It has only been a 6 months since our last big clash of the air cooling Titans, and yet here we stand again next to the ring. Ever since the Thermalright SP-94 had obtained the title of best heatsink we have seen multiple companies releasing their newest creations in hope to best the current champ. While some came very close, using a massive heat pipe in the center like Aerocool's DP-102 and TTIC NPH-101, none were able to beat Thermalright's top player.

At the Cebit event in Germany this year we saw more innovative products being prepped for release, one of them came from the Cooler Master camp, a massive copper heatsink using 6 heat pipes and weighing in close to 1kg. This behemoth has all the potential of becoming the new performance king, and today we finally had a chance of inviting the newcomer in, so he could settle his heavy bottom on our test bed. His name tag displayed a short but descriptive inscription: Hyper6 (Full name Hyper 6 KHC-V81).



Heat pipe here heat pipe there, heat pipe everywhere! To stay with the competition heatsink companies had to adapt their line-up and include products which can give you the edge, thanks to heat pipe technology we have seen some very impressive results from air cooled machines. What makes a heat pipe so special you say?



At the site of TTIC there is an excellent explication on how a heat pipes can be of help for cooling your CPU:




So here we have a major corporation with a legendary name leading their 2nd heat pipe player in the ring, how will the Cooler Master Hyper6 stack up to our experienced veteran, the SP-94. For those of you who don't know what the SP-94 is capable of please check this report.

On with the show ->

6 Heat pipes, full copper, 1x80mm, a recipe for success? The Cooler Master does impress when you get the heavy box stuffed into your hands. The packaging is simply stunning, a lot of attention went into it and having to tear it apart to get to the goodies inside can be hard.


Nice packaging




all the goodies included for installation

The Hyper6 has room at each side to fit an 80mm fan, although by the looks of the included mounting material you're supposed to have only one installed. The Cooler Master fan's speed can be adjusted from 1800 to 3000rpm; a useful front bay/rear PCI bracket is included for mounting the little rheostat. To obtain good contact between the heatsink's base and your CPU they also included a tube of thermal paste, infinitely better then those pads.

The included fan is quite noisy at the highest speed setting but moves a lot of air so that can be forgiven. But when turning down the rheobus dial to the lowest setting we hear an unpleasant sound coming from the HSF setup, the fan vibrates at lower RPM and the housing to which it is attached on the Hyper6 starts to make a ringing noise which stops as soon as you lay your hand on the top. Placing rubbers at the top of the heat pipes between fan mounting bracket should resolve this issue. The noise of the Cooler Master at low speed with the ringing sound was almost as taxing as using the Tornado fan at full speed, not a good sign.


The included fan takes power straight from the PSU but also included an RPM monitor to plug into the fan header on the motherboard

The base is smooth as can get, lapping this heatsink will only damage it I think, and the finishing is the best I've ever seen.




The fins of the heatsinks have serrated edges to increase the cooling surface and improve cooling efficiency

The heatsink itself is very big, but not in an obstructive way, the Hyper6 expands in height and towers over your whole main board, if I were an Ant looking for the highest spot on the main board, the Hyper6's cosy top would be it.




As mentioned before, the weight of this heatsink is rather worrying; 1kg of pure copper hanging from your motherboard should be securely fastened. That's why they urge you to remove the default P4 bracket and use their black plate enhanced one.

The Hyper6 can be used on both Intel's P4 platform as AMD's A64 one, providing a nifty back plate and mounting bracket which serves for both. Although you might want to keep an eye out when installing the bracket on your P4 motherboard, as the A64 lips can obstruct some parts on the main board’s backside.


Easy tool less installation, makes placing/removing the Hyper6 a 1 minute job


I ran into some problem with an Asus P4C800 board. It seems the Cooler Master bracket simply doesn’t fit this board unless you remove the AMD lugs. Asus luckily provides their own black plate enhanced P4 bracket, since the test setup was lying flat (desktop style) I used a plug and play bracket which I got from an Abit IS7 for testing.


As you can see, the bracket simply doesn’t fit.

For those doubting if the Cooler Master bracket is any different from a normal Intel one, these 2 photos should clear it up:



Exact same dimensions, no difference at all!

After attaching this big mofo to the motherboard you only have the screw on the FAN and you're done. The fan can only be installed in such manner that air will blow through the fins, the mounting holes make sure of that as it's impossible with the included mounting screws to install the fan the other way around. I had no problems attaching other type of fans to the Hyper6 though and even with a large 38mm Tornado fan the heatsink+fan combo didn't obstruct any items on the motherboard, thumbs up at the research department @ Cooler Master for this.

However the main problem with the Hyper6 is the massive weight, moving your computer around with this heatsink installed is strongly discouraged, one reviewer at MyWORLD Hardware ended up with a dead Abit IS7 after tugging his PC around.

So now that the Hyper6 has gone through our quality and health check we are ready to push him into the ring, where our trusty SP-94 is becoming quite impatient...

Looking at our two contestants made me think of David and Goliath; the already quite beefy SP-94 (~600gr) is simply dwarfed when placed next to the Hyper6 (~1000gr). Does the SP-94 stand a chance against the Hyper6, who has two times the amount of heat pipes and almost double the weight, time to find out.

JMke's Test Setup
CPU	Intel P4 2.4 "C" @ 3 Ghz
Mainboard	Asus P4C800
Cooling	* Cooler Master Hyper6 * Thermalright SP-94
Memory	2 * 256Mb PC3700 OCZ Rev.2
Video	nVidia Geforce 4 Ti4600

Test with included Cooler Master fan


The Hyper6 installed with fan



With both heatsink using the Cooler Master fan at high speed there is no difference, however when running the fan at its slowest setting we see the Hyper6 taking the lead! Cooler Master is marketing the Hyper6 as the ultimate, air cooled, silent heatsink and I guess they have succeeded.


Test with 80mm Tornado fan

The VANTEC Tornado 80mm pushes out an amazing 84CFM. It does this however at a disturbingly high noise rate (55 dBA), meaning that only for benchmarking or gaming in extremely hot environments you could justify the use of this fan.


Vantec Tornado installed on Swiftech MCX478-V


The performance of both heatsinks with the Tornado is quite astonishing, with no clear winner if you look at the maximum temperature obtained


As a final test I pulled the plug of the Cooler Master fan when the CPU was running at full load. The system was configured to shut down when the CPU temperature exceeded 65°C. The SP-94 fell short of 1 minute running time, while it took the Hyper6 a little bit more then 3 minutes before the CPU reached the preset critical temperature. Quite impressive to say the least and it further establishes the fact that this heatsink will excel when used in combination with low noise/cfm fans.

Depending on your motherboard layout, you'll see that the Hyper6 can take practical advantage of any rear output fan installed in your case; as illustrated by the following 2 photos from test systems used by reviewers at Metku and Systemcooling.



Onto the conclusion ->

The king is dead, long live the king! It took 6 heat pipes and 1kg of copper but Cooler Master pulled it off and brought us an SP-94 killer. The sheer size is daunting and this heatsink is targeted directly at the enthusiasts who are looking for the best of the best.



With an expected retail price of $55-60 it tops the SP-94 by ~$10, a fair price if you consider the amount of copper. The Hyper6 is no budget heatsink and should not be judged as one; if you want the most efficient air cooling solution that’s out there right now don’t look any further!

This massive heatsink has some quirks however when it comes down to installation on the P4 platform, modifying the included bracket might be necessary to get it installed on your motherboard. If you go to LANs often you have to consider either carrying your system “desktop style” or removing the heatsink before transport.

All in all I’m very impressed by the excellent job Cooler Master has done with the creation of their new high end heatsink. The finishing is breath taking and makes the Hyper6 “a real piece of work”.

PRO
Extreme performance even with low CFM fans
Easy installation once the bracket is in place
Ability to mount 2x80mm fans if needed (mounting material included for 1x though)

CON
only 80mm support, more silent 90mm fans can not be used
installation of the included bracket can cause some problems on P4 platforms
included fan is too noisy at “low” settting

We would like to thank Joost from Cooler Master for being this patient while we tested this heatsink!



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