Early Verdict
The MasterAir MA610P is a moderately priced, RGB-lit air cooler with dashing good looks and whisper-quiet operation. If you're looking for maximum cooling performance for the money, though, consider other alternatives.
Pros
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Design and appearance
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RGB color and control
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Near-silent operation
Cons
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Thermal performance
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Features & Specifications
What makes for a prime air cooler that impresses with its looks as much as with its cooling performance? Too often, air coolers sway to one extreme or the other.
Big air coolers are known for their dominating presence mounted atop PC motherboards, sporting large fans, complex cooling towers, and gleaming, serpentine heatpipes that seemingly grow out of the processors they are designed to cool. We are seeing new models making use of RGB-color-controlled lighting that is typically compatible with four-pin RGB-capable motherboards to provide quiet operation while allowing a cascade of 16.7 million colors. Your chosen hue glows from under the cooling shroud, around and through the cooling tower fins, emanating brightly from each fan hub.
Like many of Cooler Master's recent products, its MasterAir MA610P has a sleek, inviting design and a unique ducting shell that encases both cooling fans and much of the cooler itself, when mounted. The heatpipes and the fins of the cooling tower are left unpainted, showing the metallic contrast of bright copper and the muted sheen of aluminum. As a whole, this cooler was designed to look great, and it hits that mark.
The Cooler Master MA610P comes equipped to support most modern sockets for both AMD and Intel, which means there is an ample supply of mounting hardware and bracket-ry included. Cooler Master also provides a small syringe of its Mastergel Pro thermal compound, an RGB Molex power adapter, and an RGB control module for those who may not have a motherboard with a four-pin RGB connector.
The cooler's fans and their mounts create a "clamshell" around the cooling tower itself, clamping onto either side of the cooling fins and snapping the dual MasterFan 120 AB fans into position. For RGB color control, each fan couples to a central splitter within the cooling tower, which also provides illumination of the Cooler Master crest on the top cover.
A single four-pin standard RGB header allows for connectivity with an RGB-supporting motherboard, or it can be connected directly with the included color control module for basic operation. An included fan splitter allows both cooling fans to be controlled using a single four-pin PWM header.
The cooler makes use of six direct-contact copper heatpipes (each of them 6mm in diameter) and an integrated aluminum block to provide mounting support and conductivity of heat off of the CPU. The milling of the heatpipes and block is slightly granular, not polished, and it extends lengthwise down the heatpipes.
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The cooler's base block itself stands approximately an inch tall and is designed also to serve as a heatsink, milled with deep fin channels. Mounting brackets for the appropriate CPU socket are secured through the ears of the block (using small screws), one on each side of the heatpipes. Usually, we see this integrated mounting block simply existing as a flat, milled block of aluminum, providing thermal mass and a way for the cooler to be mounted securely. Here, Cooler Master has designed it into a separate heatsink.
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Garrett Carver is a contributor for Tom’s Hardware, primarily covering thermal compound comparisons and CPU cooling reviews; both air and liquid, including multiple variations of each.
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Mr5oh So basically take an EVO212 add a couple heat pipes, add a couple millimeters of plastic taller... Then cover all the dissipating metal with insulating plastic and make it perform poorly.Reply
Where they messed up is not fitting "gaming" in the name somewhere.
They are going to have to do something about that price, it has no chance competing with Noctua and AIO coolers. Even when looks are a factor, people will just replace the fans or paint the top fins on a better performing cooler. -
FD2Raptor So basically, despite having two 1800 rpm fans, it doesn't cool as well as the Scythe Mugen 5 with just one 1200rpm fan (55/61/23/28 degrees vs 69/83/23/29 degrees) and it also doesn't run as quiet (20.8/12.2 vs 24.3/16.4) and it's also more expensive...Reply
You have literally no reason to buy this cooler unless you really want the RGB. -
lar33mo Sooo.. It might be just me, but I can't see any justification for buying the MA610P. I find it hard to believe that anyone would want to buy something. That doesn't do what it is suppose to do well. Is RGB really that important to anyone, who wants to cool their system without using liquid cooling? I wouldn't buy an expensive, but under performing sports car, because of a great paint job, and a nice interior. I think Cooler Master should rethink the design of the MA610P. What about an improved model called the MA612X, that REALLY, does what we need a cooler to do? RGB.. optional?? :-)Reply