Ok so we're probably a bit late to be doing a 212 EVO review but we included it as part of our Cooler Round up because, after many many years of building systems with it, it's still one of our best selling coolers, and for good reason. It does the job for almost all use cases for under £25, after all these years it still hasn't been toppled from the top spot.
Tech Specs
- Height – 159mm - TDP – 150W - Weight – 465g - Socket Compatibility - LGA 2066 / 2011-v3 / 2011 / 1151 / 1150 / 1155 / 1156 / 1366, AMD® AM4 / AM3+ / AM3 / AM2+ / AM2 / FM2+ / FM2 / FM1 - Included Fan(s) – Wide Range PWM 120mm FanWhat’s in the box?
- CoolerMaster Hyper 212 EVO CPU Cooler - CoolerMaster Wide Range PWM 120mm Fan - Mounting hardware for all above sockets - Mounting instructions - Warranty information - CoolerMaster Thermal Compound
Mounting
The mounting on the Coolermaster Hyper 212 EVO is basically faultless, the process is very easy for all supported sockets. It is so good because of the two stage installation, stage one involves securing standoffs into the backplate, which is secure on it's own. This means that if you ever needed to remove the cooler to replace thermal compound or replace the CPU, you don't have to remove the motherboard from the case, you simply need to take off the cooler and the backplate and standoffs will stay in place. Once you have the standoffs and backplate installed it's also a very simple process for both AMD and Intel, all you need to do is line up the mounting bracket and screw down all four corners evenly until it cannot go any tighter. Once you have the cooler installed, the fan simply slides on by using the pre-installed plastic fan brackets. The cooler also includes a second set of these brackets should you ever wish to add a second fan to the other side of the cooler.Aesthetic
The aesthetics of the Hyper 212 EVO aren't really too important, it's a very basic looking cooler without any fancy covers or even fancier RGB fans, it's just a simple air cooler with aluminium fins, copper heatpipes and a fan. One design element that does add to the aesthetics is the embossed CoolerMaster logo on the top fin,which does look good. Also, unlike a certain other manufacturer, the fan is black and does look quite good. Other than that there isn't much else to say, it's a fairly industrial looking cooler with an unoffensive design so should fit in with most builds.
Performance
The performance of the Hyper 212 EVO is where it really shines, and is the reason why it is regarded as one of the best air coolers for the money. We have used various versions of the 212 for years so the results were not surprising at all.Test System Specs
- Processor - Intel i7 8700k - Case - CoolerMaster H500P - RAM - Corsair Vengeance DDR4 16GB 3000Mhz (2x8) - Motherboard - Asus Rog Strix Z370-F - SSD - Samsung 860 EVO 250GB - PSU - Corsair RM750x - GPU - EVGA GTX 1050Ti We performed a range of different tests to get a broad range of results. The software we used in these tests was 3DMark Time Spy CPU Test, Prime95 with the Blend preset and AIDA64 CPU+FPU which really puts the CPU cooler through it's paces with a heavy AVX based load. We also used Aida64 to monitor temperatures. We did all tests twice, one at stock voltages and clock speeds and the other overclocked to 5.0GHz at 1.35v and 0 AVX offset, in the graph these tests are marked as "OC". All tests were conducted in a temperature controlled room at a constant 21°C. All fan speeds were set to the BIOS default setting of "Normal", which worked perfectly as none of the coolers we tested had excessive noise levels. The graph below shows the average temperature over a 20 minute stress test using Prime95 with the Blend preset. We found this test to be the best at visually displaying the performance of the coolers as it has the highest range of results.