The DeepCool Captain 240 EX RGB AIO Cooler Review: Pump it Up, Without the Noise
by E. Fylladitakis on December 14, 2017 9:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
- AIO
- Deepcool
- Cooler
Testing Results, Maximum Fan Speed
Our maximum speed testing is performed with both the fans and the pump of the kit powered via a 12V DC source. At this voltage, the speed of the pump and the fans should match the manufacturer’s ratings. DEEPCOOL specifies that the TF120 fans have a maximum speed of 1800±10% RPM. Our tachometer indicated a speed of 1680 RPM, which is a bit on the low side but still fully inside the manufacturer’s specifications.
Our testing of the DEEPCOOL Captain EX 240 RGB was unsurprising, with the cooler’s thermal performance being very similar to that of most other equally sized AIO coolers. With the fans running at their maximum speed, the Captain EX 240 RGB has an average thermal resistance of 0.0824 °C/W, placing it higher than most dual 120 mm fan coolers. The average thermal performance of the Captain EX 240 RGB falls right in between the Zalman Reserator 3 Max Dual and the Fractal Design Celsius S24.
| Core Temperature, Constant Thermal Load (Max Fan Speed) |
Although the Captain EX 240 RGB does not land on top of our thermal performance charts, the acoustics performance of the cooler tells an entirely different story. Apparently, DEEPCOOL’s unique fans were not really meant to improve the thermal performance of the cooler but to significantly reduce its noise output instead. The maximum noise output of the Captain EX 240 RGB was 39.6 dB(A), which is second only to that of the Fractal Design Celsius S24.
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croc - Friday, December 15, 2017 - link
I have an NHD-15 heat sink and I also have a corsair h80i v2. (my case, a silverstone FT1 does not easily support radiators larget than 120mm) My CPU is an older 3930K six core that warms up nicely... Of course I do not have all the nice test bench stuff that Anandtech has, so my results are quite a bit more touchy-feely. By just a whisker the NHD-15 is both a tad quieter and a tad cooler.... I also like the fact that I know that outside of the fans there are no moving parts to fail.I am sure that my limitations are the 120 mm radiator, and I am also pretty well convinced that within a given sized radiator, there will be a very narrow range of test results across the range of AIO kits. But I keep looking...
LordanSS - Friday, December 15, 2017 - link
Thank you, Mr. Fylladitakis for your review.Since the advent of AIO liquid cooling kits my personal builds have changed a good bit. Have a H100i on my main build for a few years now, and my old and trusty second machine has a Hyper 212 EVO on it.
I've had bad experiences with heavy air coolers in the past, so I tend to stay away from them these days. My cases have positive pressure and the H100i works well as an exhaust mounted at the top.
To each their own. I know several people that frequent this website are still fond of air cooling, and in many situations it's still a very good and efficient option but in the end I'd say it depends on what kind of build you have in mind.
snarfbot - Sunday, December 17, 2017 - link
how long are these coolers being run at load?deadlockedworld - Wednesday, April 11, 2018 - link
For all the commentary about the bench -- this deepcool is not in the Anandtech bench section. ...