Cooler Master Hyper N520 CPU Cooler Review

Heatsink Construction & Design

Upon the first superficial glance, the N520 looks a lot like many, many other coolers out there. It’s a fairly typical U or Tower shaped heatsink and while it’s a bit wider and shorter than some, its general layout will definately be familiar to many of you.

All told it is 122.35 x 102.5 x 141 mm and weights in at a fairly heavy 1.52 pounds (689.5 grams), albeit that is with both 92mm fans included.

The reason for the short yet wide appearance may be the first thing you notice. The reason for the squat, almost dwarven appearance is this cooler is as wide as a typical 120mm fan based tower cooler but the fin arrays are “only” a bit wider than a 92mm fan. Then you notice that there are not only TWO fans mounted to the fin-array in its stock configuration but they are in fact offset from one another. The reason they are offset is because the right side of each of the two faces of the fin array sticks out to cover the additional width of area NOT covered by the other 92mm fan.


This design may seem odd at first, but it does make sense in a quirky and odd way. By downsizing the cooler's fin array to 102.5mm means it will fit in cases where your typical cooling fin array (i.e. 120mm x 120mm) will not fit. However, in the grand scheme of things the N520 has a heck of lot of surface area because it remains the more typical width. The easiest way to think about this is to take a heavy weight prize fighter….starve him for a month before weigh-in so he can fight in a lighter class and then let him bulk up a bit for the fight. 9 times out of 10 the bigger fighter will beat an equally skilled smaller opponent and the same holds true for CPU cooling solutions. In that same vein, at its heart this is a full-size cooler which just happens to be downsized enough to compete in the mid-size market. Add in a second fan as standard equipment and you have on paper a very, very potent combination.


By offsetting the fans so they do not in fact line-up, Cooler Master has in fact allowed the FULL width of the N520 to be actively cooled. Sure, the overlap will have a push-pull setup but there will be no dead zones or hot spots by doing it this way. This is a very smart and elegant solution, one that we are sure many other manufacturers who look at the N520 beating the tar out of their mid-size coolers will be smacking their head and going “Why didn’t WE think of that!”.


The unique fin array and fan setup may be interesting and should certainly have a positive impact on the thermal efficiency of this cooler. When you look at the N520 from the top down it looks like your fairly typical cooler (albeit with the caveats listed above) with 5 main heatpipes. The odd number may seem unusual and if you only look at the top of this cooler you would only count 4 heatpipes. The number itself is not what makes this cooler that unique; though having three large U shaped heatpipes and one smaller L shaped heatpipe per side is different. The fact the heatpipes are copper and not nickel plated, is also not that noteworthy; what IS noteworthy is the base of this cooler.


When you take the time to flip it over you are greet by a very interesting sight. The base of this cooler is solid copper (with metal wings for the mounting brackets). This may not make this cooler unique as a couple others have gone this route before BUT this cooler's cooper base is simply the best example of one we have ever seen. It’s not only perfectly flat but is so well polished as to be a freakin mirror! Saying the N520's base is above average is such an understatement of epic proportions.


If there is any area which can be considered less than exceptional in the engineering department it is the face of the fin assembly. When you do take the time to remove the fans from the fin array you are greeted to an old school darn near flat face. There are no complex cuts in the fins to help reduce static air pressure (in fact it resembles a wall). The fact that there are two fans working in a push / pull setup will help alleviate this issue, but we really have to wonder how much better it would have done if the faces of the N520 had a top notch multi-faceted design along the lines of the Noctua coolers.