Installation and Operation:
The
Cooler Master Hyper N520 CPU cooler was installed in a system with the following components for this review:
» Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 Dual Core processor
» ASUS P5E64 WS Evolution ATX motherboard
» Leadtek Limited WinFast GTX260 EXTREME+ 896MB video card
» Maxtor MaxLine III 250GB SATA 3Gbps SATA hard drive
» G.Skill Pi Series PC3-12800 1600MHz DDR3 dual channel memory
»
Nesteq EECS 700 Watt power supply
» Windows Vista Home Premium, 64-Bit
The previous page showed what the Intel LGA775 brackets looked like installed on the cooler, which was the first step of the installation. From there the installation isn't really difficult, but it could be much easier. The problem is that a third hand might be useful, as you have to hold the cooler against the board (upside down), while lining up some rubber washers and the backside mounting bracket, and attaching the four nuts with your screwdriver and the special nut driver. There are just a bunch of things to get in place, and you then have to tighten it down. There are plenty of designs out there that are much easier to use, and Cooler Master seems to have settled on this one, since I have also seen it on their Hyper Z600 and Sphere coolers.
The images below show an overview of the Hyper N520 installed on the test system described above. It fits neatly in the valley of coolers attached to the board, and doesn't present any interference issues.
The next set of images take a close up look at the cooler down at the motherboard level.
When I reviewed the Hyper Z600 cooler the documentation made it clear that the backplate was required to support the weight of the cooler. With the Sphere cooler it listed the backplate as being optional. For the Hyper N520 I tried it with and without the backplate and decided I liked it without. I don't know if that is an acceptable installation method since I didn't get instructions, but using some included plastic washers in lieu of the backplate made things work just fine.
