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[nextpage title=”Introduction”]

This time we tested the Hyper 101 CPU cooler from Cooler Master, which has a tower heatsink, two heatpipes and an 80-mm fan. Check it out!

Cooler Master sells three versions of this product: the Hyper 101A, which fits only AMD processors, the Hyper 101i, for Intel socket LGA775 and 1155/1156 CPUs, and the Hyper 101 Universal, which includes clips for both platforms. It also can be found with two kinds of fan, one with PWM speed control and another without this feature. The version we are reviewing is the Hyper 101 Universal with PWM fan.

The Hyper 101 box is small, with a window at the front where you can see part of the cooler, as you can check in Figure 1.

Figure 1: Package

In Figure 2, you can see what comes inside the box: a thermal compound tube, manual, the cooler itself and installation clips. It also comes with the hardware necessary to install a second fan.

Figure 2: Accessories

In Figure 3, you can see the Cooler Master Hyper 101.

Figure 3: The Cooler Master Hyper 101 CPU cooler

In the next pages, you will see this cooler in detail.

[nextpage title=”The Cooler Master Hyper 101″]

In Figure 4, you see the front of the cooler. The 80-mm fan covers all its front.

Figure 4: Front view

In Figure 5, you can check the side of the cooler, where you see the heatpipes.

Figure 5: Side view

In Figure 6, you check the cooler rear side. Note that the heatpipes have a real U shape.

Figure 6: Rear view

In Figure 7, you can see the top of the cooler, where you see the rectangular shape of the fins.

Figure 7: Top view

[nextpage title=”The Cooler Master Hyper 101 (Cont’d)”]In Figure 8, you see the base of the cooler, which has no mirror-like aspect. The direct-touch design (where the heatpipes touch the CPU directly) is good, but we think that it would be better if the heatpipes were closer to the center of the base, where is the point the CPU produces more heat.

Figure 8: Base

In Figure 9, you see the cooler without the fan. As we mentioned before, it comes with only one fan, but you can install a second one (the cooler comes with the hardware to install this second fan).

Figure 9: Heatsink

In Figure 10 you see the 80-mm fan. It is attached to two holders that are installed on the heatsink by pressure. There are also small rubber pads that help absorbing vibrations generated by the fan.

Figure 10: Fan

[nextpage title=”Installation”]

In Figure 11, you see the clip used to install the Hyper 101 on AMD CPUs.

Figure 11: AMD clip

In Figure 12, you see the base of the cooler with the Intel clips screwed in place. Those clips support socket LGA775, 1155, and 1156 CPUs.

Figure 12: Intel clips installed

In Figure 13, you can see the cooler installed in our computer.

Figure 13: Installed in our system

[nextpage title=”How We Tested”]

We tested the cooler with a Core i7-860 CPU (quad-core, 2.8 GHz), which is a socket LGA1156 processor with a 95 W TDP (Thermal Design Power). In order to get higher thermal dissipation, we overclocked it to 3.3 GHz (150 MHz base clock and 22x multiplier), keeping the standard core voltage (Vcore), which was the maximum stable overclock we could make with the stock cooler. Keep in mind that we could have raised the CPU clock more, but to include the stock cooler in our comparison, we needed to use this moderate overclock.

We measured noise and temperature with the CPU idle and under full load. In order to get 100% CPU usage in all threads, we ran Prime 95 25.11 (in this version, the software uses all available threads) with the "In-place Large FFTs" option.

We compared the tested cooler to the Intel stock cooler with a copper base (included with the CPU), as well as with other coolers. Note that in the past, we tested coolers with a socket LGA775 CPU, and we retested some "old" coolers with this new methodology. This means you can find different values in older reviews than the values you will read in the next page. Every cooler was tested with the thermal compound that accompanies it.

Room temperature measurements were taken with a digital t
hermometer. The core temperature was read with the SpeedFan program (available from the CPU thermal sensors), using an arithmetic average of the core temperature readings. During the tests, the left panel of the case was open.

The sound pressure level (SPL) was measured with a digital noise meter, with its sensor placed 4" (10 cm) from the fan. We turned off the case and video board cooler fans so they wouldn’t interfere with the results. This measurement is only for comparison purposes because a precise SPL measurement needs to be made inside an acoustically insulated room with no other noise sources, which is not the case here.

Hardware Configuration

• Processor: Core i7-860
• Motherboard: Gigabyte P55A-UD6
• Memory: 2 GB Markvision (DDR3-1333/PC3-10700 with 9-9-9-22 timings), configured at 1,200 MHz
• Hard disk: Seagate Barracuda XT 2 TB
• Video card: Zotac GeForce GTS 250
• Video resolution: 1680×1050
• Video monitor: Samsung Syncmaster 2232BW Plus
• Power supply: Seventeam ST-550P-AM
• Case: 3RSystem L-1100 T.REX Cool

Operating System Configuration

• Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit

Software Used

• Prime95
• SpeedFan

Error Margin

We adopted a 2 °C error margin, meaning temperature differences below 2 °C are considered irrelevant.

[nextpage title=”Our Tests”]

The table below presents the results of our measurements. We repeated the same test on all coolers listed below. Each measurement was taken with the CPU at idle and at full load. In the models with a fan supporting PWM, the motherboard controlled the fan speed according to core load and temperature. On coolers with an integrated fan controller, the fan was set at the minimum speed on the idle test and at full speed on the full load test.

		Idle Processor			Processor at Full Load
Cooler	Room Temp.	Noise	Speed	Core Temp.	Noise	Speed	Core Temp.
Intel stock (socket LGA1156)	14 °C	44 dBA	1700 rpm	46 °C	54 dBA	2500 rpm	90 °C
Cooler Master Hyper TX3 G1	14 °C	47 dBA	2050 rpm	33 °C	56 dBA	2900 rpm	62 °C
Zalman CNPS10X Extreme	14 °C	45 dBA	1400 rpm	27 °C	53 dBA	1950 rpm	51 °C
Thermaltake Silent 1156	14 °C	44 dBA	1200 rpm	38 °C	49 dBA	1750 rpm	69 °C
Noctua NH-D14	14 °C	49 dBA	1250 rpm	27 °C	49 dBA	1250 rpm	53 °C
Zalman CNPS10X Performa	14 °C	46 dBA	1500 rpm	28 °C	52 dBA	1950 rpm	54 °C
Prolimatech Megahalems	14 °C	40 dBA	750 rpm	27 °C	60 dBA	2550 rpm	50 °C
Thermaltake Frio	14 °C	46 dBA	1450 rpm	27 °C	60 dBA	2500 rpm	50 °C
Prolimatech Samuel 17	14 °C	40 dBA	750 rpm	40 °C	60 dBA	2550 rpm	63 °C
Zalman CNPS8000A	18 °C	43 dBA	1400 rpm	39 °C	54 dBA	2500 rpm	70 °C
Spire TherMax Eclipse II	14 °C	55 dBA	2200 rpm	28 °C	55 dBA	2200 rpm	53 °C
Scythe Ninja3	17 °C	39 dBA	700 rpm	32 °C	55 dBA	1800 rpm	57 °C
Corsair A50	18 °C	52 dBA	1900 rpm	33 °C	52 dBA	1900 rpm	60 °C
Thermaltake Jing	18 °C	44 dBA	850 rpm	34 °C	49 dBA	1300 rpm	60 °C
GlacialTech Alaska	18 °C	43 dBA	1150 rpm	36 °C	51 dBA	1600 rpm	60 °C
Deepcool Gamer Storm	18 °C	43 dBA	1100 rpm	35 °C	48 dBA	1600 rpm	62 °C
Corsair A70	26 °C	56 dBA	1900 rpm	40 °C	56 dBA	1900 rpm	65 °C
Deepcool Ice Blade Pro	23 °C	45 dBA	1200 rpm	38 °C	52 dBA	1500 rpm	64 °C
AC Freezer 7 Pro Rev. 2	23 °C	47 dBA	1750 rpm	44 °C	51 dBA	2100 rpm	77 °C
Corsair H70	27 °C	60 dBA	1900 rpm	37 °C	60 dBA	1900 rpm	61 °C
Zalman CNPS9900 Max	27 °C	55 dBA	1600 rpm	38 °C	58 dBA	1750 rpm	63 °C
Arctic Cooling Freezer 11 LP	25 °C	45 dBA	1700 rpm	51 °C	49 dBA	1950 rpm	91 °C
CoolIT Vantage	26 °C	60 dBA	2500 rpm	37 °C	60 dBA	2500 rpm	62 °C
Deepcool Ice Matrix 600	25 °C	46 dBA	1100 rpm	41 °C	53 dBA	1300 rpm	69 °C
Titan Hati	26 °C	46 dBA	1500 rpm	40 °C	57 dBA	2450 rpm	68 °C
Arctic Cooling Freezer 13	27 °C	49 dBA	1950 rpm	41 °C	53 dBA	2300 rpm	70 °C
Noctua NH-C14	26 °C	52 dBA	1300 rpm	37 °C	52 dBA	1300 rpm	61 °C
Intel XTS100H	26 °C	49 dBA	1200 rpm	42 °C	64 dBA	2600 rpm	68 °C
Zalman CNPS5X SZ	23 °C	52 dBA	2250 rpm	38 °C	57 dBA	2950 rpm	69 °C
Thermaltake SlimX3	21 °C	50 dBA	2700 rpm	46 °C	50 dBA	2750 rpm	99 °C
Cooler Master Hyper 101	21 °C	50 dBA	2600 rpm	38 °C	57 dBA	3300 rpm	71 °C

In the graph below, at full load you can see how many degrees Celsius hotter the CPU core is than the air outside the case. The lower this difference, the better is the performance of the cooler.

[nextpage title=”Main Specifications”]

The mai
n features of the Cooler Master Hyper 101 CPU cooler include:

• Application: Socket LGA775, 1155, 1156, AM3, AM2+, AM2, 940, and 939 processors
• Fins: Aluminum
• Base: Aluminum, with heatpipes directly touching the CPU
• Heat-pipes: Two 6-mm copper heatpipes
• Fan: 80 mm
• Nominal fan speed: 3,000 rpm
• Fan air flow: 40.8 cfm
• Maximum power consumption: 3.12 W
• Nominal noise level: 28 dBA
• Weight: 11.1 oz (315 g)
• More information: https://www.coolermaster.com
• Average price in the US*: USD 15.00

* Reseached at Newegg.com on the day we published this review.[nextpage title=”Conclusions”]

The Cooler Master Hyper 101 seems to be the small brother of the Hyper TX3. It has the same basic design, but smaller, with a smaller fan and one less heatpipe. It also costs less, which is good news for users on budget. The good news is that the Hyper 101 performs almost the same as the TX3.

Being an inexpensive, quiet and reasonably good performer, the Cooler Master Hyper 101 CPU cooler has an incredible cost/benefit ratio, thus deserving the Hardware Secrets Bronze Award.