Well you have to remember that each reviewer's conclusion is going to be based upon the test they did and the things they observed. I have read the author's memory reviews and they are very well done, informative and professionally written.... with other memory articles I have read here, I feel like I am watching Game if Thrones and the cable is going in and out every 10 minutes and I am left wondering how we got from here to there. I have asked for more info.... wud love to know whose modules are inside and was given a logical answer ...would still love to see min frame rates and SLI / CF conditions when examining system memory impacts on gaming tho.
It's quite a conundrum doing reviews in how one approaches them. Do you ....
1. Read everything out there and look for what other peeps have observed thereby taking all potential pluses and minuses into account. or
2. Go in cold so as not to have your conclusions potentially colored.
Do you use the TIM that comes with the unit or same one for all.
Do you retest with all same fans ? Frankly, I'd stio reading if ya had to go out and spend $60 on fans to make a $150 cooler perform better.
Ideally, I like to start with option 2 above and then go back and test with what I pick up from option 1 in mind. After doing that rad calculator thing, I was sort of puzzled as to why my 280 rad had a 30% bigger Delta T than my 420 rad (shuda been other way .....as I'm testing rpm accuracy and other potential causes, a fellow Primo case owner noticed that after he built a rolling case stand his temps improved.... he concluded that the air inlets at case bottom weren't big enuff. I confirmed this, by using a technologically advanced approach .... I put 2 text books under front and back of case....and now my 280 was 40% better than the 420 ????
Then I took the grilles and filters out top and bottom and I picked up 4C ! And the 420 wa sbigger than the 280 as one would expect..... the dimpled case top grille was a big deal..... bigger holes fro version 2 methinks.
Today there was a review on the Acer Freesync monitor which didn't pick up that Freesync disables the overdrive feature .... kinda important on a gaming monitor. So after I completed my draft, reading about this in other reviews would have sent me back to the work bench as it's kind of an important issue since it's been reported that it will take a updated driver, firmware upgrade and possibly more to correct.
It was indicated that the sample sat around for a while.... and a "vent was mentioned so i wonder if it's the current model. The bleed screw was removed I think because stress cracks were observed in the acrylic reservoir and it might have been considered a potential point to focus any stress (google notch stress test or Charpy test). If you have ever "cut tile" by making a light score and whacking it, you have seen it in practice.
I forget what the test is called but at a conference we were given a test. The task was to rank 25 things from most important to least important as "things to have" if you were standing on the moon. I remember duct tape was on the list which made me laugh (more on that later)... we were 1st asked to rank the items individually, then in groups of 2 and then in groups of 8. The most common error was air tank being ranked 1st. I actually had that correct as before you had a chance to take a breath, w/o a pressure suit your body would explode. They way they paired you off tho....w/o us knowing, they paired the top quarter scores with the most correct answers with the bottom quarter lowest scores and put the middle quarters together. In every single case, the pair's score on the retest with 2 peeps was better than all but a few of the individual tests. The guy who got the highest mark, did better having the lowest score guy sharing his thoughts. Point being, even the smartest guy in the room can learn something from a guy who might not have had a good grasp on the subject.
So looking now with the author's explanations .... I gotta think this vent port might have affected the results. Methiunks if it was opened...or perhaps not tightly closed while in storage, some fluid may have evaporated and there was a bubble stuck somewhere. I pointed out that the no GPU load thing seemed to tilt the results but OTOH, taking the side panel off probably eliminated most of that effect. Just looking at air cooler comparisons, we side wide results but again, I'd lobe to see someone take an Enthoo Pro with (8) 140mm fans, shove in PH-TC14-PE and test it.... then while maintaining the same conditions take 1 fan at a time outta the equation and restest. Then flip the top fans (exhaust) and change them into intakes and see if that changes anything.
As for your request to test the H240-X myself ..... here's my son's build. He's 1 year outta college, finally landed a job that he could use his degree for and lived at home long enough to afford the components before he moved out ...so I hadn't had a chance to do anything
.
Can't just yet anyway....there's something afoot in that the MoBo control software is not reading the rpms..... I narrowed it down to either PPCs fudged something sleeving the wires or the splitter is a dud....Swiftech folks sent a new splitter.... and we'll check it out meybe next week. Other issue is I wanna get outta the way first is the typical "top card in SLI is 10C hotter than bottom"....despite the fact that he has 3 top, 2 bottom, 1 front and 1 rear fan. I expect it will be solved by adding a 120mm fan on the back of the HD cage (usually does) but he's been enjoying his bachelor pad too much i think to get around tackling it. he hasn't even OC'd the CPU yet and the build is about 5 weeks old. One conundrum here is what to do with the 3rd fan spot on top which the 240-X doesn't use....
I'm anxious to see follow up tests .... given the explanations provided, I think some of the variables could be removed and we'd see more of an even keel.... one test I always find useful is side by side with rpm set at the same noise target.