*Edit addressing missing parts (row Q in the blister pack) Mine were in a little ziplock in the box with the fans. I almost threw them out not knowing that they were in there. When I initially did my review, it was bulked in with all the Coolermaster AIO's
Preface; This review is for the Coolermaster Maker 240 series listed here. I noticed there are not a lot of reviews (I couldn't find any) on the Maker, so here goes. First, let me explain the computer it is installed in. It is the "Jon Snow" of my computers. I work in IT and it is a system built from spare parts left over from last year (2020) after a couple RMA's and extra pieces bought for testing. Specs; Ryzen 3, 16G DDR4, .5TB NVMe, Aorus B550 mobo, EVGA GTX 1660, powered by a 650 watt PS. I was using the stock AMD CPU cooler that actually came from a Ryzen 7 (again, "Jon Snow" system). I fit all of this into the cheapest case I could find. The Aero Cool 40 dollar jobber you can find here on Amazon. The only pieces I bought for this computer with my own money is the case, the power supply, and this cooler (technically I bought the GPU as well, but lets not talk about GPU's till they're in stock). So I'm like, less than 250 (sans GPU) in on this system.. I always wanted to try a water-cooling loop and this is my first. I have installed several AiO's over the years.. But this is my first actual DiY kit, and I wanted the challenge of that. So that being said, lets get on to talking about the Coolermaster Maker 240 DiY kit. See my Pic 1 for a "Before" shot of the system 100% air cooled.
I love this kit. It came with everything I needed right out of the box. I did add some extra parts since it has standard G1/4 threads on the radiator, reservoir and CPU block. I added a three way TT elbow fitting, a couple other elbows, and a temperature sensor. Everything else came in the Coolermaster box, which is quite large/heavy I may add, but you get a lot of stuff.
CPU Block - The block is great, nice and heavy, and solid copper. The mounting of the block (on the Ryzen series mobo's and CPU's) is a bit obnoxious as a giant silver (Stainless?) square is the mounting bracket. I would have liked to see that part be black just to make the CPU block itself stand out, see Pic 4. The backplate was a bit difficult to install but that is the fault of the cheap case - See pic 3. Temps, before and after, at the end of the review.
Reservoir - Very Nice! The finish is matte black and the acrylic is thick. No breaking this thing... The instructions do state to take the lid off of the res but I found that to be very difficult from the factory. I got into it though... Had to ice the shoulder afterwards but I got into it.. See pic 6 for a closeup of it installed.
Radiator - Following "best practices" I flushed the rad out with some distilled water before installing. There was a slight amount of particles left in there from the manufacturing process but since this is my first loop, I do not know if it was a lot? Or a little.. But there were some. The finish is great, but when you rub your thumbnail along the rad screwing in the fittings, you'll leave a mark on the finish.
Fans - The RGB fans included with this kit have a better blade angle for pushing air through a rad than your standard air flow fans, and work very well at low RPM. I have them mounted in front of the case pushing air through the rad into the case. The RGB is nice. I did not use the included RGB controller dealio as I use the mobo for that. It is included though so if your motherboard does not have RGB headers, you can still take advantage of the fans RGB function with the included controller. Pic 7 is of the fans in a non running state. I added dust filters to the front. More on that later.
Tubes and fittings - The included 3/8id 5/8od tubing is hard to bend. But, also hard to kink. the 3/8id was pretty hard to get on the barb as well. Win some, lose some, on that.. Hard to install, but once installed, they aren't going anywhere. The fittings are great, but with the thick walled tubing, a bit hard to get clamped down on the tubing. The edges of the fittings are sharp. See pic 8 and 9 of fittings installed on the system. Pic nine is how tight the install is in my case.
Looks - Oh man what an upgrade! My case does not support water-cooling. There is space for a single 240mm AiO in it, but what's the fun in that? That Aero Cool case I have has no air flow in the front and I have been running it without the front cover on for a while, which made it look pretty jank. In Pic 7 you can actually see the front cover in the background just chillin where's it's been chillin since December. I replaced it with a section of screen which didn't look all that well. So since December the computer it has looked like a thrown together box sitting on my desk in our home office. I surface mounted the fans (and dust filters) from this kit on the front to push air through the radiator (since there is not room inside for fans, radiator, and reservoir) I sandwiched the front of the case between the fans and rad, and it looks very industrial now. Even the GF walked through the office and said "WOW, That's neat lookin.." which is awesome - GF approved! The entire kit through the window speaks for itself in pic 12
Conclusion and performance - Would I buy this kit again? Oh yeah... As long as it stays on the market. I hope Coolermaster keeps this kit for sale. For a hundy and a half, it is an awesome deal for all the parts included. Everything is there for your custom loop. You don't have to add 90 degree fittings or temp sensors if you don't want to. Before the kit I would run around 32c at idle and I would get up to 66c at load. Not very high numbers at all, I bought this kit to even see if I could build it, and water-cool a system. If my numbers stayed the same, I would still have posted this review and the numbers since it's such a cool system anyway. Under load (tested using Cinebench btw) after the loop was completely installed, running Cinebench again, I saw a max temp of 48c. CPU's with higher speeds or more cores, you will see different performance results, but with this Ryzen 3 quad core, I am very impressed with the cooling capabilities of this kit. If you are interested in Water-cooling and don't want to break the bank for a kit, this is the one. If you made it this far, thank you for reading.
| Brand | Cooler Master |
|---|---|
| Item model number | MLY-D24M-A20PA-R1 |
| Item Weight | 3.63 pounds |
| Product Dimensions | 13.7 x 11.22 x 5.79 inches |
| Item Dimensions LxWxH | 13.7 x 11.22 x 5.79 inches |
| Color | ML240P Mirage ARGB |
| Manufacturer | Coolermaster |
| ASIN | B07V25ZSB2 |
| Is Discontinued By Manufacturer | No |
| Date First Available | July 9, 2019 |
