This nostalgic cooler gets upgraded with a few enhancements, but is it enough to handle Intel’s i7-13700K?!
Pros:
- Quiet Noise Levels
- Solid Black Design
Cons:
- Slightly overpriced
Subscribe to Boring Text Reviews for news and CPU Cooling reviews!
About Cooler Master
Cooler Master has long been a staple of PC Cooling, and is well known amongst PC enthusiasts. This summer has been busy for them, with many new releases. This year I’ve reviewed their MA824 Stealth and Hyper 622 Halo air coolers for Tom’s Hardware, which I found especially strong when set to low noise levels. I’ve also recently tested their newest 360mm AIO liquid cooler, the 360 Atmos, and found it to be tied for the best 360mm AIO on the market.
Today’s review will feature the latest revision of the 212, Cooler Master’s Hyper 212 Black with SickleFlow 120 Edge fan. The cooler’s design has been refined for better performance with the latest Intel and AMD platforms. But are these improvements enough to handle the heat of a modern processor, like Intel’s i7-13700K? I’ll show you how well it performs in the benchmarks, but first lets take a look at the installation and specifications of this cooler.
This review is also available in video format on YouTube
Testing Platform Configuration
Intel LGA1700 13th Generation Raptor Lake
| CPU | Intel i7-13700K |
| Motherboard | Intel LGA 1700 – MSI Z690 A PRO DDR4 |
| Computer Case | Intel – BeQuiet! Silent Base 802, System fans set to LOW |
| Comparison Coolers | Scythe Kotestu Mark Three BeQuiet! Dark Rock Pro 4 Cooler Master Master Liquid 240L Core Cooler Master Hyper 622 Halo Cougar Forza 135 DeepCool AK400 Digital DeepCool AK500 Digital DeepCool LT720 Jiushark JF200S Noctua NH-D15S Thermalright Silver Soul 135 Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 SE MSI MEG S360 |
- Maximum Noise Levels and Cooling Performance on both Intel and AMD platforms
- Noise Normalized Quiet Cooling Performance at 38.2 dBA with Intel’s i7-13700K
- CPU Temperatures at and noise levels at 175W and 125W with Intel’s i7-13700K
Features of Cooler Master’s Hyper 212 Black
Low Height, Single Tower Heatsink
The Hyper 212 Black utilizes a single tower heatsink with nickle plated, jet black stacked fin arrays for thermal dissipation. It should fit into pretty much any normal sized computer case with it’s low height of 152mm.
4x Direct-Touch Heatpipes
The Hyper 212 Black features 4x direct-touch copper heatpipes integrated into the coldplate for efficient thermal transfer.
Full RAM Compatibility
The Hyper 212’s fan doesn’t overhang DIMM slots, ensuring full compatibility with any size of DDR4 or DDR5 modules no matter how tall they are.
1x 120mm SickleFlow Edge fan
This model of fan has been optimized for static pressure and lower noise levels, maximum system noise measured 42.4 dBA with this cooler installed. It features auto-start/stop, which means that the fan stops spinning entirely at the lowest PWM levels and only engages when it’s really needed.
Tube of CyroFuze Thermal Paste
Packaging and included contents
The Hyper 212 Black arrives in a small box just large enough to hold the contents, with molded cardboard and plastic for the protection of the inner contents.
The fan, heatsink, and accessories are each protected by a different piece of cardboard.
Included with the package are
- Single Tower Radiator
- 1x 120mm SickleFlow Edge fan
- Mounting for modern Intel & AMD platforms
- Thermal paste
- Manual
- Fan Clips for two fans
LGA 1700 Cooler Installation
The installation of the Hyper 212 Black is very simple, requiring only a few steps. It’s essentially the same process on both Intel and AMD systems. First, you’ll start by securing the mounting brackets against the bottom of the cooler.
Next you’ll need to take the CPU backplate and press it against the rear of the motherboard.
After applying thermal paste to the CPU, take the heatsink and screw the mounting brackets into the backplate. You’ll need to use one hand to keep the backplate in place while connecting the heatsink, as there are no standoffs in this design.
The last step is to secure the fan to the heatsink using the included fan clips, and then connect the fan to the motherboard’s PWM header.
Intel i7-13700K Thermal and Acoustic Results
Maximum Cooling Performance
Running Cinebench without power limits enforced is difficult to cool, and most coolers are unable to keep the CPU under it’s peak temperature in this scenario – so we’ll be looking at the maximum watts dissipated by the cooler in this situation.
With an average of 212 watts cooled during testing, the Hyper 212 Black provides basic cooling performance slightly better than Thermalright’s Silver Soul 135 and Scythe’s Kotetsu Mark 3 – but falling behind DeepCool’s similarly priced competitor, the AK400 Digital.
Maximum Noise Levels
Cooler Master’s Hyper 212 Black achieves its maximum cooling performance with total system noise levels of 42.4 dBA, a result quieter than most coolers on the market. This level of noise is audible but not loud, and shouldn’t bother most users.
Noise Normalized Results
While maximum performance testing is nice, a lot of folks prefer run their systems quietly. This can result in some performance loss in the most power intensive workloads like rendering. In this test, we’ve set the coolers so that system noise level measured at 38.2 dBA.
The Hyper 212 Black did better in this noise restricted test than it did early, with an average of 199W cooled during testing it fell just a few watts behind DeepCool’s AK400 Digital, but outperformed dual tower coolers from Jiushark and Cougar.
Included below are results with additional coolers that I’ve tested for Tom’s Hardware. As the results below were tested in the same system, by the same person, in the same location – they are 100% comparable to the results above. If you’re interested in seeing more of those results, check out my latest reviews there.
175W Thermal & Acoustic Results
Most loads that common users run won’t use more than 200W, so this is a better analogue for a worst case scenario of what folks might actually see in day to day usage.
With a thermal measurement of 60C over ambient, the Hyper 212 Black does well – performing on par with dual tower air coolers like Thermalright’s Peerless Assassin and Juishark’s JF200S.
Noise levels are slightly more important than thermal results in this scenario, and the Hyper 212 Black’s result of 42.4 dBA is fairly good here – on par with Scythe’s Kotetsu Mark 3, but quieter than Thermalright & Cougar’s coolers.
125W Thermal & Acoustic Results
When restricted to 125W, thermal performance really isn’t a concern – though I’ve included that information in the graph below. Really, any cooler should be able to handle this load – even Intel’s stock cooler!
With a temperature of 45C over ambient, the Hyper 212’s thermal performance is only a single degree behind the best results we have from other air coolers. But really, thermal performance isn’t a concern at this lower power limit – noise levels are more important.
All of the coolers tested achieved good acoustic levels here, but Cooler Master’s Hyper 212 Black was so quiet that it ran quieter than the system fans with total system noise levels of 37.3 dBA. What this means is that in low intensity workloads, you’ll never hear the sound of the cooler’s fans in most modern computer cases.
Subscribe to Boring Text Reviews for news and CPU Cooling reviews!
Conclusion
