Final words and conclusion
Over the last year or so we seem to have been growing fond of CoolIT's product series. And sure, with the release of the C240 ALC the guys over at CooLIT have once again a proper targeted product on the market offering great value.
However, as much as I like the product, it does not have that grand stature and feel to it as to say the recently released ALC Vantage. CoolIT products seem to always offer decent to good performance levels at best, that and a strong focus and priority on product looks and esthetics. Somehow the looks seem to outweigh pure performance.
It's the same with the C240 ALC. The looks are just fantastic, all black design, fairly easy to install with the new mounting system, prefilled .. it's one of the most easy and comfortable kits on the market to use and install. But it will remain to be a mainstream product barely reaching high-end, and not at all touching the real enthusiast segment. Make no mistake, the performance was really good, but remains to be just that. Currently the C240 sits at the top rankings of heatpipe based coolers and while that is a really good level to be at, we felt we missed out on some performance with the über high overclocks.
See, a true enthusiast liquid cooling setup can cope with 4200 MHz better then the C240 ALC can. The C240 ALC got stuck at roughly 70 Degrees C with the individual core temperatures (per CPU core) even higher. So yeah, I expected slightly better performance with the enthusiast overclock. Still 4,20 GHz for a 2,67 GHz processor @ 1.5v completely stressed at give or take 70 Degrees C certainly is good enough, but the better heatpipe coolers will reach that level just as well. But for CoolIT to achieve more performance and for them to breach through the CPU enthusiast cooling segment that tubing likely needs to be a little thicker, and the copper base of the CPU cooling block could use a small upgrade as well as the ammount of cooling fluid.
Anyway, for regular usage we enjoyed the nice increase in cooling performance thanks to more radiator surface and the extra fan. For any decent overclock, this product will be more than sufficient, just do not expect miracles in the highest enthusiast range. We do like to recommend to CoolIT for the next revision to look into more silent fans. Whether it is PWM controlled or fixed, at roughly 60% RPM the fans start to become noisy. When your CPU is stressed they'll easily jump to 80% fan RPM, and at that point the fans become really audible. Not everybody will be bothered by it, but we do feel it's just a notch too much.
Overall we like to recommend the C240 ALC if you are on the lookout for above average cooling. The sheer design and easy installation of this unit makes it very recommendable. And the price is the real good thing here, the entire kit as tested today costs just 125 USD. And I know I made a comment or two on the enthusiast segment cooling performance here, but as such it is only fair to mention that enthusiast LCS products can easily cost you twice as much or even more. So if you are on the lookout for an easy to install, good looking and nice performing product but don't want to spend heaps of dough on it, then most definitely be on the lookout for the CoolIT C240 ALC LCS kit. If you are a bit of a noise freak like me, please do order two silent fans though. Other than that; recommended.
Oh, and do make sure you can actually mount a radiator that size in the chassis first, okay?
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