ID Cooling Frostflow 240G GPU AIO

[djdestiny]

I realized that I didn't post a single review here due to time constraints and the fact I've been off the forums for so long
Here's a repost of my earlier reviews but not here on HW.

The 290X is a difficult beast to cool isn't it. AIOs have been done in the past using mount adaptors but there has never been a product that was natively designed for GPUs that you could just install on most GPUs (If not any since some have VRMs in a different direction) and didn't take up 3 slots.
What's my key point here? A solution that's 1) cheap 2) Purpose designed 3) You can actually buy it by itself

How cheap? $119. Wait, 119$? On a 240mm AIO? Yes. It might seem expensive to buy a 119$ AIO for a graphics card when solutions are already completely packaged but you can't actually buy a 980 ti sea hawk from msi or the 980 ti hybrid from EVGA because neither is in stock and are both 120mm AIOs.

Also, 3rd party heatsinks are also around the same price and the reference heatsinks also cost quite a lot of money even.

So what is it then? Of course if you're reading this you already know it's the ID Cooling Frostflow 240G AIO. It does have it's flaws unfortunately, for a 290x (like I have) you will need a whole set of memory heatsinks and Gelid's VRM enhancement kit but that's more like the 290x reference's fault itself. At the very least the latter isn't expensive and it's worth it for the overclocking afforded by it and the silence as opposed to being on the reference cooler which is as serene as sitting next to a plane at full chat. I jest, of course. If you have a GPU with a independent VRM heatsink you will not need the enhancement kit
You also have to take note that your graphics card doesn't have VRMs on the left side so the Zotac GTX 970 Twin Fan is immediately struck out.

Without delay,

I tried. I will have to split the photos up. The shroud is actually merely attached to the pump by 4 screws not that is a bad thing as it mounts above the pump rather than below the pump like the Corsair HG10 or the NZXT G10. It looks far cleaner and the whole thingmajig doesn't exceed 2 slot height whereas the other two third party mounts do.
Also, the 92mm fan is a thin fan, which is not really important that you'll need to put a thicker fan because the VRMs don't need much airflow and this does it quite silently. I would trade that for it to stay under just under 2 slot height.

The fans have a very red design and if I didn't tell you would you guess that the red inner ring is removable? I didn't. Until one day I tried to pull it by the ring and it came off, I thought I broke something More on that later.
The tubes are actually VERY thick for an AIO which really isn't necessary since the intergrated pumps aren't pumping a few hundred gallons per minute.

I didn't measure them but they do look thicker than Asetek AIOs

 

[djdestiny]

The shroud holding the pump and fan is painted with fine powder black and it's a nice finish. It's really nice.

The pump is actually fairly low profile I don't think I've seen a lower profile pump that has thick tubes as well.
Of course, no warranty if torn. I am not tearing it because I want to actually use it so .... No teardowns in order.

The fan is a 92x15mm fan with a rating of MAXIMUM 0.05A startup current. 0.05A is not their nominal current and motherboards can supply 1A nominal.
It is a "sealed sleeve" Hydraulic bearing. Better than sleeve, I suppose but not as drag free as 2BBs.
The base plate of the pump is very flat but also it has some finger print marks on it. I guess it was mine.

Speaking of which they include a uber short 2 plug splitter but unfortunately they did not include a GPU to fan plug adaptor which would have been useful to monitor GPU speeds and the other adaptor is a "Molex" to two 3 pin splitters.

This is mine and I took it out of my spares.

These are the main fans. (excuse the fibrous dust. This table is ESD protected and attracts fibers as a result)

 

[djdestiny]

These are 120mm fans rated from 800rpm to 2000rpm operation. Max airflow is rated at 84.5CFM (I don't have time to test that) and static pressure 3.2mmH2O which is on the alarmingly high side for a 11 blade fan. Max noise is 38.2dBa so those numbers should be close but otherwise it didn't seem that loud.
The fan doesn't have annoying octaves or harmonics like most AIO fans do and as for noise neutrality it is about the same as a 2000rpm Delta AFB which I rank as the most neutral noise wise.
These are "sealed sleeve" Hydraulic fans once again and they have vibration dampers on both sides of the fans.
Alas, indeed it does perform pretty well, it pushes a awful lot of air through the radiator and as the radiator is 16FPI as opposed to 20 on most AIOs (with 14 tubes on this) it doesn't need to be operated at high speed.

It's a pity the fan cables aren't sleeved but at least they're black.

The notch that keeps the fan in. There is also a notch on the four sides of the fan.

These can be swapped for blue or white versions in the future. Or you can run them ringless and have a really unique looking fan

It is relatively sparse compared to most AIOs and as a result of that I found that on my 290x OVERCLOCKED to 1160MHz it didn't matter whether fan speed was 1000rpm or 2000rpm

 

[djdestiny]

Accessories
Apart from the fans and the AIO (which comes preassembled) the accessories which are more of crucial parts than accessories nonetheless.

The 2 splitters aforementioned and the backplate for three different GPU pitch sizes.

The thermal paste is like the one included in the SE214X. Very decent indeed but the memory heatsinks are too small and there are about 4 too few for my 290x.
You're also expected to stick the memory on with thermal glue. Good luck getting it off

Screws for the fan and radiator.

Mounting hardware for the 240g and washers to protect the PCB.

Installation
Was it easy? Actually it's very easy. Easier than some heatsinks I've come across in the past.

Of course you need to remove the stock heatsink from your GPU and clean off thermal paste (this was taken after the AIO was removed) and stick on the memory heatsinks and the tiny VRM heatsink on the top left hand corner and the large VRM heatsink but that's particularly for the reference 290x with the gelid VRM enhancement kit.
I had these big memory heatsinks because the included ones are just junk.

First you took one of the bolts and stuck it in the right hole pattern for your GPU then you took the standoffs and you screwed it in on the other side until it stops.
After that you screw it onto the pump by sliding it into the notch

 

[djdestiny]

It's very similar to the mounting system on the coolermaster nepton series.
After that, you must put washers on the posts themselves before sandwiching your graphics card with it

Which you proceed to placing another set of washers as the posts go through before installing the backplate and finger tightening the nuts.

When you're finished you'll meet with this. It obviously shows a lot of the GPU but this is for compatibility reasons. A shroud design for say, AMD Fury X won't work on a 980 Ti will it?

In operation.

Moving on to benching.

Bench specs for Frostflow 240G Review :
The CPU is a i7 6700K and the motherboard is the Gigabyte Z170X-UD5 TH.
(Thank you gigabyte for supplying me the motherboard for this review! Appreciate the kind gesture. The review wouldn't have been possible if not for Gigabyte.)
G.Skill Ripjaws 4 DDR4 2666 (2x8GB).
FSP Aurum PT 1200
Sapphire R9 290X reference w/ Frostflow 240G

OCZ Vertex 460A 240GB for boot drive.

The AIO was pumping out so much heat I had to setup another fan to stop the AIO from heating up my room! (Note : the fan is in the wrong orientation but no matter.)

I won't have any comparison pictures because, what competition is there for this product ... None.
Instead I shall focus on giving raw numbers and we've seen what AIOs have done to improve the performance of the 290x already.

Max temperature at stock? 56C. in a 28C room. At 1000rpm because it doesn't need more.
Max OC? 1180MHz @ +0.100v at least on the core. This made nearly no difference to temperature as it only rose to 60C ever so slightly.

I had a unigine (Default) 1080p run before I removed the stock cooler and it did in the same conditions up to 200 points less than stock clock on the (This is in ultra, with extreme tess) frostflow 240G. Wow, the 290x throttles even on the stock cooler.
Moving on from there overclocking was very easy with the AIO and it was quiet too. It didn't once throttle due to heat and didn't throttle due to power constraints either (for which the 290x is well catered for ...) because power consumption fell a full 60W on stock clocks!

So, conclusion time. Is it a good product? Yes absolutely. There are no major faults and only a few minor exclusions. It's only good if it's cheap but that's what happened here because most 240mm Asetek AIOs cost a lot and the HG10/G10 will make you poor. Again, I jest.
If it was 200$ it's pointless. They priced it at 119$? (You can buy it from Lazada) Absolute bargain.

Overall rating : 10/10. This is a "fortissimo" guaranteed. If you have a noisy high end GPU this is for you.

EASTER EGG :

This was on the bottom of the cardboard protector for the box.