Cooling

Cooler Master Hyper 212 RGB Black Edition Review

vortez
February 1, 2019 13 Min Read
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Cooler Master are often a go-to name within PC enthusiast circles seeking a cost-efficient solution, but what if they also fancied RGB lighting? Today we look at the solution.


Product on Review: Cooler Master Hyper 212 RGB Black Edition
Manufacturer: Cooler Master
Street Price: GBP £39.99 / USD $39.99

Cooler Master launched the Hyper 212 Black Edition back in November, which we took a look at and found to be an inexpensive, basic cooler with incredible performance, the only thing it lacked was RGB lighting. Well, you’ll find yourself wanting no longer, because today we bring you our review of the Hyper 212 RGB Black Edition.

The cooler utilises the same cooling tower and mounting system, but arrives with the SF120R RGB fan, featuring RGB synchronisation with ASUS, MSI, Gigabyte and AS Rock motherboards as well an in-line RGB controller if your motherboard doesn’t support RGB lighting.



The heatsink makes use of four direct contact heatpipes to remove heat from the CPU, which is then passed into the nickel plated fin array. The same was true of the non-RGB version which we reviewed so any difference we find will be down to the change in 120mm fan more than anything else.

Let’s bolt the cooler to our Intel i3 3930K CPU and see if the SF120R fan makes any difference.

Cooler Master on The New SF120R RGB Fan:
Certified to sync with Motherboard RGB software or controlled by our controller. The wide speed range can be fine-tuned for maximum cooling performance or silent operation.

Technical Specifications

Product Name: Hyper 212 RGB Black Edition
Model number: RR-212S-20PC-R1

CPU Socket:
Intel®
LGA 2066 / 2011-v3 / 2011 / 1151 / 1150 / 1155 / 1156 / 1366
AMD®
AM4 / AM3+ / AM3 / AM2+ / AM2 / FM2+ / FM2 / FM1

Dimensions: 120(L) x 79.6(W) x 158.8(H) mm / 4.7(L) x 3.1(W) x 6.3(H) inch
Heat Sink Material: 4 Heat Pipes / Aluminum Fins / Direct Contact
Fan Dimensions: 120(L) x 120(W) x 25(H) mm / 4.7(L) x 4.7(W) x 1(H) inch
Fan Quantity: 1 PC
Fan Speed: 650-2,000 RPM (PWM) ± 10%
Fan Airflow: 57.3 CFM (Max)
Fan Air Pressure: 2.0 mmH2O
Fan MTTF: 160,000 Hours
Fan Noise Level: 8-30 dBA
Fan Power Connector: 4-Pin (PWM)
Fan Rated Voltage: 12 VDC
Fan Rated Current: 0.16 A
Fan Safety Current: 0.37 A
Fan Power Consumption: 1.92 W
Warranty: 2 years

Packaging & Bundle

We love the bright purple that Cooler Master has adopted as its brand colour, so finding it on all of their recent packaging is fantastic. The packet gives plenty of information on the front and sides.



On the back is a brief description of the tower cooler, in multiple languages, with blueprints of the cooler at the bottom, so you can ensure it’ll fit within your chassis.



Bundled with the cooler are mounting brackets for all of Intel and AMDs socket types, excluding ThreadRipper. Cooler Master throw in a small tube of thermal grease to make installation that little bit easier.

Along with the necessary pieces, there’s also an additional fan mounting bracket, enabling you to use a push-pull fan system if you require extra cooling power; the fan splitter is also provided for just that purpose.



Provided with the cooler is an in-line RGB controller for the 120mm SF120R cooling fan, just in case your specific motherboard doesn’t have any RGB headers. This connects to a MOLEX power connecter for power and requires no software.

Closer Look

Just like the non-RGB version, the cooling tower measure 159mm tall and packs in 55 cooling fins. The last fin, at the bottom, is 39mm from the base, which should leave plenty of room for all but the tallest of RAM modules.



Measuring just 50mm wide, without the SF120R fan installed, the cooler is quite slender. The symmetric design allows you to install the included fan on either side, in a push or pull configuration, if you’re stuck for space for whatever reason.



Sitting atop the cooler, capping things off nicely, is an anodized and brushed aluminium piece with the Cooler Master logo sitting proudly in the centre.



Everything seems pretty familiar so far, but moving onto the SF120R cooling fan, things change considerably. Instead of the chunky 5 blade affair, we get 9 slimmer fins to force air through the radiator. The blades are also made up of a translucent plastic with a slight dark tint to it, fitting in with the Black Edition name, we suppose. Thanks to the translucent plastic, it’s even possible to see the four copper brushes in the fan’s motor.

Each corner of the fan, front and back, is rubber tipped to prevent vibrations travelling more than they have to.



Look at the fan from the other side, the mounting brackets are pre-attached. These are awash with rubber mountings to reduce vibrations. The non-RGB version doesn’t use this method, instead using metal spring-type pieces to hold the fan in place.

Closer Look (Continued)

Just above the contact patch, where the four heatpipes make direct contact with the CPU, is a small heatsink section. This will help reduce the heat at this area, increasing the effectiveness of the heatpipes which work via temperature differences.



On the underside, the heatpipes have been flattened to come directly into contact with the IHS on the CPU for optimal heat transfer.



With the SF120R fan featuring RGB lighting, two cables are required, both of which are sleeved in a braided material to avoid any colours showing through. The RGB lighting is provided via a 4-pin 5v connection and the fan’s speed is controlled through a 4-pin PWM header.



Clipping the fan to the front, it’s clear to see where the Black Edition name comes from. The fan, with its 25mm thickness and the mounting points, add on about 30mm to the depth of the cooler, totalling around 80mm at this point.



On the reverse we can see the fan clips working their magic around the sides. As we previously mentioned, it’s possible to attach a second fan to increase cooling performance. This could work as a cheap cooling upgrade in the future if you wish to overclock your CPU and find your temperatures are a touch higher than you’re comfortable with.

Installation

While most CPU coolers arrive with paste pre-applied or a small tube to use, we try and remove any variance from our testing and use Noctua’s NT-H1 thermal paste instead. A small grain of rice sized blob is enough to cover our Intel Core i7 3930K CPU.

You can also see the mounting points in each corner, with the socket-tool attached to the top-right.



After attaching the Intel bracket to the flanks of the cooler, it’s as simple as tightening each corner, a few turns at a time, until the cooler is evenly attached to the CPU. Making sure to tighten each corner equally is important to ensure an even layer of thermal paste on the underside for optimal thermal transfer.



Finally, clip on the fan, plug the PWM and RGB connections in and we’re good to go. Don’t forget to connect up the RGB connector to the MOLEX cable from your PSU at this point though.

Test Setup & Methodology

We have recently made changes to our cooling department and the associated testing methodology, so please note that the number of results shown will increase over time as we add additional products. We hope that these results will appear clearer to the majority of our readership and look forward to building upon the baselines that we currently have.

We perform two individual testing routines with each CPU cooler that we receive – temperatures and acoustics. The system used is as follows and all tests are performed at stock 3.8 GHz and overclocked 4.4 GHz frequencies.

Processor – Intel Core i7-3930K
Motherboard – Gigabyte X79-UP4
Memory – 8GB Corsair Vengeance LP 1600MHz CL9
Video Card – Sapphire Radeon HD 6850 1GB
Power Supply – NZXT Hale90 650W
Storage Drive – Kingston HyperX 240GB SATA III SSD
Case – Corsair Carbide 760T
Monitor ASUS ROG SWIFT PG278Q


To keep our tests consistent, we always review CPU coolers as they come out of the box – with their factory cooling fans, as the manufacturer intended and as the consumer expects. It should, however, be noted that we do not use supplied thermal paste but instead, Noctua NT-H1 paste to, again, ensure consistency. The paste is applied and the CPU allowed to run for a couple of hours, at idle, to give the thermal compound some time to “bed in.”

In the first test, we record idle and load temperatures as shown by the most current version of the Real Temp monitoring utility. The test system is booted to the Windows desktop and left to idle for 20 minutes to ensure temperatures have stabilised. The average core temperatures are then recorded over a 1 minute period and averaged across the six cores. We then perform a continuous 20 minute AIDA 64 stress test. The maximum absolute core temperatures are recorded immediately after the test has completed and averaged across the six cores. All results are displayed as delta temperatures – these are calculated by subtracting the ambient room temperature from the average core temperatures recorded. For temperature testing, the Corsair 760T chassis door is closed and has all three systems fans powered on to simulate real-world conditions.

Our second test follows a similar methodology to the first, with the key difference being that the Corsair 760T chassis door is now left open and all three systems fans are disabled. This allows for the CPU cooler fans acoustic profiles to be captured in isolation. From cold, the system is again booted to the Windows desktop and left to idle for 20 minutes to ensure temperatures have stabilised. The acoustic level is then recorded at a distance of 20cm from the CPU cooler and where the individual result is an average level over a 1 minute period. We then perform our continuous 20 minutes AIDA 64 stress test. Acoustic levels are again recorded at a distance of 20cm from the CPU cooler and where the individual result is an average level over a 1 minute period.

RGB Lighting

Below are some photos of the RGB lighting in action.













Benchmarks – Thermal Results

We have recently made changes to our cooling department and the associated testing methodology, so please note that the number of results shown below will increase over time as we add additional products. We hope that these results will appear clearer to the majority of our readership and look forward to building upon the baselines that you see below.

We start off by letting the CPU cooler “bed in” for a couple of hours, to ensure the paste has time to move around and form an even layer, after which an idle result is taken.



As we can see above, the idle result is good @ stock clocks but once overclocked, with the increase in voltage and with the removal of Intel’s automatic downclocking, we see the cooler begin to struggle, but this is typical behaviour of air coolers of this type.



Considering this is a 6c/12t CPU, the stock and overclocked results are reasonable, but very similar to the non-RGB version that we reviewed back in November, despite the huge difference in fan design, proving that the cooler performs well regardless.

Benchmarks – Acoustic Results

We have recently made changes to our cooling department and the associated testing methodology, so please note that the number of results shown below will increase over time as we add additional products. We hope that these results will appear clearer to the majority of our readership and look forward to building upon the baselines that you see below.

Firstly, we test the results at idle, after allowing the system to boot up and come to rest over a period of a couple of hours. A restart is performed to enable the 4.4GHz profile and another 20 minutes is allowed for the system to come back to rest. The results below show that the audibles are of zero concern and, again, is almost identical to the non-RGB Black Edition.



Once we put some load through the CPU and get things up to temperature, we measure the fan speed and acoustics. This is where the cooler really shows its strength, with the fan spinning up to 1730 RPM @ 4.4GHz, we only found it to be at 36dB(A).

Conclusion

Going into this review, we had some expectations in mind, having already reviewed an almost identical model, and if it wasn’t for the difference in the fans blade arrangements, we most likely would’ve bundled this in with the other review, however, we went ahead and tested it entirely separately.

The main difference between the two is the addition of RGB lighting on the fan, which incurs a £10 increase in price. This also includes the in-line controller and a slightly different, and much easier, fan mounting system. In our opinion, the £10 increase represents good value if you wish to keep temperatures and noise down while also introducing a touch of RGB to your chassis.

During idle and load tests, temperatures were in line with where we’d expect this to land, based on the results we found with the non-RGB model back in November, but we were surprised to find it so close to its brother in all of the tests, with the completely different 120mm fan.

Overall, the Cooler Master Hyper 212 RGB Black Edition lives up to the reputation left behind by previous models, providing a cost-effective, quiet, efficient cooling solution, that also looks fantastic.



If you want to add a splash of RGB to your case and have £40 to spend, we can’t imagine a better cooler to buy. The Hyper 212 maintains its excellent reputation.

Pros
+ RGB lighting looks great
+ Lighting is easy to configure with in-line remote
+ Very easy to install
+ Arrives with brackets and fan splitter to add a second fan
+ Good price
+ Quiet cooling

Cons
– None


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