Is the 212 Evo still the best value for the money cooler?

khodos · 24 Sep 2014 at 12:25

Hi guys,

Just grabbed a 2500k at a good price and need a decent cooler. Will OC the CPU, but nothing crazy. I saw there is a new 412S, which is quieter but performs a bit worse.

What would you recommend for that price range? I could stretch a bit if there is a closed liquid circuit kit that is actually comparable to the 212 in terms of performance, as I will probably be building a mATX rig in a SG09, and a CLC may help in terms of airflow

Thanks!

los · 24 Sep 2014 at 12:55

If your thinking of doing a mATX build then you probably want to get a low profle cooler or you may struggle fitting it. You will probably get away with an H80i or similar. Do a search and see what people are fitting to that case

khodos · 24 Sep 2014 at 12:56

The case is quite wide, and people even fit noctuas in it so space shouldn't be a problem

doyll · 24 Sep 2014 at 13:29

To answer your question, there are many coolers now that are as good or better for similar or less money.

DeepCool Lucifer is only £28.99
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HS-005-DC&groupid=701&catid=2330&subcat=2781

Phanteks PH-TC12DX is quite good and can be found for as little as thirty five quid.

Raijintek also has some good low cost coolers.

Thermalright TRUE Spirit 120M B/W 120i, TRUE Spirit 140 Power, 140, 140 (B/W) Rev.A are all high twenty's to mid thirty's, as are AXP-200 and Macho 120. Look around a little and see how they perform.

TRUE Spirit 140 (B/W) Rev. A is just being released now.

TRUE Spirit 140 Power with 8mm pipes

TRUE Spirit 120i

Cryorig H5 is just now being released too.

khodos · 24 Sep 2014 at 15:31

Thanks a lot Doyll!

Lucifer looks awesome and it has a great price, but I'm afraid it may be too big for the case/memories. I'm not going to OC the CPU in a couple of months, so I think I will wait until they release CRYORIG H5, which looks awesome (and it seems it will perform better than the Lucifer and will be smaller!)

Dempsey22 · 24 Sep 2014 at 17:34

khodos said:
Thanks a lot Doyll!

Lucifer looks awesome and it has a great price, but I'm afraid it may be too big for the case/memories. I'm not going to OC the CPU in a couple of months, so I think I will wait until they release CRYORIG H5, which looks awesome (and it seems it will perform better than the Lucifer and will be smaller!)

Lucifer is 163mm tall without fan or 168mm with fan. SG09 allows coolers of 165mm. You could probably mount the fan abit lower and get away with it but I'd advise just going with a cooler <= 165mm

khodos · 24 Sep 2014 at 17:51

Dempsey22 said:
Lucifer is 163mm tall without fan or 168mm with fan. SG09 allows coolers of 165mm. You could probably mount the fan abit lower and get away with it but I'd advise just going with a cooler <= 165mm

yep, official max height for the case is 165 but I've seen at least one person who mounted a 168.3mm cooler and he said there still was a gap of 4mm. May take a gamble if the h5 gets postponed etc.

Thanks

doyll · 24 Sep 2014 at 18:26

There is a good Korean review of the H5 Ultimate with many others tested for comparison, including the Lucifer showing 2.4c better then H5
http://forcca.tistory.com/316

But it doesn't look as nice.

r22snapper · 24 Sep 2014 at 22:00

khodos said:
Hi guys,

Just grabbed a 2500k at a good price and need a decent cooler. Will OC the CPU, but nothing crazy. I saw there is a new 412S, which is quieter but performs a bit worse.

What would you recommend for that price range? I could stretch a bit if there is a closed liquid circuit kit that is actually comparable to the 212 in terms of performance, as I will probably be building a mATX rig in a SG09, and a CLC may help in terms of airflow

Thanks!

My 4690k is stock for the moment (just finished building) and the load temps are 50-52c. I will update with overclocked figures when I have them.

r22snapper · 24 Sep 2014 at 22:01

With a 212 evo obviously

khodos · 24 Sep 2014 at 23:23

thanks r22 snapper

doyll, it's funny, because I culd only find one review of the h5, from a german website, and the h5 was better than the lucifer by a couple of degees... I guess we will know more when they release it in europe

doyll · 25 Sep 2014 at 00:06

Every review gets slightly different results. Especially if testing is done inside of a case instead of open bench because testers / reviewers use the room ambient air temp and not the cooler intake air temp. That is a problem because the case airflow into cooler can easily be 5-10c warmer than room ambient. It's like looking at the thermometer outside in the yard to determine what the temperature is in your lounge.
Case in room is house in yard. Temp is different in yard than in house, so how can we expect the temp in room to be the same as in case? Oh! But it's "real world testing".. Bull Pucky! It is only "real world" for that system in that case in that room .. not in our cases with our systems in our rooms.

r22snapper · 25 Sep 2014 at 22:10

OK, quick and dirty results. I have run 4.6 @ 1.27v with max temps under AIDA64 of 81c and 4.8 on 1.3 but in that case I'm touching 89c. Pretty good for a cheap cooler I think.

doyll · 26 Sep 2014 at 07:25

r22snapper said:
OK, quick and dirty results. I have run 4.6 @ 1.27v with max temps under AIDA64 of 81c and 4.8 on 1.3 but in that case I'm touching 89c. Pretty good for a cheap cooler I think.

Indeed.
Seems a good chip too.
212 are not a bad cooler. They were great in their day, but today we have several others just as good or better for same or less money. TRUE Spirit 120, Lucifer, Macho 120, Zaward Vapor 120, to name a few.

r22snapper · 26 Sep 2014 at 10:09

doyll said:
Indeed.
Seems a good chip too.
212 are not a bad cooler. They were great in their day, but today we have several others just as good or better for same or less money. TRUE Spirit 120, Lucifer, Macho 120, Zaward Vapor 120, to name a few.

It does indeed. I went for the 212 because I had used one before on my Q6600 and as installing heat sinks is definitely my least favourite part of building a machine, I wanted to stick to something that I knew!

doyll · 26 Sep 2014 at 12:04

r22snapper said:
It does indeed. I went for the 212 because I had used one before on my Q6600 and as installing heat sinks is definitely my least favourite part of building a machine, I wanted to stick to something that I knew!

LOL.
I can understand that. But some of the new cooler have really nice mounts and installation is a cake walk. Cryorig even has an animated installation guide. It's with the H5 Universal cooler, but is same mount on all their coolers. Noctua is just as easy, as is Phanteks .. and several others only slightly harder in that they use phillips screws instead of thumb screws.

http://www.cryorig.com/news.php?id=23

khodos · 12 Dec 2014 at 16:44

bumping the thread. The lucifer is EOL and none of the suggested above are easily available in the UK or in the £30 mark anymore.

Any other suggestions?

Adam608 · 13 Dec 2014 at 11:07

Just about a 212 Evo for £25 and fitted it to my AM3 to replace the stock cooler so I could push the clock further. Remarkable improvement - my CPU is running now 10-15C cooler and it is significantly quieter too.

Little bit of a fiddle to fit as its so tall that the mobo tray wouldn't slide back in with it fitted, so I had to refit in situ, which was quite tricky.

Otherwise a great investment at just £25!