INTRODUCTION
 
After I had put up the CM Blade Master 120mm fan review (link here), I wanted to pass on the review to Cooler Master in case they felt it of decent enough quality to list on their website. What followed since was a phone call and a list of items coming in for review. Cooler Master has been tremendously supportive of my modest venture here, and it was genuinely great talking to Rajiv and getting a better idea of their level of involvement with end users and enthusiasts- it definitely did further tilt my opinion about Cooler Master into the positive region of the opinion scale. So thanks again to Rajiv, let’s now take a look at the first of several Cooler Master products to be reviewed here- the Hyper 612 Ver.2 cooler.
 
Let’s take a look at the product specs courtesy the product page:
 


 
Feel free to click on the images above to get a better view. In fact, whenever I have to type that I am glad that manufacturers are going with detailed specs of components in the package more and more. Here we see not only dimensions of the cooler heatsink itself, which is critical for an air cooler, but also that of the fan and the product box it ships in! I usually don’t pay much attention to the fan specs listed out but that static pressure rating looks pretty low. Hopefully it does not translate to low airflow through the heatsink which does seem to be a massive single tower. One thing I am not a fan of, however, is the 2 year warranty. With air coolers, the warranty is usually tied to the component of least MTBF (mean time before failure) and it is usually the stock fan(s) provided. A 2 year warranty doesn’t cut it these days with contemporary coolers offering a minimum of 3 years, if not more. Lastly, what’s up with that “N/A” listed in the RAM height clearance section? With big air coolers like this, RAM height clearance is very important to know so I would like to see it filled out here- I will get to it myself in the next few pages.
 
Now let’s take a detailed look at the cooler.
 
UNBOXING AND OVERVIEW
 
First up, the outer packaging itself:
 

 

 

 

 

 

 
The cooler comes in a good sized box relative to the size and amount of items inside. The box dimensions were measured in at 8″ x 7.5″ x 7.5″ and is made of 1.8mm thick cardboard with a plastic sleeve on the outside that in turn provides info about the cooler. We immediately see the cooler on several faces of the box, along with technical and marketing specs listed out in several different languages.
 
Opening the box now:
 

 
Ah so there are multiple layers of items inside. First up, we see the accessory kit, the two quick snap fan brackets and the warranty guide. Let’s take a look at the accessory kit first:
 

 

 
Inside we have a lot of things:
 

 

 

 

 
We have the two fan clips in case one does not wish to use the fan brackets, the Intel backplate and a pouch that further contains items:
 

 
Inside this pouch we have the mounting brackets for the different supported Intel and AMD sockets, and yet more pouches. Do keep up here as this is quickly becoming a nested loop of confusion:
 

 

 
The first pouch has the posts/standoffs for Intel socket LGA 2011/2011-3 while the second has the rest of the mounting gear needed along with some vibration dampening pads for the fan and thermal interface material (TIM) provided in a tube. There was enough TIM for me to do all of my 30 thermal tests (barely though!) so I have no complaints about the amount provided.
 
Ok now let’s go back to the other contents in the top layer of the box:
 

 

 
Here you see the fan brackets and the warranty guide. The former we will get to soon enough in the installation section, and the latter does not provide much more information than what we already know- a limited 2 year warranty on the entire product.
 
Now let’s see what’s in the next layer:
 

 
Not much in here other than the fan and a nice, illustrated installation guide:
 

 
There were a few points where I felt some wording would have made things easier, especially when you get to the Intel backplate part but otherwise it does a good job.
 
As far as the fan goes:
 

 

 

 

 
This looks so much like the Blade Master 120 I reviewed earlier that for a second I thought it was the same fan. The same black blade, black frame design with those distinct blades I have not seen anywhere else. But the fan specs did not agree with this thought, as shown here:
 

 
As opposed to the Blade Master 120:
 

 
Ok, so this may be a slow speed version then given everything so far. As with the retail version, the fan hub here measured in at 1.85″ in the front and ~1.88″ at the back. This is getting to the point where I would think a shroud would come in handy to lower deadspots in the airflow field pushed/pulled through a heatsink or radiator. We see that the fan was made in China in 2011 (or is it 2014?) and lists a max operating current draw of 0.16 A on the 12 V rail (1.92 W). Normally I would think this is a cautious number that includes start-up boost as well but the product page then lists a max current draw of 0.09 A (1.08 W). So which is it- 0.09 A or 0.16 A? Is one the max operating current and the other the max start up current? I noticed this with the retail fan also so I would really like to know what’s the difference in the two numbers. I measured a max operating current of just 0.056 A (0.672 W). If my measurements hold true for all samples, then even leaving 2 W/fan you should be able to run 5-6 of these off a standard 1 A fan header in theory and definitely the one fan that is provided. The cooler is compatible with only a single fan so I suppose power measurements and worrying about them is a bit moot at this point.
 

 
The direction of airflow as well as the direction of the blade rotation is clearly indicated on one side of the frame for those who weren’t sure yet. This will help clarify which way the fan needs to be installed on the heatsink.
 

 

 

 

 
This is interesting- the retail Blade Master 120 had no sleeving of the fan wires and I am glad to see the fan wires here are sleeved. There is a decent heatshrink application of the end closer to the fan, but the heatshrink on the other side leading to the standard 4 pin PWM header isn’t great. In fact, once hooked to a fan header, it is near impossible to remove the fan off it by simply pulling on the sleeving/heatshrink as this happens:
 

 
The heatshrink and sleeving get pulled away from the header, exposing the black wires beneath. So you are left to tugging on the wires themselves or rocking the header back and forth in a pull motion- neither of which are very easy to do if the fan header used is underneath/in close proximity to the heatsink of this cooler.
 
Now we finally get to the 3rd and final layer inside the box:
 

 
Here we see the heatsink itself, which is snug in place held by thick, soft foam all around:
 

 
This is plenty to protect the heatsink against most shipping related issues such as bumps or drops- good job with the packaging over all!
 

 

 
The unit itself is asymmetric and thus will not stand upright on its own.
 

 
Here you can better see the fins (aluminum, 0.62mm to 0.69mm thick, 9 FPI fin density) and the heatpipes (copper, 6 total with diameters between 5.98 and 6.09mm aide from the flattened sections and the closed caps).
 

 
There are 8 fins that come in at 83.2mm x 139.1mm x 0.64mm on average, and these are followed by 23 fins coming in at 102mm x 139.1mm x 0.65mm on average. There is approximately 47mm and 75mm of clearance from the base of the contact plate on the heatsink (pretty much the CPU IHS itself) to the first and the second stack of fins respectively and this will help you determine your RAM height clearance.
 

 
The top two and the bottom most fin layer traverse the entirety of the heatsink length which the rest are split into two columns with ~3.5mm of gap between them.
 

 
At the top you see the Cooler Master logo stamped into the heatsink.
 

 

 

 
You also see the heatpipes terminating at either side of the logo. As mentioned before, there are 6 heatpipes and the closing of the heatpipes is not very consistent. The soldering at the top is pretty good, I must say.
 

 

 
Here you see that the soldering of the fins and the heatpipes is also of good quality as is the fin shaping itself.
 

 

 

 
The heatpipes converge at the CPU contact plate area and form what Cooler Master calls a continuous direct contact system as opposed to having the heatpipes be as they were in the Silverstone Argon AR02 cooler reviewed here. There is a protective sticker here which needs to be removed before installation.
 

 

 

 
Removing the sticker, we see that the heatpipes are very flat relative to the contact surface. But there are still visible gaps in between the heatpipes:
 

 

 
I recommend opening the above images in full size for a better view. Would these gaps result in a poor TIM spread? We will see soon.
 

 

 
Also fixed in here is the mounting clamp to attach the heatsink to the socket specific brackets. Let’s see how this works in the installation of the cooler now.
 
INSTALLATION
 
Let’s begin with the LGA 2011 platform, or rather the LGA 2011-3:
 

 
Screw in the marked LGA 2011 posts/standoffs into the cooler mounting holes on the motherboard as seen above. Next, place the Intel brackets over these:
 

 

 
As you can see, this can be done in one of two ways and it affects the direction of airflow through the cooler. Depending on your case airflow, orient it accordingly.
 
Now you actually need to find a phillips head screwdriver because this is not a tool-less installation:
 

 
Use the provided adapter and screw in the hex nuts into place thus holding the brackets tight:
 

 

 
See this end of the heatsink here:
 

 
This goes over the small lip in the center of the brackets (either one) while the other end has a screw:
 

 
So in order to get this in, use the provided male-female stud and screw it into the bracket on the side the fan will be connected, like so:
 

 
Here’s where you would now apply TIM on the CPU, hook the cooler over the other bracket and then screw the other end into this stud:
 

 
But…
 

 
Ah, the tall memory strikes again! I only have DDR4 in the Corsair Dominator Platinum flavor (much thanks to Corsair for that) and these are some of the tallest RAM modules out there- definitely taller than the clearance allowed with this cooler on a LGA 2011/2011-3 platform.
 
Even if I rotate the cooler orientation, it does no good:
 

 

 
So, as with the Phanteks PH-TC14PE cooler (reviewed here), I am forced to use this and test it in a dual channel configuration:
 

 

 

 
Now as far as the fan goes, you have the option to use either the provided fan clips or the fan brackets. Let’s explore both options:
 

 

 
The fan clips are VERY tight and there is very little clearance to maneuver the fan into place using them. But once installed, you really should not have reason to remove the fan in normal operation so I won’t fault it too much. I have seen better implementations of this fan clip system, however, so this does seem like an unnecessary struggle relatively.
 
As far as the brackets go, line them in place around the fan frame:
 

 

 
Then use the provided 4 self tapping screws and secure the brackets in place. This again was easier said than done and really takes a lot of effort- you need a powered screwdriver to do the job well I feel.
 

 
Then simply clip the assembly over the heatsink and it will catch on the fin stacks:
 

 

 
The trouble is, there isn’t anything preventing motion vertically so unless you have it spot on the fan will move downwards with gravity!
Now with this done, what about PCI-E lane clearance? This is course is motherboard specific, but my motherboard has a full x16 lane right at the top:
 

 
There is very little room as you can see. A backplate may even collide with the heatsink here. But again this is specific to your motherboard as with the RAM clearance issue from before and so hopefully this is going to give you an idea of what to expect with your particular components.
 
What about the TIM spread? Well, it wasn’t great:
 

 

 
Now this can be partially due to the nature of the convex IHS on LGA 2011-3 CPUs, but the gaps between the heatpipes causes TIM to pool in there which results in a thicker than optimal layer being formed in some places that can affect heat transfer. The single screw point also means that the contact is better in that side, and we see the TIM mostly spread out towards that side itself. This can cause some of the CPU cores to be hotter than the others thus also raising the average CPU temperature.
 
Now on to LGA 115x (apologies to AMD owners, I do not have an AMD motherboard or CPU/APU). We begin by placing in the motherboard standoffs into the backplate:
 

 
Note that there’s only one way to fit them in correctly. Then slide in the end covers over these:
 

 
and now pull the motherboard standoffs into the end covers as so:
 

 

 
Having done this with all 4, move the end covers to the middle of 3 slots (socket specific):
 

 

 

 
This assembly can now go over the motherboard you have. Let’s take a look with an m-ITX board:
 

 

 
Now use the other set of standoffs/posts (not the LGA 2011 ones) which have a washer already on them and screw them over these:
 

 
Once this is done, you simply follow the same step as before. I prefer a single grain of TIM here as opposed to a thin line down the middle with the LGA 2011/2011-3 CPUs.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
There are no issues with RAM height or PCI-E lanes here- hence why I said it will be down to your specific components in the end. Once this is done, then simply connect the fan to any PWM header on your motherboard- preferably the CPU fan header itself. Now let’s see how the cooler performs.
 
PERFORMANCE TESTING


First up, the fan itself:
 
The fan was hooked up to a single header on an Aquacomputer Aquero 6 XT which was used to monitor fan speed and control it via PWM from 100-40% where the duty cycle ended. Linear airflow was measured using an Extech 45158 Thermo-Anemometer 6″ away from the fan furthest away such that it measured the airflow in feet per minute through the radiator. Fan noise was measured in an anechoic chamber of size 5′ x 8′ with a sound probe held 6″ away from the furthest fan to measure the sound volume in dBA accordingly.
 

 
Now I did know that the fan was a silent/slow speed one meant for quiet operation but I was pretty disappointed by that PWM duty cycle though, it is not even linear anywhere and the control range is very small going from 1124 RPM at 100% to 709 RPM at 55%. The max RPM is also outside the +/- 10% standard deviation from the advertised max RPM of 1300 RPM which is not good to see. Even the retail Blade Master 120 fan had a similar issue. This hurts the cooler in that the airflow is so low to begin with at 100% and quickly dips below the reliable detection limits of my anemometer. It is quiet for sure, but if you take a look at my fan reviews done so far for 120mm fans there are definitely better fan options available from both a noise and airflow point of view. This does not mean that the stock fan is inadequate though- that heatsink is absolutely massive and even the little air that passes through it combined with the large surface area available will come in very handy thermally.
 
Next up, thermal performance:
 
To find out how this performs as a cooler, I did thermal tests on 3 systems:
 
8 core: Intel i7 5960x (4.2 GHz at 1.2 Vcore) with quad channel DDR4 memory
(a) Fan at 50% (Test 1)
(b) Fan at 100% (Test 2)
 
4 core: Intel i7 4770k (4.5 GHz at 1.25 Vcore) with dual channel DDR3 memory
(a) Fan at 50% (Test 3)
(b) Fan at 100% (Test 4)
 
2 core: Intel Pentium G3258 (4.5 Ghz at 1.2 Vcore) with dual channel DDR3 memory
(a) Fan at 50% (Test 5)
(b) Fan at 100% (Test 6)
 
Each test was done in a climate controlled hotbox at 25 ºC ambient but the results will still be reported in terms of a delta T (component – ambient) in ºC. The ambient temperature should be nearly the same throughout the box with a +/- 0.25 ºC variability at most but still the ambient temperature sensor was held in front of the intake fan as should be the case with CPU coolers in my opinion. Each test/scenario was repeated three times and the average value taken to account of possible issues with mounting and TIM. Speaking of TIM, the stock TIM provided was used and cure time was accounted for by measuring values after steady state was achieved post burning in with an Intel XTU run. Realtemp was used to measure the core temperatures.
 

 
So there we go, even with the fan not necessarily being the best and despite the TIM spread on the LGA 2011-3 socket not being optimum, the cooler does a pretty good job. As with all air coolers though, keep in mind that case airflow is key. Poor case airflow can result in the intake air temperature being more than the ambient temperature which then affects the cooler performance.
 
In order to compare the cooler with others, this is the scenario I chose: Intel i7 4770k at 4.5 Ghz, 1.25 Vcore, and everything set to full speed. I am not going to have any common components or fans. My reasoning for this is that this is a test of the cooler unit and not just the heatsink or radiator.
 

 
I should say right away that each cooler has its own strengths and weaknesses so please do read the individual cooler reviews if possible. Also note that the CLC coolers come with pre-installed TIM which is good for a single application only so I had no resort but to use my own TIM which is likely better than the stock TIM that comes with other coolers such as this very one. Despite all this, we see that the Hyper 612 Ver. 2 does a good job hanging on to the other coolers while being significantly quieter. Just goes back to the whole point of the user being able to replace the fan and go cooler/louder/quieter/hotter as they wish. But Cooler Master intended this to be a low noise solution and I have to say they did do just that.
 
CONCLUSION
 
The Cooler Master Hyper 612 Ver. 2 comes in at $45.99 in the USA and £39.95 inclusive of VAT in the UK as of the date of this article. Barring the Silverstone AR02, it is the least expensive of the coolers tested out so far. The performance could likely have been better with a flat copper shim, especially given the TIM spread on the larger LGA 2011-3 CPU, but it hangs in with the other coolers very well while being the quietest one by far. This can be attributed to the fan which focused more on noise than airflow, but the massive heatsink and well thought out fin/heatpipe layout does help out.
 
Packaging was very well done, but care must be taken not to loose the larger than average number of components here. Both the solutions for mounting the fan were not flawless, and installation is not tool-free if you wish to go about it properly.
 
Given how it uses a standard 25mm thick 120mm fan, users can replace it for one that better suits their needs. This will not change the 2 year warranty on the cooler though, one thing that makes little sense seeing how the fan as a rifle bearing that is supposed to be a long life bearing. With the price differential being in its favor, one can buy a replacement fan and still come out with a lower cost than other coolers. Perhaps the new Cooler Master Silencio 120mm fans if/when they are sold separately? Either way, Cooler Master has again done a good job in terms of providing something that holds true to the main tagline of “low noise operation” without a lot of compromise and at a price point that makes it easy to recommend this cooler to people. Just be aware of the potential issues of RAM and PCI-E device compatibility while also noting that case airflow affects air coolers a lot more than liquid coolers.