Gadgetory

hey everyone this is Steve from gamers Nexus dotnet and today we're looking at cooler masters tried-and-true hyper 212 plus CPU cooler this one's been out for a while and is often recommended for new system builds but I've never really latched on to it I always felt there was something better available and for the purposes of this benchmark we pitted the older hyper 212 plus against some of NZXT T's near respires series coolers which are priced within 10 bucks of the hyper 212 plus and are similar in design and sizing so let's hit the specs first and then dive into thermal testing and build quality we also ran a test to see if multiple fans were worth considering so stick around for that the cooler master hyper 212 plus is fully compatible with all modern socket types including LGAs dating back to 775 and AMD dating back to am too including FM one the cooler uses an aluminium and copper direct touch cold plate which boasts a smooth finish for better thermal conduction from the CPU to the heat pipes there are four heat pipes at six millimeters each as opposed to the respire T 40s for eight millimeter pipes or the respire teach one a single eight millimeter and dual six millimeter pipes the 212 also includes one of cooler masters flower-petal blade fans which is pulse width modulation enabled and ranges from 600 to 2,000 rpm rating at roughly 21 277 CFM and 13 232 decimals all of these are fairly reasonable and nothing really exceptional nor nothing that's bad per se it's it's definitely slightly above average in terms of bearings the fan uses a cheaper sleeve bearing so it will grow louder with age and does not fail as gracefully as other bearings might I suspected that NZXT and Coolermaster used the same or at least a very similar supplier for their heatsink component given the very very close design the 212 is firmly in between the t 20 and T 40 in terms of overall surface area of the aluminum heatsink but uses its direct touch flatter cold plate as a major selling point meanwhile the T 40 and t20 are rougher on the bottom side with larger pipes speaking strictly to quality the cooler is mostly Everage but has a few points I was unsatisfied with the two twelves additional fan mounting brackets snapped upon the first use and installation and it was I mean it just snapped I just screwed it in like normally and one side snapped so I was pretty uncomfortable leaving my screw floating around in there and of course the snap egde will call it resulted in a bit of vibration with the fan once it installed the installation process as a whole is more obnoxious than it needs to be and it is fairly standard procedure if a bit overly complex but I did find some of the two twelves mounting bolts in my model to have threading issues on the front side which meant I had to reinstall the backplate entirely with each modification on the motherboard side of the cooler so something as simple as swapping thermal paste was made minutes longer just by the fact that I had to reinstall the backplate let's talk thermals you can read our full testing methodology in the review linked in the description below if you'd like to know how we actually test these the hyper 212 plus operated toward the bottom of our pack when using stock thermal compound hovering at 2.5 Celsius warmer than NZXT aspire T 40 cooler and 7.5 Celsius warmer than - Niek tower - 120 extreme excuse me cooler which is priced at $65 so it is about twice the price of the hyper 212 plus the respire t 40 is priced at around 40 bucks so that gives you some perspective there the 212 faucet is still nearly 20 C cooler than the stock units thermals so it's it's definitely nothing to ignore it's still good cooler with controlled 5.3 watts per meter Kelvin thermal compound the hyper 212 plus is dead last for aftermarket coolers and I found that adding an additional fan resulted in zero noticeable improvement in fact the improvement was within margin of error and was less than one Celsius difference this is likely because the thermal dissipation potential is maximized by an already efficient single fan design so don't waste your money on a second fan for the 212 plus not to mention that the math the mounting bracket issues I had so I really don't recommend a second fan for it on the other hand the respire t 40 saw a noticeable improvement with a second fan installed but it is also larger in breadth and width so it makes sense because there's more aluminum to be cooled so it can more efficiently utilize that extra CFM airflow and finally here's a value chart for you this is calculated with price over delta T using the stock cooler as a baseline this chart is mostly useful for those looking for a value optimized cooling solution who people who aren't necessarily interested in the best overclocking option but just want good cooling for the price we use all stock pastes for this chart seen as that's what chips with the units and additional fans are assumed to cost eight dollars the t20 has the worst value cooling at a with a delta of thirteen point four C and costing two point three dollars per degree the hyford 212 cools Delta twenty point five C and cost roughly a dollar eighty five per degree meanwhile the - nique 120 cools an impressive delta 28 C but costs two dollars and twenty four cents per degree so that is a decent look at value for you overall the hyper 212 + is still a reasonable cooler it's just not the best at the low-end anymore and I'd really at this point recommend the T 40 over the hyper 212 + any day of the week at best the 212 plus is $10 cheaper and several degrees warmer but at worst it has a limited upgrade capacity seen as the thermal dissipation potential is already fully saturated so the extra 10 bucks is fully worth the upgrade ability of the t 40 and that is all for this time so I will see you all next time be