Lucky Luciano wrote:
Just don't come crying to SPCR when you realise how noisy it is at low load. That's what Anandtech suggest anyway:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/6916/cool ... aroundup/7Yes I did read the review in it's entirety. Here's a quote from their Conclusions: It Always Depends on Your Needs...
"First, while the Swiftech H220 may be the best 240mm closed loop cooler available, it also commands a healthy premium over the competition. This leaves Corsair's H100i and the Cooler Master Seidon 240M competing against each other, and this one's really a no brainer in favor of Cooler Master. The Seidon 240M sometimes lists for cheaper than the H100i, and while you don't get the software functionality or extra fan headers of the H100i, the 240M is slightly more efficient overall, and its mounting system is head and shoulders above the H100i. If you're in the market for a 240mm cooler and the Swiftech is too rich for your blood, then you're going to want the Seidon 240M."
As for your comment about noise. I agree I was surprised to see they discounted the Seidon so severely due to their noise measurements. (Other reviewers were far less harsh with some quite the opposite.) I'm running Asus Fan Xpert 2 to control not only the Water Pump (which is almost silent all the time) but the Dual Fans (connected to the CPU & CPU Opt connectors on the Asus Z87-A motherboard). The software allows you to set starting speeds, and the rate of rise in speed (ramp) based on temperature changes.(Not to mention rename the locations - like Water Pump - so you know what they are at a glance. It now, after a recent upgrade, working great.)
I was prepared to swap out the Cooler Master Seidon's Fans (to Noctura?) if their noise was beyond my limit, but so far they aren't an issue. I'll check the Fan models - maybe Corsair upgraded them - I don't know and the Box is running at the moment.

I just bought 4 Cooler Master R4-L2R-20 120mm Red LED Case Fans 2000RPM 69CFM 19DBA for another project - My son's Gamer Box (he loves Red!) needs a bit of overclocking before a new Video Card for Christmas...waiting on Black Friday... So I may try a couple of them. (By the way, I don't believe the Corsair 19 DBA @ 2000 RPM with 69 CFM spec., but we'll see how they perform.).
I did see Anandtech took their measurements at 1 foot away which I assumed was not masked by any enclosure. I also assumed they were using them in a "pull" configuration (other reports I read suggest efficiency is not impacted by push or pull configurations) which would have the Fans (and their noise) closer to the Mic and not masked by the Rad. My Rig was deliberately configured as a "push" to use the Fans, and Grill in the Bitfienix Ghost Case to less the impact. At basically idle (right now) with the Haswell i7-4770K running at 4.6 GHz, the CPU is at 41° C, and the Fans are pretty quiet at 1060 RPM.
Overclocking and running a silent PC are probably not 100% compatible. My desire was for quiet is for most of the time when I don't use all the horsepower this Rig can develop. I'm willing to put up with the noise when I push it to it's limit when Video processing. So far I'm very pleased with it.
