Final Thoughts
There are so many people I know that have used Cooler Master’s Hyper Series CPU coolers in their builds. Cooler Master is hoping the same holds true with their new MasterAir Pro series. Cooler Master is pricing these coolers at only $39.99 for the MasterAir Pro 3 and $44.99 for the MasterAir Pro 4. And this is something to keep in mind when it comes to these coolers as they are not the most high performance coolers out there and they are not designed to be. With that said I think Cooler Master has two great coolers for system builders.
With any CPU cooler ease of installation is very important. No one wants to take forever to get a cooler installed, even if it has amazing performance. With the MasterAir Pro series Cooler Master actually gives you two different methods for installation. We went with the X-bracket installation and it took us all of 10 minutes to get everything installed and up and running. With their new fan bracket design removing and reinstalling your fan is simple and you don’t accidentally cut your fingers on the heatsink fins which happens a lot with fan clips. Also the coolers are small and we did not run into any clearance issues.
The next big thing is performance. As I said Cooler Master never designed these coolers to be the most high performance coolers out there. Their price and size reflects that. Performance is good, but if you look at our results obviously not the best. If you are running any chip non-overclocked the MasterAir Pro 4 should be able to handle it no problem. The MasterAir Pro 3 should be able to handle Core i5 and Core i3 chips with ease. Now if you are looking to do any serious overclocking you might want to look at something larger like Cooler Master’s MasterAir Maker 8 air cooler.
Finally it comes down to noise. No one wants their PC to sound like it is about to take off when we put a load on our CPU, and believe me we’ve seen coolers that sound like that! Cooler Master’s MasterFan Pro Air Balance fans are very quiet, even at full load. With the side panel on our Cooler Master MasterCase 5 we couldn’t really hear the coolers at all.
Cooler Master will be selling the MasterAir Pro 4 for $44.99 and the MasterAir Pro 3 for $39.99. At those prices they don’t break the bank and provide adequate cooling for most users. Cooler Master is also backing both coolers with a 5-year warranty.
Pros:
– Easy installation
– Price
– Multiple installation methods
– New fan bracket
– Quiet operation
– 5 year warranty
Cons:
– Performance could be better
