It was inevitable. With various forms of the 212 as fixtures in the market for years and the recent release of the 612S and 612PWM, it was only a matter of time before we saw a '412' mid-range Heatsink/Fan (HSF). That's not meant as a criticism by any means, predictable naming conventions are to be treasured these days in my book.

The Cooler Master 412PWM is outwardly a standard-looking tower HSF with relatively wide fin-spacing for lower turbulence (and hence low-noise) operation, and includes a 120mm PWM fan with CM's ever-striking curved fan blades for a 600-2000 RPM range. The innovation of the 412PWM over other competitor coolers is the patented Continuous Direct Contact technology, which they claim allows better heat transference over typical direct heatpipe contact technology. CDC has also been seen on other recent CM HSF releases such as the 212EVO and recently reviewed and Bronze+Value Award Winning 612S.



A good addition is mounting kits for a full range of CPU sockets including the upcoming LGA2011 present on X79 SandyBridge-E motherboards, though it's not yet clear if it will allow both rear- and upward-exhausting orientations. Bracket-based installation of fans to greatly simplify the process of HSF installation and subsequent cooling augmentation through the use of an additional fan is a nice touch too.

Specifications:



No word on release date and pricing, but the name indicates it'll fit squarely between 212 EVO and 612PWM models in terms of both price and performance at around £25-30. That's a packed market that now also consists of some high-performance coolers which have come down in price over recent years, so it'll be very interesting to see how well it can perform.