Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo V2 Tower Air Cooler Review

Welcome back to the budget king: Introducing the Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo V2  Tower Air Cooler

Today, I get the distinct pleasure of taking a look at a legend in the PC building world: the Cooler Master Hyper 212. For those of you who are new to the custom PC scene, Cooler Master’s Hyper 212 is, in my opinion, one of the most recommended coolers for people building their first PC. The original cooler, released back in the mid-2000s, hit a very good price-to-performance ratio, far surpassing stock cooling provided with purchased CPUs. But, will the Evo 2, the latest iteration of this legend continue to impress? Let’s find out together.

Taking a look at the 212 cooler, the first thing we notice is the size. This cooler is large, which is expected and necessary to keep a modern CPU cool during intense gaming sessions. In fact, this tower cooler is so tall, it just barely fits inside of the test case, a Thermaltake Divider 300. Cooler Master advertises all sorts of advancements, from the X vents on the top, to “an asymmetrical tilt” to help clear RAM. The latter improvement is appreciated as large tower coolers frequently interfere with RAM, especially RAM with coolers added.

Cooler Master packs quite a load of accessories in the box alongside the cooler, including mounting brackets for both AMD and Intel, supporting most, if not all modern sockets. We also find thermal paste, a welcome inclusion as these tubes often get misplaced. Finally, we have all of the various screws needed for attachment as well as extra clips to add a second 120mm fan. We also, of course, find the cooler and a single SickleFlow 120 fan.

Of course, at the price point of the Hyper 212, there is no RGB to be found. Some of you are probably breathing a sigh of relief as RGB has become pervasive almost to the point of not being able to avoid it should one desire. 

Installation is easily doable with one person. I find it easier to remove the motherboard and install the cooler outside of the case before remounting the motherboard into the case. Cooler Master provides easy picture-based instructions that almost make it too easy to follow. 

Testing Methodology of the Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo V2 

Coolers that I test are installed inside of a Thermaltake Divider 300 and allowed several power cycles to set the thermal paste. I use included fans and thermal paste where possible as this is the likely end-user configuration. Coolers do their best to keep an i9-9900 cool during a max-heat Prime 95 run and during a full round of Warzone, with the maximum core temperature reported in the graphs.

Sadly, Intel’s i9-9900 doesn’t come with a stock cooler to compete against, so we’re pitting Cooler Master’s legend against an AIO liquid cooler. While this may be a bit unfair, the Hyper 212 performs admirably during gaming, staying within 3 degrees of the AIO liquid cooler. With a max temp of 63*C, we’re staying well within the CPU’s limits. It’s only when we completely max out the processor that some separation between coolers starts to occur. The Hyper 212 manages to keep our CPU to just 83*C, some 8 degrees warmer than an AIO liquid cooler, an impressive feat–and most importantly, still within limits for the CPU.

Considering most users are going to be gaming on their machine and not loading the processor with the absolute max heat producing algorithms they can, we can confidently say that the Hyper 212 Evo V2 will serve users well in keeping the system at reasonable temperatures. Noise was also minimal from the cooler, another important factor in going with aftermarket cooling. 

Concluding Thoughts on the Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo V2 Tower Air Cooler

While the Hyper 212 Evo V2 certainly isn’t going to set any overclocking world records, I can confirm that the legend lives on. Available for under $50USD at the time of this writing, the Hyper 212 Evo V2 continues to hit an excellent price to performance ratio and will be sufficient for most users. I certainly will be keeping it at the top of my recommendation list for users looking to save a bit on cooling or building their first PC. Additionally, the lack of RGB will likely be appreciated by a subset of the PC building community that are quickly tiring of RGB-everything and are looking for a more stealth build. Of course, liquid cooling reigns supreme, and Cooler Master also produces AIO liquid coolers, such as the ML240 we reviewed.