Cooler Master MasterAir G100M Low Profile CPU Cooler Review

Main review

All testing was done with a Intel i5 6500 and a GTX 1080ti in the Cooler Master MasterBox Lite 5 case. Some testing was done with the front panel removed to test the G100M without and thermal bottlenecks.

Looks

While looks are entirely up to personal taste I think this is one of the best looking air coolers around.

I also like the fully programmable RGB, While my motherboard doesn’t support software RGB control the cooler does support most of the most popular software RGB control.

I used the included hardware RGB controller and it worked extremely well letting you cycle through multiple colors and animations (Due to video upload limits I can’t show animations in this review but check outCooler Masterswebsite for a demo on lighting animations.)

Overall I really love the look of this cooler and to me it’s the best looking air cooler I’ve ever seen so looks get me a 5/5 on the looks side.

Performance with front case cover on

While idling on the home-screen we see temps in the low to mid 30s. Not bad for a low profile cooler.

With a overnight CPU only load test we see max temps in the uper 50s and low 60s. While this isnt too hot its still kind of warm considering the lower TDP of a 6500.

在双重压力test of both the GPU and CPU for 1.5HRS temps get pretty warm on the cpu maxing out in the low 70s.

Now for some real life gaming test. This is from roughly 10 minute test of running around Novigrad in The Witcher 3. I like using this test since Novigrad tends to max out both the GPU and CPU a lot. Temps were slightly lower than when doing a synthetic load test but the CPU still got fairly warm maxing out in the mid 60s.

After roughly 20 minutes of PUBG temps hit the upper 50s and lower 60s. Not bad but still warm.

Overall the G100M performed pretty good for a low profile cooler. It’s not the best performing air cooler ever but considering the small form factor it is understandable.

My i5 6500 never had any issues with thermal throttling even with the added heat of a fully stressed 1080ti but it does seem like the G100M has a difficult time dealing with the heat that my graphics card expels into the case. Just keep that in mind when planning a build with this cooler.

Performance with front panel off

I decided to run a few selected test without the cases front panel off even though in real use not many people would do this.

When only stressing the CPU I saw a drop of about 5C after a 20 minute stress test when compared to a 20 minute CPU stress test with the front panel on.

Now for some real life gaming test. This is from roughly 10 minute test of running around Novigrad in The Witcher 3. I like using this test since Novigrad tends to max out both the GPU and CPU a lot. Temps were slightly lower than when doing a synthetic load test but the CPU still got fairly warm maxing out in the mid 60s.

With the front panel off I saw drops around 5C across the board, While that is decent I still wouldn’t recommend it due to the added dust that will get into your case.

Now onto the conclusion!