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Temperatures
All temperature charts are sorted with lowest load temperatures at the top.
***Original test figures***
As you can see, across both tests, the Mercury 240's performance is a bit disappointing. I re-mounted and re-ran my tests to confirm the accuracy of the figures and I got the same results. The Cryorig H7 – a £35 air cooler – actually out-performs the £80 Mercury 240 in both tests.
***Updated figures 20/9/17***
We have since received a new sample from Antec, as they thought we had been sent a pre-production sample that was not indicative of the cooler's true performance. Having tested this new Mercury 240, there is some merit to what Antec said – the CPU came in around 1.5C cooler when overclocked, and 0.5C cooler when running at stock. This is not a huge difference, but it is certainly better than before.
However, we have since reviewed the Game Max Iceberg 240, a £60 liquid cooler, and that perform more-or-less identically to the Mercury for less money. Ultimately, even the updated Mercury 240 sample we received struggles to really standout in a crowded market. It is decent, certainly, but ‘decent' isn't quite enough considering the Arctic Liquid Freezer 240 can offer substantially better cooling for less money.
Acoustics
The Mercury 240 isn't all bad, though, as it is not too loud – and certainly not as loud as the jet engine-rivalling ID-Cooling FrostFlow 240L. I have heard quieter coolers, but the fans are not noticeable when idling and are far from intrusive when under load, so I can't complain.
How the f!ck (sorry for the bad word, but in this case it’s appropriate) can a 240mm AIO perform so badly?
Bad pump?
Bad fans (not a lot of static pressure)?
Air bubbles inside the rad/tubes/waterblock?
Few reasons:
At a guess, it’s the god awful pump. From their site: https://www.antec.com/product.php?id=707259&pid=58&lan=nz
Water pressure from the pump is less than half a d5 pump, and flow rate is utterly shocking at a mere 3.5L/Min. In comparison, a d5 pump does 1500L/H max, or 25L/min, about 7x the flow. Since it’s not an asetek pump like most AIO competitors, its likely the rad is sourced elsewhere too, so its fin density’s an unknown factor too.
I didn’t see the Antec site. The pump situation explains everything
Hi all, just received my Antec M360 Mercury 360mm from Scan and I have to say that it is running very well. P95 for over 30 minutes as we speak with the highest core reaching 64 degrees. At idle it hovers around 21 to 26 degrees..british weather near London. System is a 6700K at 4.4Ghz on all cores…I am impressed and looking forward to Kit Guru’s updated revue on this. One problems though… the light does not change colour from Blue..It should go to Orange and the Red when it is at max load but always stays blue on mine…Not sure why. Temps are better than my Corsair H110i GTX especially at load and it is quieter.
I found similiar results to you also. Not sure on how KG got such results.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f32c6742b2bc71418dd20a05c4b379a8e7807f0cb487e38c3dfac61cd74ef616.jpg I have now been using the Antec for nearly 3 months and as I look at my temps, which are currently idleing at 21 degrees whilst writing this and having VLC player running a movie in the background and at full load in Prime95, aida, Intel Burn has never topped 65 degrees…Do not understand those results at all, maybe its the 360 version that I am running but boy does it do a good job at keep my CPU running cool in all circumstances..
KG, I would also mention that the Antec does not change colour to Red at 41C as this has never happened on my one. I did get a response from Antec and this is what I was told, which after checking on my one is correct:
From Antec – https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b4549f594c0da3013b78cce1d65b727e0fa4a1be9a238a6a830122d32a1e96f1.jpg Regarding to our Mercury 360, the heat dissipation is very good, if the CPU core temperature is 65 degrees, the CPU surface temperature is about 55 degrees, the cooling water and CPU temperature is about 20-25 degrees lower, so it doesn’t reach the heat temperature of change colour, ( our design has installed the thermistor inside the head of water cooling )
If you want to test the water cooling head colour changes, you can try to unplug the power from the two water fans, afterwards the fan will stops and the heat cooling function ability will go down, and then CPU temperature will rise up, after a few minutes later you should see the cold head colour changes. But remember to plug the fan back in afterwards.