Cooling Performance

For the main performance testing, I ran the MasterLiquid 240 Atmos on our Intel test bench in the same configuration as our noise testing. This was an open-air configuration, so case performance doesn’t change cooler performance. Our Intel i9-13900K CPU was running with both the PL1 and PL2 set to 253 watts which is the CPUs wattage rating. This just locks things down and prevents auto overclocking. The τ was set to 56 seconds and total amperage was set to 307. The goal here was to lock the CPU down to one fixed power rating so we could compare from cooler to cooler. I have tested a range of coolers on this same setup. To put things under load I used AIDA64’s Stress Test and for the first tests I ran the FPU workload which is a lot more demanding, this replicates what I have seen when doing rendering. I tested with the stock fan profile on our motherboard and again at 100% fan speed. The 240 Atmos came in at 64c with the stock fan profile and 61c at 100% fan speed. This was surprisingly close to some of the triple fan AIO coolers that have been previously tested and better than the LIQMAXFLO did with the stock fan profile.

Using the same FPU workload I went back in and uncapped the amps and wattage on the CPU and tested again with the fans at 100%. With any cooler, we would see the CPU temperatures maxed out. For this test, I was just looking at the CPU wattage and I waited until things leveled off before recording the number. The 240 Atmos came in at 300 watts, just one below one 360 AIO and better than a few of the other 240mm AIO coolers tested, making it the best performing 240 AIO of everything tested.

The last round of tests changed things up by switching the workload in AIDA64 Stress Test. This time the CPU workload does better at showing what you would see when gaming or doing normal tests with the PCU at 100% workload. The 240 Atmos ran cooler here with it at 57c on the stock fan profile and 53c with the fans cranked up to 10)%. There is a clear line between the 240mm and 360 mm coolers here but the 240 Atmos did outperform all of the other 240 mm AIO coolers and comes close to some of the 360 mm AIO coolers as well.