The Maelstrom 240 makes an immediate impact thanks to the red fins on its fans – almost every other product on test makes do with duller, darker colours.
The two 120mm units are attached to a 240mm radiator, and the entire unit feels very strong and sturdy.
It’s littered with intriguing little touches too. There’s a fan hub with four PWM headers and a braided cable, so four fans can be powered from one power header at the same speed – useful if you want to add more fans.
The hub even sports a strip of double-sided tape, so it can be positioned almost anywhere in your case.
The fans have rubberised mounts, so there’s no need for extra hardware to stifle vibrations, and thermal paste is pre-applied too. Fan installation was a simple and standard procedure, with long and short screws used to attach the fans to the radiator and the radiator to the case.
Meanwhile, the universal backplate made the rest of the setup procedure just as easy. Screws are threaded through to the front of the motherboard and lock in place with clips, and various mounting plates attach to the baseplate with minimal fuss – you just simply fasten the nuts on top.
Deepcool recommends installing the cooler with the tubes facing up or down rather than to the sides, but we can’t see that being a problem in most cases. The Maelstrom has no glaring issues either, but it doesn’t have much in the way of fancy features either.
Aside from those red fans, there’s no opportunity to add your own flashes of colour, and there isn’t any software or hardware manual fan control.
The Maelstrom also proved inconsistent in our cooling tests. Its most impressive performance was in our LGA2011 tests, hitting a delta T of 50°C at full fan speed, This result was the fourth best in this Labs, being 6°C shy of the Corsair H105.
The full-speed Maelstrom wasn’t as competitive in our LGA1150 machine, though, where its delta T of 55°C was comparatively disappointing for a 240mm unit.
With PWM activated, that result dropped to 57°C – the warmest LGA1150 temperature of any 240mm cooler on test. It’s one of the loudest coolers on test at full speed too and, while the noise drops a little under PWM control, you still wouldn’t want to listen to it for long periods of time.
Conclusion
The price we’ve quoted a is based on the US price, as no UK data was available at the time of review, so that price may change when the Maelstrom is available in the UK. For that price, though, the Deepcool isn’t particularly competitive for what’s on offer.
It’s well built and easy to use, but its performance is mixed, and the NZXT Kraken X41 provides a better balance of cooling and features for the cash on LGA1150 systems.
Deepcool’s effort fares better when keeping LGA2011 chips chilled but, even then, the NZXT offers a better feature set, while the Corsair H105 is a more effective cooler.
VERDICT
Good LGA2011 performance and sturdy build quality, but other coolers offer better cooling and features for similar money.
Where to Buy
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