The 212 has been out for how long now? 2007? Sure, it's showing it's age a bit with noise levels, but man... it's just become so ubiquitous and the cost was never huge, it was the go-to for a lot of my builds that weren't going for cutting edge performance.
It's very nice to see this come out and be extremely competitive against what I consider to be the de facto entry-level standard. Great writeup, looks like a decent product. It's amazing how the basic design of these coolers is essentially the same - 4 heat pipes and some fins on a copper block; but they still have so much variance. I suspect we are seeing differences associated with the fans that are provided with the HSFs moreso than anything -- if you used the same fan with each run, I bet the results would be a lot closer. I know you're testing at static RPMs, and I think that's good, but different fan blade designs are going to push different CFM and static head with various noise levels for a given RPM as well. Whichever HSF has more pipes and more useable fin area will win every time if the fans are the same. Not saying you should adjust your testing -- I think testing with the fan provided with the unit is appropriate, just commenting to hear myself talk.
Also, I really appreciate that you have a steady test bench setup. It may not be cutting edge hardware, but I don't think it needs to be - the consistency matters more, especially if you start comparing reviews done today to reviews done 2-3 years from now.
It does make me think about Alder Lake and some of the issues it's having with it's design though... a drawback to this methodology is that you aren't able to identify or account for things like that. However, this is a review of the HSF, not Alder Lake, so I think that drawback is worth the consistency it gets you.