Cooler Master Nepton 280L Review

Cooler Master Nepton 280L Review

Fitting

Fitting the Nepton 280L is a piece of piddle, with the first job being to attach the mounts to the pump head/cold plate assembly.  Separate brackets are supplied for both AMD and Intel, with the usual selection of notches allowing you to fit to the desired socket.  The JetFlo fans are secured by thumb bolts, as opposed to the more usual screws and although they have a real quality feel to them we’d hate that their raised profile made the difference between the rad fitting inside your case and it not fitting.

Cooler Master Nepton 280L Review     Cooler Master Nepton 280L Review

 

Before we lob the assembly into the case let’s take a few minutes to drink it in.  It really is nicely made, from the pleasing gloss black of the radiators shroud and fins, to the gloss accented rubber isolated fans with their centrally mounted Cooler Master logo.  With the whole assembly measuring just a smidge over 49mm it’s actually still pretty low profile so shouldn’t take up too much room in the roof of a case, still, with the rad measuring 30mm and the fans 25, it’s fair to say that the other 4.1mm is down to those bolts.

Cooler Master Nepton 280L Review     Cooler Master Nepton 280L Review

 

The roof of the Cooler Master “Test Trooper” is a fairly spacious place, offering native support for 280mm rads.  Things are still pretty tight inside though, especially in the region of the 8pin CPU socket.

Cooler Master Nepton 280L Review     Cooler Master Nepton 280L Review

 

If you’re using a backplate then bolts are provided that will screw through and secure.  As we’re not we’re able to mount directly to the motherboard with the supplied 2011 fittings.  Fittings are provided for pretty much every AMD and Intel socket since Adam was a lad.

Cooler Master Nepton 280L Review     Cooler Master Nepton 280L Review 

 

The brackets are then simply screwed down on to the mounting screws.  With no spring tensioners to be seen, you’re left to your own devices and bravery to decide how tightly to screw things down.  We found there to be ample tubing, but if we wanted to mount the cooler with the Logo the right way up had to accept something of a curl back in the tubing, which despite this resisted kinking.

 Cooler Master Nepton 280L Review     Cooler Master Nepton 280L Review

 

A Cooler Master nestled in a Cooler Master, what could be more right!  As with all small coolers in big cases, the Nepton 280L does look a little lost, but at least things are clean and tidy.

Cooler Master Nepton 280L Review     Cooler Master Nepton 280L Review

 

Powering on the PC causes a lightly glowing pale blue/purple border to appear around the logo on the cold plate.  A nice touch, and not overly bright.

Cooler Master Nepton 280L Review     Cooler Master Nepton 280L Review Â