Cooler Master MasterLiquid ML240P Mirage ARGB Close-Loop AIO CPU Liquid Cooler, 240 Radiator, Transparent Pump, Addressable RGB Lighting, Dual MF120 Fans for AMD Ryzen, TR4 /Intel LGA1200/1151

Pros: The Masterliquid ML240R RGB is priced right for an all in one cooling solution to put in your computer. The liquid hoses are some of the best I have seen and the connection points are solid. I was not afraid of them leaking at all. I mounted the radiator in the front of my computer because I had memory height clearance issues for the top. Fans were set to pull. There was plenty of length in the hoses and the hoses were easy to bend, making it relatively simple to install. The cooler mounts on a large variety of socket sets and the mounting hardware included was adequate for the 1150 install.
I installed this cooler on an intel i5 4670. I do have the cpu overclocked to 4.8ghz without voltage adjustments. The stock intel cooler was not doing a very good job. To make sure I had fair comparison I removed the stock heatsink and reapplied thermal paste. I ran aida64 for 20 minutes and my max temp was 87c. After installing the Masterliquid ML240R RGB with the included thermal paste I ran the same 20 minute test and my max temp was 62c and I might include the first test was done in the morning when the ambient temperatures in my house were cooler so I’m thinking the results are solid. That’s a 25c temperature improvement over all 4 cores. Impressive.
The RGB on the water block is great. I really appreciate the plastic cooler master insert that allows us to change the direction of the logo. It goes in and out easy but its snug enough to not fall out when moving the case. The RGB on the fans are bright, colorful and look great. The fans have sound dampening rubber on both sides of the corners and the thumb screw screws are a great touch. I would love to see all manufactures use these. I think it’s important to note here that the included screws were all perfect. They were not too long as to puncture the fins of the radiator. I have seen too many AIO’s where that is not taken into consideration.

Cons: The first complaint I have is a combined complaint about the included documentation. It was vague and incomplete. I can’t believe I had to pull up a youtube video to watch how someone put on the included side mounting brackets. The instructional manual should have been more descriptive or had better pictures. In addition to the mounting confusion there really should have been better documentation of the controller functions and wiring setup. Luckily there was one on line, but honestly I didn’t bother with it. With so many wires the controller was crammed in the underbelly of my pc. I set RGB and wasn’t going back.
I noticed the controller was magnetic which was nice, but the magnet was not strong enough to stick to the metal insides of the case and with wires shooting off in all 4 directions of the controller it was incredibly difficult to stop the wires from bending the tiny pins and falling off. I would have much more preferred mounting tape for the controller or on my case there are SSD mounts on the back wall. Would have been nice to include an addon for mounting it in one of those.
There are metal mounting brackets that screw into the water block prior to the water block getting mounted onto the cpu. The metal is strong and the screws are strong, but they screw into plastic on the water block? I don’t like the use of plastic in this application process and really wish something more rigid was used. In addition to the plastic used for the water block mount I thought I would mention the thumb screw nuts that hold the water block in place. Yes, they did the job, but they were tiny. I’m used to using caps that were a bit more robust and these just felt inadequate.

Overall Review: I had a motherboard specific user error mounting this cooler. My first attempt at mounting had the water block hoses at the top. It did not mount correctly because the copper block was too wide and it landed on one of the capacitors on the motherboard. This could have been prevented by keeping the hoses to the left or the right of the block, steer away from top and bottom. Hopefully this bit of knowledge will help someone else who reads this review.
Fan Settings are important. I used hardware monitor to observe the pump speed and fan speed and with no real software included in this unit I had to adjust my motherboards bios to get the most out of the cooling. The max speed that I observed on the pump was 2410rpm and the fans were at an impressively quiet 2045rpm’s! I ran fans at full just for testing purposes. I do see someone did find some software, but after several google searches I was not that lucky. Again. Lack of documentation.
I had to enable erp in my bios to stop power to the USB to shut the rgb lights off when the computer was shut off. Perhaps proper documentation would have shown how to install so this was not an issue.
I have been able to test and review several AIO coolers from a couple of manufacturers. I really want to mention here that my tests on this setup really don’t push the cooler to test its full potential. The intel stock cooler is not very good at all and for the most part any replacement, even air cooler would have given better results than the stock cooler. I want to add that I had a 7700k overclocked to 5.0ghz and it should be noted that not one of the AIO coolers that I tested in the past were sufficient and I can only imagine the ML240R would not make the cut either. It is just my humble opinion that if you’re going for serious overclocking there is no solution like open water loops.
The Masterliquid ML240R RGB is a good cpu cooler and It’s a solid option for someone looking for a liquid cooling solution. I believe its priced right and I believe that its built strong and does not have a risk of leaking. I want to thank Cooler Master and NewEgg for letting me review this product. I hope my honest review helps to inform consumers and improve products that are released in the future.

Pros: All in one package makes liquid cooling very simple to install. Easy to install and looks clean.
Included fans are very quiet. There is not much that can be done for the noise from air flow, but the bearings are very quiet.
Built in pump is also very quiet. Inaudible even with full speed.

Cons: There were no instruction manual included for ARGB controller. Although the cooler installation manual does have 1 page drawing for the controller and name of each ports, it is not very clear and has no description what so ever.
Only after reading ARGB controller manual from their website, I was able to figure out what port does what.
Included ARGB controller is not capable of software controller and USB port is only used for the power.
The controller has both USB and SATA Power ports, but you only need one to power the controller. The manual doesn't say anything about that and the installation video from Corsair website tells you to connect both. In fact, you should never connect both. I found 5V from USB port and 5V from SATA power port is just connected directly and because I had standby power on my USB port, it was back feeding 5V rail when the computer was turned off. DVD-RW controller went crazy because it was trying to start up, but had no 12V power. The motherboard also got confused as well because it was getting 5V power.
Included ARGB controller also lacks constant on mode.

Mating surface between the CPU and cooler has very rough finish. I find this in all of cooler master coolers. This probably was done to make the installation fool proof by letting any trapped air to escape. However, this will also result worse thermal conductivity. However, this probably won't make much of difference to the most users because I find the real thermal conductivity problem is between the heat spreader and the CPU core, which Intel did a poor job on.

Overall Review: While this liquid cooler did not make much of difference in cooling capability compared to cooler master's regular coolers, it did free up quiet a lot of space inside my case.
ARGB capability is very cool, but not something that will contribute to cooling capability and it will be invisible unless you have a open (or clear) case or window on the case. Going for much cheaper non ARGB fan version will be a better choice for the most users. Even cheaper regular cooler will do the job fine for the most users.

Newegg's picture shows LEDs on the radiator part as well, but there is no LEDs on the radiator. Cooler master's website does not show the LEDs either.