Hyper 212 Evo vs. Seidon 120V w/Noctua NF-P12

[Valantar]

For my upcoming build, I'm trying to make it as cool and quiet running for general usage as possible, while still allowing for periodic overclocking (for gaming and other heavy workloads) - while still staying in a relatively tight budget. I've been planning to use the CM Hyper 212 EVO, due to its seemingly unbeatable price/performance ratio and good acoustic traits. However, recently I've seen the CM Seidon 120V V2 on sale repeatedly for roughly the same price as the EVO. Since the V2 seems to be quite new (I can't even find it on the CM site), I haven't found any reviews of it, but I've seen that the original 120V could get quite noisy. The thermal performance still seems to be good, though. From what I'm able to suss out, the differences between the two seem minor, but it seems like the fan has been updated roughly same rpm range, but it looks different, and the static pressure is rated lower). I also have an old Noctua NF-P12 fan lying around unused, which should be perfectly suited to a water cooling rig.

So my question is this: Should I go for the 212 EVO, or would I be better off with a (relatively cheap) AIO water cooler with an expensive fan?


The build will either be in a Bitfenix Prodigy or a Silverstone FT03, so airflow and cooling in general is not an issue.

 

[PliotronX]

While the 212 fan is on PWM and on "performance" or "max" profile, it is audible-but-not-delta-noisy. If the lower speed profiles keep your temps fine for the clocks you need, I do not see a reason for the hassle nor risk for a leak. The 212 does leave something to be desired on hotter workloads but my vote is to stick with it. With a super quiet fan, the performance from an AiO may just be disappointing for the pricetag.

 

[Valantar]

Bear in mind, the Noctua is very quiet (less than 20db max), but still beats most other fans in both static pressure and air flow. While mine isn't the newest revision (so I can't find its exact specs), the current one is 300-1300rpm, 92,3m3/h, 19,8db(a) and 1,68mm H2O. From what I've read, that beats the included fans even on most high-end AIOs. On the other hand, I might just fit the Noctua to the 212 as well.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Bear in mind, the Noctua is very quiet (less than 20db max), but still beats most other fans in both static pressure and air flow. While mine isn't the newest revision (so I can't find its exact specs), the current one is 300-1300rpm, 92,3m3/h, 19,8db(a) and 1,68mm H2O. From what I've read, that beats the included fans even on most high-end AIOs. On the other hand, I might just fit the Noctua to the 212 as well.

The 212 EVO is a great cooler for the price, but you'd get seriously better performance with an EVGA ACX. I say this, first, based on a comparison of "comparison reviews" and their lab tests, building a more comprehensive list of cooler performances in a rank-order. On my own system(s), with 140W of thermal power at load, the ACX beats the NH-D14 by 6C degrees. This would mean an 11C improvement over the 212 EVO. I verified the ACX cooler's performance on my own -- to test a performance-review comparison.

The ACX would only be $20+ more than the CM 212 EVO. By comparison, an AiO cooler is likely to exceed either option in price, and the ACX is no less likely to match or exceed the performance of some AiO's. The ACX has a similar size and shape of the EVO -- albeit just a tad bigger. And I'd replace the LED fan with something like a Noctua iPPC, thermally controlled from the mobo CPU_FAN port.

But the OP could pick from any number of fans -- or coolers for that matter.

 

[WaTaGuMp]

Buy the cheapest, you are on a budget, ALL of them will give you enough cooling, period end of story. You don't need to have the lowest possible temps to have a nice PC, I have been saying this for years. I have been up and down the cooling gig, from liquid to high end coolers, NONE of them played a factor in having a great rig and having it last, it just came down to wasting money.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Buy the cheapest, you are on a budget, ALL of them will give you enough cooling, period end of story. You don't need to have the lowest possible temps to have a nice PC, I have been saying this for years. I have been up and down the cooling gig, from liquid to high end coolers, NONE of them played a factor in having a great rig and having it last, it just came down to wasting money.

No less valid as a point of view. And truth is -- he didn't say anything specific about his hardware except for the case. Is he planning to overclock? He doesn't say so. So -- yeah -- in that sense, why spend extra? Even $20-worth.

 

[WaTaGuMp]

No less valid as a point of view. And truth is -- he didn't say anything specific about his hardware except for the case. Is he planning to overclock? He doesn't say so. So -- yeah -- in that sense, why spend extra? Even $20-worth.

Even if he is going to overclock, I am at 4.6 running an EVO. I have done 5.0 on liquid, but really no need. Voltage kills CPU's, not the cooler being used. Even when I had issue with my pump dying on liquid, the PC just shut down, no harm done to the CPU.

 

[Valantar]

Actually, I did mention OC'ing, although in passing. I'm mainly looking for the build to be as quiet as possible during day-to-day use, running an i5-4690 (or equivalent Broadwell/Skylake if I choose to wait), but I want the ability to apply a (moderate) OC profile for gaming and other heavy use without it either overheating or sounding like a hair dryer. I'm planning for this build to last a few years (my current one is closing in on its sixth birthday (mb+cpu+ram, the GPU has been upgraded)), so I have no interest in extreme OC'ing or anything else that will kill longevity. Also, of course, I want a cooler that will run problem-free for as long as possible with minimal maintenance.

 

[Cerb]

If the Noctua fan is not PWM, make sure you can use voltage control for the CPU fan header, and do so down to fairly low voltages.

Or, choose a more suitable cooler to start with. An AC I30, FI, costs not much more than a 212, and likely won't need a fan replacement. Pretty much all of the cheaper tower coolers are good up past 100W, and you'll need to overvolt, and set your power limits higher, to get over that, with anything but a bad sample of an i7-4790K.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Even if he is going to overclock, I am at 4.6 running an EVO. I have done 5.0 on liquid, but really no need. Voltage kills CPU's, not the cooler being used. Even when I had issue with my pump dying on liquid, the PC just shut down, no harm done to the CPU.

You're probably right. I haven't even taken the swing to custom-water or even AiO yet, but every time I built a rig, I'd sort through the reviews for dozens of heatpipe coolers and just pick the top end for the performance. Then I'd figure out a way to squeeze more Celsius reductions.

The odd thing about the EVGA cooler -- no, "odd things" plural: they were never known for this specialty, they designed the cooler with a certain "bling" in mind, and you can't mount a fan on the rear side of it. But it's 6C-worth better performance than the massive D14, and probably 2 to 3C better than the D15 -- at between 50% and 75% of the price.

Ultimately, if it's a matter of thermal stress, it would really depend on how much running-time the system spends at some temperature. There's nothing "real-world" about stress-test temperatures, and so far, most games I've toyed hardly come close to that.

And I'm pretty sure I could as easily have installed a 212+ or EVO. I just don't like my stress-test temperatures above 80C. Again -- when would it ever reach that level in normal use?

Actually, I did mention OC'ing, although in passing. I'm mainly looking for the build to be as quiet as possible during day-to-day use, running an i5-4690 (or equivalent Broadwell/Skylake if I choose to wait), but I want the ability to apply a (moderate) OC profile for gaming and other heavy use without it either overheating or sounding like a hair dryer. I'm planning for this build to last a few years (my current one is closing in on its sixth birthday (mb+cpu+ram, the GPU has been upgraded)), so I have no interest in extreme OC'ing or anything else that will kill longevity. Also, of course, I want a cooler that will run problem-free for as long as possible with minimal maintenance.

"Hairdryer" I understand. Believe it or not, I've got Gentle Typhoon AP-30's as exhaust fans on two rigs. Those things are rated at 4,200 RPM, but I've tuned the thermal-fan-control so that they never exceed 3,400. If they reach 3,400, then temperatures are going over 70C. But hairdryer, it's not. Of course -- one must distinguish between two hairdryer sounds: the air-turbulence, and the motor. On the upper side of my temperature curve, the air-turbulent white-noise needs "attention" to hear, and probably matches the room AC vent. About 90% of the time, the rigs are dead-quiet.

It's a balance between WaTaGuMp's perspective and my own, and I don't think you can dismiss either. Of course, we all know that a heatpipe cooler is "low-maintenance." As far as the AP-30's are concerned, my threads over the last year or so explain a lot of tedium I've suffered to kill whatever noise I can, and most people dislike tedium as much as they dislike noise . . so . . .

 

[Valantar]

Both the EVGA ACX and the AC i30 seem like good alternatives - especially the i30, since the price more or less matches the Evo. Too bad I can't find any reviews that directly compare them (a pity most review sites still test cpu coolers in a computer rather than with some kind of controlled electronic load, as they have to throw out all their cooler results every time they update the test rig...). The ACX is a bit expensive (seems like only one store in Norway sells it, bet that drives the price up), but definitely worth considering. Of course that means I have to start looking at clearances (RAM, 1st PCIe slot) all over again, but I guess that's what comes with planning an ITX build.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Both the EVGA ACX and the AC i30 seem like good alternatives - especially the i30, since the price more or less matches the Evo. Too bad I can't find any reviews that directly compare them (a pity most review sites still test cpu coolers in a computer rather than with some kind of controlled electronic load, as they have to throw out all their cooler results every time they update the test rig...). The ACX is a bit expensive (seems like only one store in Norway sells it, bet that drives the price up), but definitely worth considering. Of course that means I have to start looking at clearances (RAM, 1st PCIe slot) all over again, but I guess that's what comes with planning an ITX build.

Yup. Planning.

I forgot to mention that the ACX cooler had been introduced by EVGA earlier as the "EVGA SuperClock" cooler. Different model-names; identically the same.

Just a quick web-search turns up the Hardware Secrets comparison review I found for the EVGA, and an XBit Labs comparison review for the Arctic Freezer i30. In some ways, I'm a bit disappointed with XBit -- a reliable source -- for the way they presented data. They include dBA data with the thermal statistics in bar charts, mixing apples (dBA) and oranges (Celsius degrees) on the same bar. In one table, it appears as though the NH-D14 outperforms the i30 by a few degrees C; in a bar-graph already mentioned, the i30 outperforms the D14 by a couple C degrees.

Here are the links, and you can scrutinize them to your heart's content:

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/coolers/display/arctic-freezer-i30.html#sect0

http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/EVGA-Superclock-CPU-Cooler-Review/1336/6

My conclusion thus far: the Freezer i30 should be fine for you, although I see the same problem with it which I noted for the EVGA ACX (SuperClock): the "bling" design makes it impossible to mount a fan on the back side.

Two or more comparison reviews provide a nice tool, if none of them seem confusing. The old "Transitivity Axiom" applies: "If A > B and B >C, then A > C" and similar incarnations of the same idea.

I'm still reasonably certain that the ACX/[SuperClock] outperforms both the other two, but you should do fine with the i30. I'll even bet the mounting mechanism is better than that for the EVGA. And of course, your price and availability constraints are important.

 

[Valantar]

I found the same reviews, and it looks like both perform admirably, so now it should just come down to which fits my budget and my motherboard, and availability of course. Mounting a second fan isn't really interesting to me - every single review I've seen doing that (on the 212 Evo, for example) shows a maximum of 2-3 degrees lower temperatures with a noticeable increase in noise. For my usage, that's not worth it. Besides, if I end up with the FT03, airflow in the case should more than make up for this (it hase an intake fan angled towards the CPU area, and an exhaust directly above/behind it.

The main challenge now is seeing if these coolers clear the RAM slots (and don't interfere with the PCIe slot) on either an ASrock Z97E-ITX or an Asus Z97I-Plus, and if they can be mounted in the right orientation on these boards (i.e. with the fan blowing towards the I/O shield). Back to work, I guess.