Antec Kühler H1200 Pro AIO Cooler Review

Introduction & Closer Look

Having celebrated their 30^th anniversary last year, Antec are an extremely well established player in the computer component industry. Whilst perhaps best known for their cases and power supplies, their Antec Advance range expands their product offering to include much more… including CPU coolers.

In this review we’ll be putting the H1200 Pro through its paces, and seeing if it can make any impact on our ever expanding Play3r leader board for coolers.

First impressions are that Antec have followed a fairly standard design for the H1200. Despite the hoses being completely clad in hard plastic, there is a fair amount of flex in them. The 240mm radiator is an all-black affair, with just a small Antec logo for branding, and it feels nice & weighty. The blue led fans seem to be really well made, but this was expected as this has been a strong point in the past for Antec.

The pump on the H1200 has a fairly small footprint compared to some AIO’s on the market today, and has a fairly low profile. The design itself is pretty bald though for my taste. If there is one area where a manufacturer can add a little bling to an AIO cooler, it’s the CPU block/pump, but the design here is disappointing compared to some we have seen. Indented Antec text is set into the top of the block, with nothing else really catching the eye… except for some exposed screw heads!

Flipping the pump over we can see that the copper base is huge, and fills the whole base of the CPU block.

The H1200 has support for all the major Intel and AMD sockets, but not AM4 out of the box unfortunately. They are as follows:

Intel

LGA 775, 1150, 1151, 1155, 1156, 1366, 2011

AMD

AM2, AM2+, AM3, AM3+, FM1 & FM2

Specifications

• Noise Level Range of Fan: 16 —35dBA (Max)
• Fan Speed: 600 – 1800 ±100 RPM
• Radiator Dimensions: 271 mm (H) x 120 mm (W) x 25 mm (D)
• Fan Size: 120 mm x 120 mm x 25 mm
• Cold Plate Height: 35mm
• Tube Lengths: 315mm
• Cooling Liquid: Safe environmentally friendly, anti-corrosive. RoHS -compliant
• Cooler/Radiator Net Weight: 68 KG
• Airflow: 9CFM (Max)
• Static pressure: 19mmH20 (Max)
• Power Draw: 6W

Thermal Performance

Since our previous cooling reviews prior to November 2016, we have decided to update the method accordingly for better and consistent results. It isn’t ideal running Prime95 for a prolonged period of time and if you get called away to do something, it could be left running for much longer than needed. Our new methodology involves running a very stressful multi-threaded performance benchmark called ROG RealBench.

It should also be noted that the reason we omit acoustic/noise testing is due to an inaccuracy within the readings and method. To provide truly accurate readings, you need a lab setting with the same ambient noise on an hour by hour, day by day and week by week basis. As ambient noise can increase at different times of the day, we believe that it’s pointless providing noise testing if we can’t measure consistent and accurate data due to our office being a busy setting.

Test Setup

• CPU – Intel Core i7 6700k – (4.2GHz at 1.25v & 4.5GHz at 1.38v)
• Motherboard – Asus ROG Maximus VIII Hero Alpha
• GPU – ASUS GTX 1060 STRIX
• RAM – Crucial Ballistix Elite 16GB DDR4 3000MHz
• PSU – BeQuiet Dark Power Pro 11 1000w
• SSD – Crucial MX300 525GB SSD
• Case – Cooler Master Test Bench V2

Idle Testing Methodology

To test each cooler at idle, the minimum temperature is taken after leaving the PC with only start-up programs on Windows 10 being allowed to run for 5 minutes. After this, the minimum temperature with the core temperature being offset against the room temperature; thus achieving delta.

Load Testing Methodology

To load test, we run RealBench while selecting the heavy multitasking benchmark only. We run this a maximum of 3 times concurrently and the maximum temperature recorded is taken. This temperature is deducted from the current room temperature and our final delta temperature is provided.

Results

Conclusion

When unboxing the Antec H1200 Pro, I wasn’t inspired by the design in the slightest. I checked the price online, to find that it could be bought for £69.95 from Overclockers UK. That’s a fairly competitive price for a 240mm AIO cooler… so I thought if it performs fairly well, it could be a half decent purchase. Well, as you can see by the results above, this is one serious contender on performance alone! Shall we break down our thoughts on the H1200 Pro, and give it an award?

Performance

The graphs above speak for themselves… the Antec H1200 Pro pushed aside every other cooler we have seen to date at Play3r, and sits proudly the top of every single chart! The highlight of its performance was besting the previous delta at 4.5Ghz under load by 1.4 degrees Celsius!

Design

As mentioned before, the H1200 doesn’t win any awards for breaking new ground in the design department… but to be perfectly honest, there’s little you can do with an AIO cooler to make it hugely different from the pack. It also only comes with blue LEDs, which is going to limit its appeal to some buyers.

Value

Antec have priced the H1200 Pro pretty competitively. It’s not the cheapest 2400 AIO, but it sits at the lower end of the pricing scale for a cooler of this size. Pound for pound though, the performance that this delivers for the money it costs, is very good value indeed.

Final Thoughts

There we have it, we have a new king of the Play3r CPU cooler chart… and I have to admit for feeling a little guilty too. I was a bit underwhelmed by the design, and then proceeded to expect nothing special from the Antec H1200 Pro whilst running the tests. How it performed though firmly put me in my place! You would think I would know better wouldn’t you? Just because it’s not all bling & RGB, doesn’t mean that it doesn’t do the job it was designed to do.

I have to be critical about one thing though, and that’s the manual. Fitting it isn’t rocket science, but if you do need to read the user manual… be prepared for this!

If it wasn’t already obvious, the Antec H1200 Pro gets the Play3r Gold Award. No other cooler we have tested has been better… and this is the new benchmark that all other coolers will be judged against.

Massive thanks to Antec for sending the H1200 Pro in for review.