Introduction
Looking for a new heat sink in the current market is quite a job. There are a plethora of them available in all shapes and sizes and in every single price bracket that you can think of. Getting a cooler with the right price to performance ratio is even more difficult, specially when you add your requirements to that ratio. So we have people who just require a quiet cooler, to those who don’t mind their computers sounding like a jet at take off as long as the cooler can get them better overclocks. With this background in mind, we are going to have a look at Cooler Masters new offering the Hyper 212+.
Cooler Master has been working hard lately, and has been updating their line up like never before. They have added a couple of new cases and also added a new thermal compound. But the CPU cooler product line has received a number of new products, including our test sample today. The 212 Hyper Plus is based on the older Hyper 212 cooler and and it will be Cooler Master’s first of many LGA1156 and LGA1156/1366 compatible coolers to come. The cooler now sports direct contact heat-pipes, dual fan cooling options and a new PWM fan.
All in all this cooler will be positioned at the low to mid range segment, offering decent and quiet cooling at a low price. The new plus model comes with support for the latest processor series including Core i7, the upcoming Core i5 and of course Phenom II socket AM2/AM3 processors. Definitely an interesting package, and one I was quite eager to check out.
Lets take a look at the specifications first.
Packaging
The Hyper 212 comes in a card board box, with the usual Cooler Master colors of purple and white. The box has none of the jazz associated with more expensive coolers and does not even have a viewing window. The front of the box has a picture of the Hyper 212 Plus and also mentions the various sockets it supports.
The rear of the box carries photos of the main features of the Hyper 212 Plus, as well as a drawing of the same, along with the dimensions. This should be helpful to any person who would like to figure out if this will fit in their case. At the bottom, you will find a few bullet points giving the main features of this cooler.
The side of the box holds a good amount of information and basically carries all the information about the specific cooler as well as the included fan.
The cooler is held in place within a plastic mould which does a pretty good job of keeping the cooler secure. This is a very simple and economical way of packaging the product and since the cooler reached me without any dents or dings, I would say this is more than enough.
The package consists of the cooler, a 120 mm fan, two pairs of fan retention clips, a tube of thermal paste and all the related accessories required to mount it on practically any board today. The package also includes the terms of the warranty and an installation manual. Please note the two PAIRS of retention clips, which coolers twice the price of this one skimp on, on a regular basis.
The cooling block itself is 116 x 51 x 159 mm in size, has standard aluminum fins and has four U-shape heat-pipes leading through the fins. A very clean and minimalist design. The cooler is not huge in size, allowing easy installation on pretty much any motherboard.
Looking at the bottom, we see the direct contact heatpipes. This is infact cheaper to manufacture, but the base has to be absolutely perfect and that’s what catches out a lot of cooler makers. In this case Cooler Master have done a good job. The only grouse that I have with this design is the smaller diameter of the heat pipes. The heatpipes are also staggered so as to dissipate heat more efficiently.
Installation is pretty straight forward. Remove the plastic cpu frame and backplate, fit in the included metal backplate, screw it in and then all you have to do is change the angle of the retainer clip as per socket and fit in the cooler. Then we have to screw in the the side pins and finally the middle pin, which puts additional pressure on the cooler to keep it in place. The issue here is that there is only one center pin and this makes the cooler turn on its axis, which is not very conducive if you move your cabinet around a lot. It does however hold under normal usage.
The installation as a whole seems pretty easy and it is, but I wish Cooler Master had been a little more detailed in their guide as installation can be pretty confusing for a newbie.
Finally we use the retainer clips to fix up the fan. I would suggest a push system for this setup, as this is what it was meant for. Cooler Master has provided us with an extra set of clips, just in case we would like a push pull. This would probably pull the temperatures down by another degree or two.
Test Setup and Results
MSI GD70 790FX motherboard
OCZ Platinum AMD Edition 1600 ram
OCZ Modextreme PSU
and finally the competition…….
The OCZ Vendetta 2
Test results
The test results are in and here we go. First lets look at the stock idle and load temps. For idle we tested temperatures after ten minutes of doing absolutely nothing. Both the CM and the OCZ were tied at around 27 degrees.
On load the OCZ had the slightest of advantages, closing 10 minutes of prime at 42 degrees as compared to 43 on the CM Hyper 212 Plus.
Now lets look at the OC results. We took the processor to 3.5 Ghz, with a jump in the CPU voltage to 1.45V.
Again the results are so close its hard to call. The OCZ narrowly beats the CM, by 2 degress at the top of prime. The OCZ recorded 50 degrees versus the 52 that the CM Hyper 212 Plus recorded. In idle there was not much of a difference, with the OCZ at 33 versus the CM at 34.
The CM Hyper 212 Plus gave a strong showing and almost gave the Vendetta 2 a run for its money. The cooler almost gave the Vendetta 2 a run for its money. Its also one of the few direct heatpipe models to allow two cooling fans to be mounted out of the box. I think the main issue with this cooler is the smaller 6 mm heatpipes and therefore lack of copper surface area. When we dismantled the cooler, the above issue was quite apparent. With more copper coverage the cooling could probably have been better.
Cooler Master has put in a lot of thought on the pricing and categorization of this product. They have made it very clear that this is for the budget market, and have put in a lot of accessories and extras even at this low price. Cooler Master has a winner on its hands and for anyone going in for a low budget cooler, look no further.
Pros:
- Very low price
- Very good build quality, specially the base
- Included accessories beyond expectations
- Good high speed silent fan
- Easy to install
Cons:
- Heatpipes could have been 8mm instead of the 6mm
- Installation manual needs to be more descriptive, with better quality pictures
- Sleeving of the fan cable
All in all a winner in the budget category and completely recommended for anyone who needs an aftermarket heatsink for a decent amount of overclocking headroom.
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For $30 thats pretty nice. Gotta keep it in mind for future builds. Thanks!
Yup, it works great for the money your paying for it..cheers.
[...] CPU cooler for C2D E4500 … ^^ Kool Ashish, here's a review of the hyper212 on an AMD 720BE. Cooler Master Hyper 212 PLUS – A short review | Tech Reaction The OCZ beats the Hyper212 by 2 degrees on a single fan .. guess then Hyper212 should easyly beat [...]
Lucid review bro.:)
keep up the good work.