- Metal mounting kit & tool-free installation
- Ceramic bearing pump, MTBF 120,000 hours
- Bionic LED breathing light & Visual liquid flow design
- Upgraded anti-explosion rubber tube enable a space-saving installation and exceptional durability
- 1 double-blade fans offer a higher air pressure for the radiator and achieves more efficient heat dissipation
Good Cooling Solution for FX8000 series
11/22/2016
This review is from: DEEPCOOL Gamer Storm CAPTAIN 120EX-AIO CPU Liquid Cooler 120mm Ceramic Bearing Pump Visual Liquid Flow Metal Mounting Kit AM4 Compatible
Pros:
I installed this on an FX8350 replacing a DeepCool Neptwin air cooler. The Neptwin does a fantastic job of keeping the FX8350 running cool, but it is huge. With the Neptwin, I had to remove the cooler to do any type of upgrade or modification because it covered nearly everything. It was also a real pain to remove and install.
Now the CAPTAIN 120EX was a different story. Easy to install and leaves plenty of room for working inside the case. In fact, this was the only liquid cooler that I have been able to install in the Corsair Carbide SPEC-01 case. The case is not particularly suited for liquid cooling and I had to settle for the Neptwin cooler until I found the CAPTAIN 120EX to fit the case.
The CAPTAIN 120EX performs well with thermal margins well below the thermal limit for the FX8350. The thermal margin during light use is 55c to 59c - that means the core temperature is well below the max. During heavy loads and benchmarking, the thermal limit dropped to around 40c. To put that in perspective, the core temperature is still 40c below the thermal max limit for the processor. That is pretty impressive. To give credit to the Neptwin, it performed on par with the CAPTAIN 120EX but you are talking about a massive sized air cooler with 6 copper heat pipes.
The noise level is not even noticeable on the CAPTAIN 120EX. This is a very quiet cooler and the only noise I hear is the case fans and the fan on the Radeon graphics card. The Neptwin was fairly quiet also until I put a load on the CPU and the fans cranked up. On the other hand, I did not notice a difference in noise between idle and load on the CAPTAIN 120Ex.
All and all, a very good cooler for FX8350 especially when space is a factor in the case. None of the other liquid cooling I tried would fit in this case.
Cons:
The only con I can think of is the cryptic installation instructions. You have to figure it out yourself or look it up online. The little pamphlet they enclosed only makes installation more difficult. I threw the paper away and figured it out. It was actually quite easy when I looked at the parts and not the paper.
Overall Review:
When installing, I made the mistake of installing the radiator and fan before the CPU block. Made things more difficult so I removed the fan and radiator and installed the CPU block first and then fit the fan and radiator in. No problems at all when I installed the CPU block first.
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