Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus CPU Cooler Review Comment Thread

[Prof. Dr. Silver]

YMMV: Your Mileage May Vary :)

[miggs78]

Oh thanks.. :)

SKY or AkG whoever, quick question for you guys.. if it's out on newegg.com how long do you think we'll have to wait to see it in Canada.

Sorry for the dumb question.. :)

[m0pelley99]

Originally Posted by miggs78

Sorry for the dumb question.. :)

It's not a stupid question. I'm sure all of us would like to know!

[HalifaxPete]

Can anyone twist an arm or leg of a NCIX staffer to get the CM Hyper 212 Plus in stock before the evening of July 24th.

I would place this cooler on my Dream It Win It Contest Wish List.

[sswilson]

Originally Posted by Prof. Dr. Silver

YMMV: Your Mileage May Vary :)

Originally Posted by miggs78

Oh thanks.. :)

SKY or AkG whoever, quick question for you guys.. if it's out on newegg.com how long do you think we'll have to wait to see it in Canada.

Sorry for the dumb question.. :)

I had to ask this myself a few weeks ago. I could figure out YRMV (your results may vary), and figured it meant essentially the same thing, but couldn't for the life of me figure out what the M might stand for in place of the R. :)

[CroSsFiRe2009]

Any chance we can get temps for the 212 plus with the same fan used on the megahalem? Just want to know for interests sake. The 2krpm fan did skew it in the 212's favour so i just want to know how they would do against each other with the same fan.

[burebista]

Originally Posted by SKYMTL

[...] it is obvious that the fan has a lot to do with this unit's performance.

So my last 2 cents. Don't mix apples with oranges. Most of reviews readers take a look at charts and they saw a HDT heatsink on par with Megahalems so why would they pay x2-3 more on Megahalems?
But they're not aware that CM is tested at 2000 RPM CM fan and Megahalems at 1300 RPM Noctua fan. Or you test all heatsinks with the same fan at same RPM's on same CPU/frequency/voltage and room temperature and put them in a chart or test heatsinks with different fans and RPM's and different conditions but put them in their own charts.
Even in their wildest dreams HDT heatsinks could not match a top air cooling for a high TDP CPU in the same conditions.
In fact AkG sums it very well.

[...]a HDT is very efficient at sucking heat away at lower OC's and the Prolimatech really only starts to shine when the heat is turned up.

[AkG]

When I was messing around with this cooler awhile back, and IF I remember correctly the fan gave a 3 or so degree performance boost. I'll see what I can do and do my best to add it to the charts for the next review. BUT 3° is a good ball park number for right now. :)

Burebista I seriously know where your coming from and a good while back I gave serious thought to do exactly that, and using the exact same fan on all cooler's which came our way, but in the end decided against it. Here is my reasoning:
While testing all the coolers with the same fan gives an apples to apples comparison, it also has a tendency to cut off the high and the lows, and doesn't give a great "real world" picture. It becomes even more synthetic in its results. Heck it is the cooler industry equivalent of AutoTune'ing all the coolers. It is also not feasible in some cases as they come with dual 92mm, specially designed 120s or a myriad of other potential issues. All those unique fan equipped coolers would instantly be at a huge disadvantage and remove any hopes of an apples to apples comparison.

To put it another way: If company A ships there cooler with the least expensive fan out there (a REAL P.O.S.) why should it be shown in a better light than company B who spent a heck of lot more money equipping their product with a kick arse fan and are held back by the fan WE chose?

While all the above were concerns what really decided me was the simple fact most people I write these reviews for will never set OC'ing records and will never push their cooler and cpu to their breaking point. They are "average joes" who happen to love computers. I try not to alienate the enthusiast crown nor the SilentPC crowd either but the majority of people are not going to push insane volts through their brand new system (this is why I also limit the top end OC) nor underclock their CPU or even volt mod a fan in their system. An even more basic fact is most people are not going to upgrade their brand new cooler's stock fan and are going to use whatever it comes with. How can I in good conscience recommended or slam a cooler when I have not tested with its stock config?

The simple fact is ProlimaTech did not equip their cooler with a stock fan. As such we gave it a fair & balanced fan, one that a lot people will probably turn too for its good compromise of noise to cooling. Is it fair to hobble a great cooler with only a decent fan? That is highly debatable. But one could also argue (for example) that by not using the great fan which came with the 212+ we were also hobbling it and not showing how good it is out of the box. Heck, one could also argue that our default choice of a NF-P12 is unrealistic and that we should have used a lower cost, lower performance one!

There really is no perfect solution and its either make potentially crappy CPU Cooling Solutions look better than they are...or live with the occasional zinger. I'd rather live with the occasional zinger than steer people towards bad solutions. Is the 212+ a great solution for extreme OC'ing...not really. BUT in its stock config it is probably one of the best HDT coolers out there. That fan really did stretch its performance envelope to unheard of hights! At an even more basic level, the 212+ is a GOOD cooler and most people will be perfectly happy with it vs a Prolima. All of THIS is why it got the Damn Good Value award and not the Dam Good award.

I hope this makes sense to you and everyone else. But if doesn't PLEASE tell us. Maybe we overlooked something. I know I ain't perfect and it wouldn't be the first thing which was a boneheaded blunder in retrospect that I have ever made ;)

[halfwaythere]

First of all gratz on the work flawed as it may be.

I think you don't stress enough during the review that you compare heatsinks with different fans and tested in different session. One might argue that a couple of degrees between different session could simply be substracted from the final result. I'm afraid thats not really a very rigorous methodology because temperature doesn't vary linearly.

Burebistas reaction is very correct because some regular bloke looking at you chats will end up buying the 212+ and proclaiming it the best thing since sliced bread. And you and I know thats not true.

Maybe you should change your way of testing heatsinks to something more relevant: pick the best heatsink from your previous tests and test it versus a new one. First at stock settings and after that with the same fan setup. You don't have to include all of the other irrelevant coolers because everybody will understand that you are looking for the best solution.

There are many way of distorting reality and one of them is by omission. Too bad cause you're the ones losing credibility.

[jcmaz]

Originally Posted by halfwaythere

First of all gratz on the work flawed as it may be.

I think you don't stress enough during the review that you compare heatsinks with different fans and tested in different session. One might argue that a couple of degrees between different session could simply be substracted from the final result. I'm afraid thats not really a very rigorous methodology because temperature doesn't vary linearly.

Burebistas reaction is very correct because some regular bloke looking at you chats will end up buying the 212+ and proclaiming it the best thing since sliced bread. And you and I know thats not true.

Maybe you should change your way of testing heatsinks to something more relevant: pick the best heatsink from your previous tests and test it versus a new one. First at stock settings and after that with the same fan setup. You don't have to include all of the other irrelevant coolers because everybody will understand that you are looking for the best solution.

There are many way of distorting reality and one of them is by omission. Too bad cause you're the ones losing credibility.

I don't think they have all the time in the world to retest every since heatsink just because another one just came out. Won't this mean that they retest every since graphics card because a new driver came out because it'll skew the charts, of course not! You have to put all this information and judge according to your own context.

AKG: Can you guys test these heatsinks with an AMD platform ( like the installation progress)

Also good job for noting the weird fan noise because many other review sites didn't have that observation.