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CPU-only thermal results with PBO enabled: AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D
Without power limits enforced, the hottest CPUs on the market will hit their peak temperature (TJ Max) and thermally throttle with even the strongest of air coolers and even most liquid coolers on the market in intensive stress testing. For the best liquid coolers on the market, the results of this test will be shown using the CPU’s temperature.
However, when the CPU reaches its peak temperature, I’ve measured the CPU package power to determine the maximum wattage cooled, to best compare their performance. It’s important to note that thermal performance can scale differently depending on the CPU it’s being tested with.
We’ll start by looking at the performance of this cooler with AMD’s Ryzen 9 9950X3D CPU, with the disclaimer that I’ve only had a limited amount of time to test coolers with this system.
The results on AMD’s Ryzen 9950X3D were very good, though not as impressive as some of the other results you’ll see below. Despite the smaller amount of comparison data in this chart, we can see that the Hyper 612 Apex manages to outperform Thermalright’s Royal Knight 120SE and is only beaten on the air cooling side by the larger Royal Pretor 130!
CPU-only thermal results with power limits removed: Intel’s i7-14700K
Now let’s switch it up and take a look at how this cooler performs with Intel’s i7-14700K. The performance here is insane, matching many 360mm AIOs. It’s almost able to handle the full heat of the CPU.
I’ve trimmed this list to only show air coolers (omitting liquid cooling results) in order to make it easier to discern the strength of this little single tower air cooler. At 245W cooled, it sits between the performance of ID-Cooling’s Frozen A620 GDL and Thermalright’s fan-favorite Peerless Assassin 140! To see this level of performance from any single tower air cooler, even one with dual fans, is quite impressive!
Maximum noise levels
A cooler’s maximum performance can’t be considered the only key metric, because some coolers run louder or quieter than others. The maximum noise level this cooler operates at is 45.6 dBA. Most will find this an acceptable volume, but some users might want to limit its speed if they are particularly sensitive.
200W Power Limit
My recent reviews have focused more on tests with both the CPU and GPU being stressed, but many of y’all have indicated that you would like to see more CPU-only tests. Listening to that feedback, I’ve tested thermal and noise performance for AMD’s Ryzen 9 9950X3D at stock CPU settings, which limits power consumption to 200W.
Performance here is still very much punching above the single-tower weight class with this lowered power limit, with the Hyper 612 Apex trailing the flagship Royal Pretor 130 by only 1.6 degrees C!
150W CPU + 290W GPU results
Testing a CPU Cooler in isolation is great for synthetic benchmarks, but doesn’t tell the whole story of how it will perform. If your GPU is running a full load, that heat doesn’t just disappear – it makes it harder for your CPU cooler to do its job due to the increased heat within your computer case.
The CPU power limit of 150W was chosen based on the worst CPU power consumption I’ve seen reported in gaming with AMD’s Ryzen 9 9950X3D. My personal experience tells me most games use much lower amounts of power, but this might be biased by the games I play.
The results here line up with our previous ones, with the Hyper 612 Apex trailing our best air cooling results with a dual tower by only 2 degrees C. While this is expected from a cooler with a price tag like the Hyper 612 Apex carries, it isn’t as expected from a cooler with just a single heatsink tower!
140W CPU results
The last round of test results we’ll look at in today’s review is a test with a 140W power limit imposed. This level of power is dramatically easier to cool for most CPU coolers – and as a result, this is the easiest test we’ll run with AMD’s Ryzen 9 9950X3D CPU for most reviews – but I’ve recorded lower power results for comparisons with SFF and air coolers for future reviews.
Interestingly, in this lower power scenario, the Hyper 612 Apex didn’t perform quite as well compared to its competition. Still, it is less than a single degree behind our best air cooling result in the limited comparisons above.
Noise Normalized CPU-only thermal results
Finding the right balance between fan noise levels and cooling performance is important. While running fans at full speed can improve cooling capacity to some extent, the benefits are limited and many users prefer a quieter system. Many users consider these tests to be the most important of all, so let’s take a look at the cooler’s noise-normalized performance.
We’ll be looking at two different, distinct tests. We’ll first look at our traditional noise-equalized results with Intel’s i7-14700K, which places a full CPU load with the cooler’s noise levels set to 38.9 dBA.
The performance of Cooler Master’s Hyper 612 Apex was again extremely impressive for its size, stronger than any other single tower air cooler I’ve seen before – and on par with most modern high-performance, dual-tower air coolers.
To be honest, at first I thought I had screwed something up or perhaps some setting was incorrectly applied. I ended up remounting this cooler three times to be sure, and resetting my BIOS settings, but the results were consistent (within margin of error) on each test.
Now let’s take a look at our noise-equalized tests utilizing AMD’s Ryzen 9 9950X3D CPU. Two changes (in comparison to our first test) have been made to increase the difficulty of this challenge. The noise level of the CPU coolers has been reduced to 37.3 dBA, and I’ve also run a full load on MSI’s RTX 4070 TI Super GPU at the same time to increase the difficulty of this benchmark.
The noise-normalized results with an AMD CPU seem to be even more impressive than on Intel, outperforming the mighty Thermalright Royal Pretor 130, if only by a few watts!
Conclusion
Cooler Master’s Hyper 612 Apex is an impressive cooler that shows that there are still ways air cooling can be improved, delivering thermal performance comparable to some of the best dual-tower air coolers on the market. It has a clean, minimalist aesthetic that will look great in your PC’s case. Its noise-normalized performance is also almost unbelievably strong. The only downside to this cooler is the cost. At $79.99, it is one of the pricier air-cooling options. But then, no one said that compact air cooling perfection was going to be cheap.
