Article by: Joe Anderson (Hardware Reviewer)
Edited By: Nathan Glentworth (Owner / Head Editor)
Product was submitted by: Cooler Master
<--CLICK FOR DEALS ON A COOLER MASTER HYPER 212 EVO IN THE UNITED STATES
<--CLICK FOR DEALS ON A COOLER MASTER HYPER 212 EVO IN CANADA
PRODUCT INSTALLATION AND TESTING (cont'd)
Backplate installation is relatively straightforward and easy, but AMD users will have to forgo the OEM retention bracket in favor of the supplied backplate. Next up, we can prepare the cooler and bracket, apply some thermal compound and secure the 212 Evo to the motherboard.
The X-shaped bracket has a center pivot that allows it to fit all the supported socket configurations. A hole and pin on the top of the base helps get the alignment just right, and it's a relatively simple matter to get the bracket and cooler lined up.
After tightening the mounting screws in a criss-cross pattern until they bottom against the springs, the fan can go on the cooler and we're ready to do some testing. The mount is very secure and I had o interference issues whatsoever. The fan clips allow the fan to be mounted anywhere along the cooler to allow for some minor adjustments in case the user does experience clearance issues around the socket.
After plugging the fan in to the PWM motherboard header, we can do some testing.
The following parameters were used throughout testing:
• Arctic Silver 5 TIM used on all coolers.
• Ambient temperature kept at a constant 21C.
• Idle temperatures were recorded after one hour of zero load after booting to the desktop.
• Load temperatures were recorded after one hour of maximum CPU heat testing using OCCT 2.0.
• Core temperatures were logged with OCCT.
• Fan speeds were recorded using SpeedFan (BIOS fan speed control disabled.)
• For both processors, idle and load temperatures were recorded at stock CPU speed (2.4 GHz.) and at a 33% overclock (3.2 GHz.). Vcore was raised by 0.15V during the overclocking runs.
The computer was shut down for a minimum of one hour between tests. During cooling test runs, the rear fan in the test case was shut off.
