Hyper 212 vs. More expensive solutions

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kidstechno

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I have an old H50 used to cool my i5 3570k in a Raven RV02-E. I'm currently pushing it to 4.2 ghz but that is about the max it'll go temperature wise. Now, looking at current CPU cooling solutions, it seems like air CPU coolers are better suited for the 90 degree turned motherboards give or take. So in reviewing possible CPU coolers, it seems like the Hyper 212 EVO is pretty much the best bang for the buck. However.. what would really be the difference between something like the Hyper 212 and forking out $40-$50 more for the Noctua NH-D14 or something similar? Is there really a huge bump in performance for the price? Or is it not really worth it currently for maybe an extra 100-200mhz?
 
I've used the Evo on about 10 PC's I've built. Currently using it on an AMD 7700K APU @4.1. Keeps it under 40c under normal load. Great cooler. However, I also love the Phanteks one. I have that cooling my 3570k at 4.5.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835709020
You may want to look at that too.
I had an H70 and wasn't impressed. The AIO liquid coolers have lost their flare to me. Not enough performance for the $.
 
Scythe Mugen 4 is better performing for a slight bump in price. After that, you're entering diminishing returns.
 
212 evo + a good pair of fans and you have a little monster there.. if you are able to put a push/pull setup you will be fine and with a lot of good cooling potential.. i've used it with push/pull of cooler master sickeflow flans and the cooling was good, but when i changed it for the stock fans of the Corsair h100i (SP120L) that tiny cooler was transformed in a big tiny monster.. just at 3degrees of my h100i in the same chip, same TIM, same conditions.. tested lot of times..
 
Actually, the law of diminishing returns starts with anything more expensive than the Hyper 212 Evo. That said, the 212 Evo is probably on the same level as the H50, so for you, it would be a sidegrade.
 
I ran an older revision of the Hyper 212 without the smooth bottom surface that the EVO has on my AMD beast. I had two Cooler Master Turbine Master Mach 1.8 120mm fans in push/pull on it. I had no trouble with 4GHz on my Phenom II 1090T at 1.45V. I would imagine that had to be generating more heat than your i5-3570K at 4.2.
 
Araxie said:
212 evo + a good pair of fans and you have a little monster there.. if you are able to put a push/pull setup you will be fine and with a lot of good cooling potential.. i've used it with push/pull of cooler master sickeflow flans and the cooling was good, but when i changed it for the stock fans of the Corsair h100i (SP120L) that tiny cooler was transformed in a big tiny monster.. just at 3degrees of my h100i in the same chip, same TIM, same conditions.. tested lot of times..
Click to expand...

^ This. If the stock performance doesn't meet your needs, a fan swap will get you there and will still keep you under budget.
 
I think the Hyper 212+ is the best cooler in history dollar for dollar. I picked mine up for $24.99 at Microcenter and it was a monster! It cooled my Athlon II X3 435 at 3.4 GHz, my Phenom II X2 555 at 4 GHz, my Phenom II X6 1090 at 4.0 GHz and when I got my 8150 it handled cooling duties on it for a while and I was able to get 4.3 GHz out of it but that was finally its limit and I finally had to upgrade to my H100.

So yeah, a Hyper 212+ will handle a whole lot of overclocking and only runs out of horsepower at the highest levels. I mean a heat generating monster like a 8150 at 4.3 on a $25 cooler is pretty damn impressive in my book.
 
Araxie said:
212 evo + a good pair of fans and you have a little monster there.. if you are able to put a push/pull setup you will be fine and with a lot of good cooling potential.. i've used it with push/pull of cooler master sickeflow flans and the cooling was good, but when i changed it for the stock fans of the Corsair h100i (SP120L) that tiny cooler was transformed in a big tiny monster.. just at 3degrees of my h100i in the same chip, same TIM, same conditions.. tested lot of times..
Click to expand...

3c difference between your Hyper212 w/ H100i fans and your H100i?

First off dont believe it. 2nd, why the fuck would you not purchase a 212 for $25 and spend $15 on some nice fans and save $40?

While 212 is a great solution especially on a budget, it cannot compete with a H100i.

http://frostytech.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=2206

There is a great review. And while the 212 is great, I still would say that the TRUE is still the ultimate price/performance cooler. Now, whats right for the OP? It depends. Some people want that extra 100-200mhz that they cannot achieve due to temps with a cheaper cooler. Some are plenty happy with a modest overclock. If you are on a budget, I would buy some quality fans (I used to run 105cfm Delta 38mm in push/pull w/ H50 @ 5v for noise) as the H50 fan is garbage. Although you could probably sell your H50 for $25-30 and invest another $25 and get a Noctua D14 used for about $50 which will get you an extra 200-400mhz almost guaranteed.
 
doz said:
3c difference between your Hyper212 w/ H100i fans and your H100i?

First off dont believe it. 2nd, why the fuck would you not purchase a 212 for $25 and spend $15 on some nice fans and save $40?

While 212 is a great solution especially on a budget, it cannot compete with a H100i.

http://frostytech.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=2206

There is a great review. And while the 212 is great, I still would say that the TRUE is still the ultimate price/performance cooler. Now, whats right for the OP? It depends. Some people want that extra 100-200mhz that they cannot achieve due to temps with a cheaper cooler. Some are plenty happy with a modest overclock. If you are on a budget, I would buy some quality fans (I used to run 105cfm Delta 38mm in push/pull w/ H50 @ 5v for noise) as the H50 fan is garbage. Although you could probably sell your H50 for $25-30 and invest another $25 and get a Noctua D14 used for about $50 which will get you an extra 200-400mhz almost guaranteed.
Click to expand...

believe what you want... thats an very old ancient review of the FIRST hyper 212 not the hyper 212 evo or even the Hyper212+.. again i have to say Believe what you want to believe.. you want a review?..

here its one: http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/Cooler-Master-Hyper-212-EVO-CPU-Cooler-Review/1407/6 and guess what with the stock fan, (YES only ONE fan) its at the level of performance of the Prolimatech megahalems and Thermaltake frio OCK.. and 3 degrees worse than a Corsair H80 and again with a single fan and the stock fan, thats a god damn good piece of cooler, how to make it better? put it 2 high performance fans and you can transform it into a monster... believe or not if you do not have it you don't know then how it perform really.. and i do not have why explain but will do, i have several machines in my house the last year one of my personal machines with a i7 2600 and a h100i the cooler got some problems i RMA'd while i was waiting for it i bought the hyper212evo and put it to that machine as temporal solution, what was the result?.. of course taking apart the fun as a tester i tested once and once and once.... LOT of times.. with stock fan, with 2x cheap fans, with 2x decent fans, with 2x high performance fans.. LOT of times with LOTS of fans.. including some AP-15, NF-F12, NF-P12, AF-120, SP-120 etc etc.. when i received the h100i unit again i just keep it stored and was so impressed with the Hyper212 enough to keep it in that machine with a couple of Sickleflow fans at full 2000RPM blast.. (Excelent Noise/performance with that cooler btw).
 
Even still you are not gaining much over the original.

If the Hyper212+ performed as well as the H100i, why would ANYONE buy one? It does not. Maybe for low clocks/low voltage but it does not do as well as high end air or the better AIO once under some heavy wattage.
 
doz said:
Even still you are not gaining much over the original.

If the Hyper212+ performed as well as the H100i, why would ANYONE buy one? It does not. Maybe for low clocks/low voltage but it does not do as well as high end air or the better AIO once under some heavy wattage.
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nobody its saying the contrary.. as Tsumi said after a 212 Evo the law of diminishing return apply.. specially for nowadays chips (specially mid range and mainstream i7 chips) that are every time reducing the power consumption.. if you make a couple of numbers (actually according amazon prices) Hyper 212 EVO 30$ + SP120 High performance 28$ the pair.. Hyper 212 EVO + Noctua NF-F12 42$ the pair + Noctua NT-H1 5.45$ as a budget cooler with stock fan the hyper 212 its great price/performance.. if you want to make it better then you have to spend some money.. what its the final result? of course the cooler will perform at another level of performance but you are also increasing the overall cost of the product for cooling... not for no reason the Hyper 212 its the more popular chip in the market..

when you will see a H100i or H110 shining extreme performance cooler?. in super power hogs chips like a AMD 9590, a high overclocked FX8350.. a high overclocked 3930K or 4930K where even most high end air coolers can't keep up with the heat produced.. why people keep buying AIO coolers? First aesthetics, second RAM clearance and also RAM cooling (its nice to see a H100i cooler with a RAM fan cooler like the Dominator Airflow), to alleviate some weight of the mobo and third because ePeen ("yeaiii im watercooling my pc").. I remember the times of the i7 920 and H50.. being the h50 a better performer than the LEgendary NH-D14 just for the fact that those AIO really shines with those large dissipation surface, with actually chips?. for example a 4770K probably you won't see too much difference, i had a Corsair H70 long time ago with the i7 2600 and overclocked and the difference between the H70 and hyper 212 with the stock fan are null, but with push/pull of SP120L it was able to surpass it and make a 3 degree near the performance of the h100i with the same fans.. can be the performance of the h100i improved? of course with a push/pull setup.. specially if high are used top performer fans like the GT-AP15 or Noctua NF-F12.. you still are receiving better performance than highest end air cooler and still have a nice aesthetic with no issues of RAM clearance, now you know why people buy AIO?...
 
OP here, the funny thing about my H50 is that the backplate didn't quite fit with my new motherboard/i5, so I really only have 3 screws in to hold it down and not 4, so I've been looking to replace it since. Oddly enough, it gets the job done but it's not optimal in any sense. I currently do have 2 fans in push/pull through the top of the case, but the fans are old as crap so i'm sure that doesn't help either. So I figure it'd just be best to replace all of it.

So an Hyper 212 Evo + grabbing 2 decent fans would be about 45$ so that's about how much I'd be willing to spend. Does it come with the extra set of fan clips by chance for a push/pull?
 
Yeah complete BS on the Hyper getting even close to the H100.

My Hyper pegged out on my old 8150 at 4.3 GHz at 1.375V hitting 62C under OCCT. Bought my H100 and ran the same test with the same settings and it was in the low 40's.

Don't get me wrkng, I love the Hyper 212 but it's not in the same league as high end AIO coolers like the H100 or even H80.
 
It's still the best BFB air cooler but seems to hit a brick wall at a certain dissipation of wattage. It'll keep my 4670k under 70 up to about 4.4GHz but then hits tMax at 4.6GHz. I'm looking into getting a Phanteks or Corsair H90 to tide me over til I can get the scratch for a custom loop with the GPU. From what I've seen, those two coolers will only gradually get warmer with the heat output whereas the characteristic of the 212 is that huge spike.
 
kidstechno said:
OP here, the funny thing about my H50 is that the backplate didn't quite fit with my new motherboard/i5, so I really only have 3 screws in to hold it down and not 4, so I've been looking to replace it since. Oddly enough, it gets the job done but it's not optimal in any sense. I currently do have 2 fans in push/pull through the top of the case, but the fans are old as crap so i'm sure that doesn't help either. So I figure it'd just be best to replace all of it.

So an Hyper 212 Evo + grabbing 2 decent fans would be about 45$ so that's about how much I'd be willing to spend. Does it come with the extra set of fan clips by chance for a push/pull?
Click to expand...

If you are willing to spend $45, sell your H50 for $25 and spend $60 on higher end air cooling rather than trying to buff a 212.
 
kidstechno said:
So an Hyper 212 Evo + grabbing 2 decent fans would be about 45$ so that's about how much I'd be willing to spend. Does it come with the extra set of fan clips by chance for a push/pull?
Click to expand...

It does come with an extra fan mount, or at least mine did. They screw onto the fans and let the fan clip onto the HS.
 
Last edited:
geok1ng said:
why not put the H50 on push-pull with another fan:confused:
Click to expand...

Still somewhat shocked at how good the H50 can do. I have no back to back comparison but my feeling is that going from a Hyper 212 to a bunch of Noctua tower coolers and then finally to the Hydro H50, I wasn't downgrading. It can't work miracles but in push/pull my H50s do way more cooling than I expected.

Watch out for that dreaded pump noise, though.
 
Greetings

kidstechno said:
So in reviewing possible CPU coolers, it seems like the Hyper 212 EVO is pretty much the best bang for the buck. However.. what would really be the difference between something like the Hyper 212 and forking out $40-$50 more for the Noctua NH-D14 or something similar? Is there really a huge bump in performance for the price? Or is it not really worth it currently for maybe an extra 100-200mhz?
Click to expand...

It's a single tower cooler and so probably more than adequate for cooling a 3570K, you would only get a dual tower cooler like the NH-D14 if you were really pushing the overclocking limit and needed a bit more cooling capacity otherwise it probably isn't worth it.

I have a Thermalright Silver Arrow SB-E dual tower cooling my 4930K with just a central fan in it and the reason I like it is that having it installed vertically means that it misses the memory slots completely which is important on a S2011 board as it has memory slots either side of the CPU. Even running OCCT at stock speeds this manages to keep the CPU below 52C. The other reason I bought a cooler at double your price is the fact that I'll probably keep this setup for about 5-6 years much like X58 gear is still going after that period of time so amortizing the cost over that length of time I feel is quite reasonable.

The other reason I prefer Thermalright gear is that my cooler is a couple of degrees behind the NH-D14 but its about 5-10 decibels quieter as I like silent or near silent PC's.

Its a lot easier these days to cool CPU's because in the old days you'd overclock a SLACR Q6600 to mid 3.5's and the temps would hit 67C and the CPU would keel over at that temperature so a lot of my friends went to water to cool those and also I7-920's as they wanted to OC a bit more. These days the CPU's don't pump out as much heat and even when they do they can run much hotter. Early AIO's only ever cooled as well as a top air cooler anyway and made a hell of a lot more noise but that situation may have improved since then.

Cheers
 
Thanks OP for starting the thread. I had a similar question coming from an OC'ed i7 930 going to a 4GHz i7-4790k. 4790k has ~150W envelope OC'ed, so not really in the 200W range of Socket LGA2011/1366 CPUs. Looking at the current OC'ing results of the 4790ks, they seem to do 4.4-4.6GHz fine, but 4.8+GHz you start running into a wall even with the better samples. So I have been debating AIO water cooling vs 212 EVO and I'm leaning toward getting the EVO and trying a push pull combo with some left over fans I have from my i7 930 build. Even though I do like to get the last 100-200MHz in my OC's, I getting to the point that 4.4GHz will be fine and 4.8GHz is less than the 10% needed to notice any improvement. Looking at the Gaming results on Devil's Peak, I doubt you'll notice anything. Only reason I'm getting the 4790K is because I do video editing from time to time.

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For the OP, here are some pricing number with current deals I see (should last a few more days as of 7/12).


The Nepton is the update to the Sedon and getting good reviews. See here for a review and a comparison table @ 150W as I mentioned above: http://www.frostytech.com/articleview.cfm?articleid=2752&page=5

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Bottom line for me is that with a 4790K that doesn't overclock much (not the 33+% of a 920/930) it is difficult to justify the 2x (~$25) more to do AIO water cooling or 4x for the latest Nepton. To be honest, I was considering using the 4970k stock, till the EVO / Sedon dropped to <$25/$50, but I'm like "that's one less Starbuck", so I'm pulling the trigger on the EVO vs. wasting more time on this. Only other reason to get AIO is the convenience of installation, but the EVO's mounting looks much better than the Cogage True Spirit I'm coming from on the 930, that is PIA!!!
 
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