ALSEYE MAX 240 – Compact water cooling without frills

The compact water-cooler Alseye Xtreme X240, which was introduced some time ago and is distributed in Germany by Inter-Tech Elektronik Handels GmbH, was able to convince us in our review with a lot of RGB and a good workmanship, but unfortunately important features such as volume and cooling performance fell short of expectations. With the all-in-one water cooling ALSEYE MAX 240, which is now presented in this review, ALSEYE tries to focus on the essentials again and therefore does completely without RGB and relies on normal fans with high contact pressure. The ALSEYE MAX 240 is available in stores from approx. 65 €. Whether the compact water cooling can convince, you will find out in this review.

Technical details

cooler specifications

fan specifications

Pump specifications

Packing & scope of delivery

The ALSEYE MAX 240 comes in a black cardboard box. Besides product pictures and a list of key features, the packaging also contains all technical information. All information is written in English.

If you unpack the contents of the box, you will find the radiator-pump combination, separately packed fans and a box with all mounting accessories (screws, backplate, spacers, brackets, thermal compound) and the mounting instructions. To protect the radiator, pump and fans from any damage, all components are wrapped in foil and cardboard.

Design & Workmanship

Optically the MAX 240 is kept simple and the manufacturer does without all RGB effects or digital displays in favour of a lower price. The aluminium radiator is painted completely black and 27 millimetres thick. This value corresponds to the thickness of many commercially available compact water coolers. Although ALSEYE does not provide more precise specifications, it is reasonable to assume that the M240-T is based on Asetek’s standard design.

The water hoses are about 330 millimetres long, enclosed in a fine black sleeve and end at the pump block at two movable joints. Thanks to their mobility, both the pump block and the radiator can be positioned in a wide variety of positions. The connection between the hose and the radiator or pump is secured by simple shrink sleeves. The pump block itself is covered by a black plastic and has a simple design. Only a type designation is printed on the upper side. The pump with ceramic bearing installed there rotates with a maximum of 2600 revolutions per minute and is connected with a 3-pin plug.

The supplied fans are made of black plastic and have a speed range between 600 and 1800 rpm. The connection of the unusually shaped fans is done by means of 4-pin headers on the mainboard. The accessories also include a PWM splitter with which both fans can be connected to one mainboard header.

Mounting

For the review, a test system on a benchtable is used. This allows us to exclude disturbing factors such as heat accumulation in the housing. The test system consists of the following components:

• AMD Ryzen 5 1400 @ 3.8 Ghz at 1.3V
• MSI B350 PC Mate
• Crucial Ballistix Sport LT grey 16 GB DDR4-2666
• Corsair MP510 1TB
• Gigabyte AORUS GTX 1060 6G
• Thermaltake Berlin Pro RGB 650W
• Cooler Master Tech Bench V2.0

Detailed installation instructions are included with the compact water cooling system. In these instructions, all essential installation steps are explained in a clear and comprehensible manner.

The installation of the water cooling system in our test system with AM4 socket was quickly completed. First the radiator including the fans has to be connected to the housing. This step is omitted in this case due to the use of a bench table. Then the pump has to be prepared for the installation. To do this, simply plug in the two retaining brackets. Since the M240-T uses its own backplate for the AMD socket, the AMD retention module must be completely removed.

Then the backplate is prepared by fitting it with four silver threaded pins and four plastic rings. The mainboard is placed on top of this and the threaded pins on the front are secured again with four plastic rings and four silver stand-offs. After the heat pad Carbonaut from Thermal Grizzly has been placed on the heatspreader, the pump is placed on the base and screwed to the stand-offs with four spring-loaded screws.

The assembly of the cooler was quickly completed. The mounting system is solid and well thought out. Due to the metal backplate and the spring-loaded nuts, the construction holds bombproof without the risk of excessive contact pressure.

Volume and cooling capacity

As already shown in the previous chapter, we use an AM4 system based on the Ryzen 5 1400 and the MSI B350 PC Mate as test hardware. The Ryzen runs on 3.8 GHz at 1.3 volts.

To heat up the processor, the processor was loaded with Prime95 for 15 minutes. The CPU temperature was then read out with the CPUID hardware monitor. This test was performed in two different scenarios. Afterwards, the values were compared with those of the AMD Boxed Cooler (Wraith Stealth) and the EKL Alpenföhn Matterhorn Pure. During the measurements, the room had a temperature of 20°C.

The final temperature results of the ALSEYE MAX 240 are good and you can improve a bit compared to the Matterhorn Pure. However, we would have expected a slightly larger temperature difference here. It should also be mentioned that the fans can be heard very clearly at full volume and are probably already annoying for many. There was only a slight hum from the pump at 12V when you put your ear to the pump housing.

Conclusion on the ALSEYE MAX 240

With the ALSEYE MAX 240, the manufacturer has succeeded in creating a simple and unagitated compact water cooling system that focuses on a good price-performance ratio. The shown performance is above that of a normal CPU cooler and the achieved volume is, at least regulated, ok. Furthermore the mounting system is well thought out and easy to handle.

The only thing we really noticed negatively was the fan noise at full speed. However, this problem can be solved very easily with the PWM connections used. A success of this water cooling system is therefore linked to its price. Competitive products already start at 55 € and are thus hardly more expensive than some popular air coolers. For the ALSEYE MAX 240 a similar price is charged at the time of the review. However, the ALSEYE Halo AIO H240 also features RGB effects from their own company.