Cooler Master’s Seidon 240M puts i7-3770K under water to reach 5.0GHz
The Test
We have been living with the Seidon 240M inside our Overseer RX-I for several weeks and we love it for all of our needs including extreme CPU overclocking. Almost any decent aftermarket cooler will allow one to clock the Core i7-3770K to 4.4GHz but then as voltages increase, so do the cooling needs and starting at about 4.6GHz to 4.8GHz requires a high-end cooler.
Let’s take a look at our setup:
The Setup and the Test
Test Configuration
- Intel Core i7-3770K (stock, 3.5GHz/3.7GHz withh Turb0) overclocked up to 5.0GHz
- EVGA Z77 FTW (latest beta BIOS, PCIe 3.0 specification; CrossFire or SLI 16x + 16x using PLX chip).
- 8 GB Kingston DDR3-PC1866 RAM at 1866MHz (4×2 GB in dual-channel supplied by Kingston)
- GeForce GTX 690 supplied by Nvidia
- GeForce Titan, supplied by Nvidia used for the 4-fan test only
- 500 GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.2 hard drive
- ToughPowerXT 775 W power supply (supplied by Thermaltake)
- Cooler Master Seidon 240M Water cooler (supplied by Cooler Master)
- Thermaltake Water2.0 Pro Universal Cooler (supplied by Thermaltake)
- Thermaltake Water2.0 Performer Universal Cooler (supplied by Thermaltake)
- Noctua NH-DH14 Universal CPU cooler (supplied by Noctua)
- Noctua 120mm Flex Fans, PWM managed for the 4-fan test
- Overseer RX-I full tower case (supplied by Thermaltake)
- Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound
Test Configuration – Software
- GeForce WHQL 314.07/.09 Drivers; high quality filtering
- Windows Vista 64-bit SP1; very latest updates
- DirectX latest.
- All games are patched to their latest versions.
- Highest quality sound (stereo) used in all games.
- Vista 64, all DX10 titles were run under DX10 render paths
- OCCT 4.1
The Test
First we tested our idle temperatures. The Water2.0 Performer was unable to reach 5.0GHz as it started to get rather warm at 4.8GHz when .1325V was added. The Seidon 240M hangs in with the very best of the water coolers that we have tested.
For our load test, we ran OCCT for at least ten minutes and recorded the highest peak temperature reported by a single core at maximum load. From 3.5GHz to 4.2GHz we used no additional voltage and then added +.025V with each +100MHz of core clockspeed increase until we reached +.1325V at 4.8GHz, +.1375V at 4.9GHz and +.1425V at 5.0GHz!
One thing we noted that was different, with the other coolers at 4.5GHz we needed to add +.025 volt for CPU stability using the other 3 coolers, but we did not have to add any extra voltage using the Seidon 240M. At 4.9GHz, we got by with 1.350V with Seidon instead of the 1.375V needed for the other coolers. Everything else remained the same including the big jump in voltage to 1.425V needed to stabilize 5.0GHz.
It appears that 5.0GHz for our i7-3770K is not practically or safetly attainable with our level of cooling with any cooler that we have used under OCCT’s thermal torture test although the Seidon 240M actually maintained a lower average temperature – and never throttled – despite showing slightly higher peaks in some cases. We would hit a peak and an instant later the fans would rev up to maximum to bring the temperatures down.
For 5.0GHz, we needed 1.425V to achieve stability and the temperatures quickly rose to 105C. We encountered Intel’s thermal throttling with the other 3 coolers, although the Seidon 240M also reached 105C at peak it did not throttle. The Seidon 240M was able to keep our CPU cool longer than with the Noctua NH-DH14 or the Water2.0 coolers, but 4.9GHz was all we felt that we could more safetly achieve needing +.1350V, while the Water2.0 and Noctua coolers needed +1375V.
What about four fans in Push-Pull? Seidon 480M?
Unfortunately we didn’t have 4 Cooler Master PWM controlled fans so we used 12omm Noctua PWM fans instead. They were as simple to intall as with any other 12omm fan with the bolts passing through them to screw into the radiator directly and securely. We were amazed that one CPU fan header on our EVGA Z77 FTW motherboard was able to effectively power and power manage all four fans through a series of Y-adaptors.
In this case, it is very important to have outstanding case airflow. The big 240mm side case intake fan and the large 200mm front intake fan are just enough to keep up with the 4x120mm exhaust fans now on the Seidon “480M” and also with the 140mm exhaust fan on the back. The airflow is so strong exiting the top of the case that it will blow off a sheet of paper in an instant. And even with the extra two fans, the Seidon watercooler still fits easily above the CPU and watercooling contact head.
So was it worth it? Yes!
For the very first time, we were able to run OCCT indefinitely at 5.0GHz without tripping the Intel thermal overload or hitting our own self-imposed 105C limit in OCCT. This is something that we could not achieve with any other CPU cooler that we have tested so far. Unfortunately, we could not lower the core voltage below 1.425V, so we will settle on 4.9GHz and 1.375V for extreme benchmarking when necessary. This is +100MHz higher than with our former extreme CPU overclock for extreme benching with the Water2.0 Pro.
Let’s head for our conclusion
