Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO - CPU Cooler with 120 mm PWM Fan

Pros: I would list Pros, but sadly I didn't experience any.

Cons: The cooler shorted my motherboard and forced me to buy a new one.

Other Thoughts: I just wish this item hadn't caused my motherboard to fail, I would've enjoyed this product.

Pros: I didn't think it would do so much, I bought it thinking it would drop the temperature for my AMD FX-6300 Vishera 6-Core processor about 15 or so degrees. The results were fantastic.
My idle temperatures dropped from 39-45 degrees Celsius, to 23-30 degrees Celsius.
Under full load, my temperatures dropped from 76-90 degrees Celsius, to 34-44 degrees Celsius.
It almost brought me to tears...

Cons: I didn't buy it sooner.

Other Thoughts: I bought some Arctic Silver 5 along with it. I don't know how much the difference would be with the normal thermal paste, and I don't care to find out...

Pros: 212 EVOs are the only cooler I will use in my machines. I over clock and it keeps the CPUs cool. 10-15 degree differences vs the stock coolers are possible. Do not purchase similar looking units from other manufacturers, they will not cool the same. The copper heatpipes contact the CPU directly and that is the difference.

Cons: The mounting process takes sometime to get correct.

Other Thoughts: If you have the patience and follow the directions, the payoff is worth it. This is a big cooling unit. Measure your case and then measure it again. I had to swap out cases because the first case was to narrow and the side cover would not close.

Pros: install not as hard as everyone makes it out to be. rather easy. great performance for the price

Cons: didn't cool as well as i hoped. good performance but not great.

Other Thoughts: definitely recommend this to the light enthusiast but for a serious overclocker water is the way to go.

Pros: its a metal brick with a fan

Cons: pain to install, and doesnt leave much room to work with, and you will need a big case for it, other than that it works wonders

Other Thoughts: can the copper ends be removed?

Pros: good bang for the buck
cools decent (29-42C on an 3570K)

Cons: fan is going out and rattling after 2.5 years

Other Thoughts: This keeps my i5 3570k pretty cool for a cheap air cooler, however the fan is acting up and I built this in nov.2012. It's making a wierd noise right now and I had to go and buy a new fan for it :(

Pros: Works better than OEM.
Quiet, very efficient.
Comes with extra brackets to mount your own 120mm fan

Cons: Bolts that hold the back plate to the motherboard are cut so that they don't rotate. This cut also caused the threads to be useless. Had to force the nuts using a socket wrench, risking permanently stripping the bolts.

Top X bracket doesn't lock the heatsink into place. This caused the heatsink to rotate while trying to screw the X bracket in place.

Instruction booklet is lacking. Its just a picture book. Had to youtube on how to install this CPU cooler properly.

Other Thoughts: After install I had to change the CPU fan settings on the BIOS, else the cooler fan would stay running at 100%, which is quite loud.

Great cooler for the price. Even if I almost ended up with stripped bolts.

Pros: Keeps your processor cool. My FX-8320 hardly breaks a sweat anymore after installation of this cooler.

Cons: It's big. Which isn't necessarily a con if that's what you're looking for.

Other Thoughts: Make sure your case can accommodate this behemoth. I took the plexiglass window off of my case because (like a fool) I didn't make sure it would fit. Bigger case is my next task.

Pros: Lightweight for its size

Cools the CPU much better than the stock cooler, especially when gaming.

Included fan is quiet enough for most people. You can also replace the fan with an even quieter one, reusing the mounting brackets or using the extra included ones.

Cons: Installation instructions not clear. They are just pictures. Had to YouTube to see how to install.

Bolts that hold the back plate to the motherboard are cut such that they can fit through the back plate and not spin (half moon). This cut also cuts the thread in a way that makes them useless. Cant screw the nuts in. Almost RMA'd the whole thing because of this. Used real tools to force the nuts in the bolts, at the risk of stripping the bolts. Fortunately it worked.

The X bracket that holds the cooler down doesn't prevent the cooler from rotating. The nudge that should prevent this doesn't do its job. Screwing the top X bracket was a pain because the cooler kept moving and rotating.

Other Thoughts: After install, the fan would not go below 100%. I had to go to the motherboard BIOS settings and enable the CPU Fan setting that would modulate fan speed. After that the fan and cooler worked great.

Found out a friend also bought this cooler and had the same bolt thread issue as I did, except he ended up stripping them, making them useless.

Pros: I bought this cooler to upgrade my i7-920 CPU to a Xeon x5680 (4 vs 6 cores). With the stock Intel cooler, the 920 idled at 50c and under load would easily hit 100c when stressed. Swapped out the CPU and installed the CM 212 Evo then retested. With the 212 and x5680, idle temp is 25c and 24 hour stress hit 55c max. Now the x5680 is OC’d to 4.2Mhz and temps are 30c and 60c. This cooler rivals mid range water coolers and slays low end ones.

Cons: Size. Check your memory and side fan clearances.

Other Thoughts: Looks like the Arc de Triomphe in my case. It’s very tall and I had to remove my side fan because there wasn’t enough clearance. It didn’t matter though because the Antec Nine Hundred cools so well and I didn’t see any increase in temps. Also, I gained great air flow over my memory thanks to the CPU fan.