Conclusion

Performance

The Cooler Master Glacer 240L liquid cooler performs on par with the top-rated coolers that we've tested with its performance increased by adding two fans to its stock configuration. Cooler Master did their best to ensure that the cooler liquid flow was minimally restricted with their selection of 3/8" inner diameter tubing to connect the CPU block and radiator.

Pricing

As of March 15, the Cooler Master Glacer 240L liquid CPU cooler was available at Newegg.com for $139.99 with free shipping, as well as Amazon.com for $139.99 with Prime shipping and Performance-PCs.com for $139.99.

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Conclusion

Before continuing with our parting sentiments on the Glacer 240L liquid cooler, we would like to take this opportunity to give our friends at Cooler Master a hearty "Thank You" for giving us the pleasure and opportunity to review such a high quality and well-designed cooler. When selecting a liquid cooler for your system, there are several areas of concern on which to focus – the radiator size, thickness, and fin density; the water block construction and base plate quality; and the barb and tubing sizes used to transport the medium within the cooler. In designing the Glacer 240L, Cooler Master built a cooling system capable of handling its stock configuration heat load with a CPU block only, in addition to the heat load introduced by add-on cooling blocks. Cooler Master used a copper-finned radiator with brass liquid channels as well as a copper block to ensure optimal heat transfer to and from the liquid transport medium. Additionally, use of similar metals in its construction ensures that the cooler will have minimal risk of galvanic corrosion.

The tubing used to connect the radiator to the CPU block was 3/8" inner diameter tubing with a 5/8" outer diameter, ensuring that liquid flow was not constricted by the tubing and that the tubing was capable of a tight bend radius. The 90 degree barbs used on the unit were designed with a full 360 degree freedom of rotation, ensuring that the radiator and block could be mounted in just about any case configuration or orientation. The biggest innovation was the inclusion of an easily accessible drain port in the front bottom collection chamber of the radiator. The metal plug sits in a standard G 1/4" port, ensuring its compatibility with a wide range of after-market drain and fill adapters. Further, the drain port allows for easy expandability of the loop. The tubing itself is held in place with screw clamps that are also removable for tubing and flow reconfiguration, necessitated by the addition of new blocks to the loop. Performance-wise, the cooler was virtually unmatched by its competitors with potential evident in the benchmarking results to handle an increased heat load from add-on blocks.

As far as design deficiencies, there were a few minor items that may have inhibited performance of the cooler. The most obvious challenge was with the placement and size of the barbs used on the CPU block. The CPU barbs stuck out a bit past the mounting arms for the Intel processors, causing mounting issues with the block in certain orientations. The block would fit and sit flush on the processor, but it became a matter of finding the correct block orientation so that the barbs did not rest atop the surrounding CPU VRM heat sinks. The other concern was with the low FPI density of the copper radiator. Its low FPI density did not appear to inhibit the unit's cooling performance at all. However, a higher FPI density would have increased the radiator's cooling ability with minimal impact on airflow through the radiator because of the high pressure fans bundled with the unit.

Strengths

  • Performance under stock and overclocking conditions
  • Build and machining quality of the cooler
  • Copper radiator
  • All copper loop construction -> no mixed metals in loop
  • CPU block and radiator barb rotational freedom
  • Tubing size and inner diameter -> 3/8" x 5/8"

Weaknesses

  • Lack of DIY information in manual for adding components to loop
  • Low FPI density on radiator
  • Horizontal width of CPU block

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