaltake Water 2.0 Pro is also at an astonishing $50 w/ 2 fans and a 49mm thick radiator, but it only has a 1 year warranty like the Zalman. A coworker of mine has this and reported no issue with side panels fitting on his Challenger..
While looking at all the benchmarks of various sites, there is a lot of discrepancy between how these cooling systems preformed. I think using frostytech's method of testing will give us much better and consistent results across different cooling platforms. Though frostytech ranked the little brother of the TT Pro as a better cooler. Though frosty put the LQ-320 in the top 7.
More pics to come, please let me know if I should add anything else.
I read some reviews and watched a few videos on this cooler. There is very little information and reviews compared to other coolers as it is relatively new. I read that this is one of the few closed loop coolers that isn't produced by the same company and re-branded. There were overall positive reviews about this cooler and for the price of $50, I thought it was worth it. Noting how good their Hyper 212 evo/plus are for the money also aided my decision.
The install was very simple and took very little time. I pretty much ignored the directions that looked poorly labeled in 100 different languages and opted to watch CM's youtube videos, which were very informative. It would have taken me only a few more minutes to install it over the stock Intel cooler, though I had to remove the old TIM and I decided to rework my cable management. The overall install was vastly better than some of the horrors I have heard people describe of other coolers. I did notice one small issue that will effect mid towers w/ PSUs on the bottom. If someone installs a fan in between the case and the radiator on such a tower, it might be a little difficult to put the side case panel back on. It took a little of elbow grease and I got it on, but the side panel on the top rear corner is not as flush as the other corners. It only sticks about 1mm and I don't think anyone will notice. This is from the large radiator hitting a support for the side panel.
The construction feels solid and the tubing feels a lot more ridged than I initially thought. The package included various mounting brackets for different socket mother boards and a small tube of TIM. All the power connectors had braiding sleeves over them and the fan had a 4pin PWM connector.
I decided to use a second 2,000 RPM fan in a push-pull configuration, with the heat exhausting out the back of the case. I went against the manufacture suggestion of using the fan as intake for a couple of reasons.
1) The great airflow of my Rosewill Challenger only showed about ~1c difference in ambient room vs case temp.
2) I was thinking the exhaust from the video and PWS would negate any advantages
3) Might disturb the natural airflow of the case.
4) With the lack of filter would add more dust into the case
After running some tests, using prime95 and Core Temp. I was able to get my 3570K up to 4.6Ghz, stable, though I started to get worried about the voltage settings. It peaked into the 80's at 4.6Ghz, while the 4.4Ghz and 4.5Ghz stress test l ran peaked in the 70's.
While running some tests I noticed a loud noise started coming from my fan. From the sound, it was a bad bearing in the supplied fan. CM website suggested I contact Newegg about returning it. As I would have to return the whole thing, instead of just a faulty fan they for some reason offered me a $10 credit instead of returning the whole thing, which I agreed to. After I didn't see any 4pin PWM fans for $10 at the CFM I had before, I contacted CM and I RMA'ed the single fan. I am currently using the spare 120mm fan to cool the radiator.
I do like the cooler for the price, though I wouldn't of bought this if it wasn't this cheap.The only reasons I went with this over the $20 Hyper 212 plus was the geek factor, slightly better cooling, and not having a huge tower heat sink in my little window. The LED in the pump does add a little bit of coolness to it as well. Overall i would give this a 4.5 out of 5, deducting a .5 for having to return the fan. I would drop it down to 3.5-4 out of 5 at full price as the Hyper 212 plus would be a better value.
Right now the cooler is on sale for a rock bottom $40 AR and the bigger brother 120XL is $60 AR. The bigger brother has two fans and a thicker (38mm) radiator compared to the 27mm of the 120M. I would also check out the Zalman LQ-320, which is on sale for $40 AR and also has biggest radiator of them all at whopping 52mm. Thought the CMs have a 2 year warranty to the Zalman's 1 year. While I like the idea of the larger radiator, I question if my case could even fit them as it is a tight fit with the radiator I have right now.
Edit: I also see the Thermaltake Water 2.0 Pro is also at an astonishing $50 w/ 2 fans and a 49mm thick radiator, but it only has a 1 year warranty like the Zalman. A coworker of mine has this and reported no issue with side panels fitting on his Challenger..
While looking at all the benchmarks of various sites, there is a lot of discrepancy between how these cooling systems preformed. I think using frostytech's method of testing will give us much better and consistent results across different cooling platforms. Though frostytech ranked the little brother of the TT Pro as a better cooler. Though frosty put the LQ-320 in the top 7.
More pics to come, please let me know if I should add anything else.
