Review on 💨 Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo CPU Cooler: Efficient Cooling for AMD Ryzen/Intel LG1151 Processors by Omar Austin

I'll start with what I didn't like. instructions sucks. They tell you to apply thermal paste to your processor before installing the bracket behind the motherboard. Due to the vague illustrations, it wasn't clear to me when leafing through the instructions that you need a bracket behind the mainboard. Simply put, I had to apply thermal paste to it twice as it is impossible to remove the motherboard from the case, attach the mounting bracket, and put the motherboard back in without smearing the thermal paste. Just a single fingerprint, eyelash or speck of dust is enough to contaminate it and affect the performance of your radiator. I also didn't like the tool used to tighten the bracket nuts. I tried using it but instead I used a wrench. Eventually I found that the heatsink isn't exactly what I would call safe. Even after tightening it up and making sure everything is lined up correctly, the whole thing still curls up a bit. This is noticeable when attempting to reattach the fan. I saw other reviews that said the fasteners ended up being faulty. Luckily I didn't have this problem. What do I recommend buying before trying it? It comes with its own thermal paste, but you can always buy better. I went with Arctic Silver 5 like most people do. You will also need lint free cloths (coffee filters work but I don't recommend them as they are a bit stiff and tend to scratch; I used the PEC PAD cloths sold here at Revain which I bought to clean photos and negatives ) and either rubbing alcohol (at least 90%, but 99% is preferred; you can usually find at least 91% at Walmart and most stores) or one of those cleaning kits. If you don't have a small set of wrenches, you can also buy one unless you want to rely on the tool that comes with it. You will definitely need a screwdriver, but most people already know this. So how do you put that thing on? Be sure to review the instructions for each step. Also, before you do anything, grab your heatsink and fan and make sure there is enough space on the motherboard and case for them. This radiator is quite big. There is a risk that the RAM slot will overflow or be too big to even fit in your case. The first thing you should do is attach the bracket to the motherboard according to the instructions for your processor. If you already have the motherboard installed in the case, you will need to remove it. I used a wrench because I didn't have enough room to turn it all the way back and use the tool that came with it. Disconnect the fan from the radiator. The drain comes into contact with the CPU. Leave the tape on for now. Check and make sure the X-Bracket lines up with the mounting points you attached to the motherboard. After making sure it's set correctly, insert the CPU into the socket (if you haven't already) and secure it. Clean the CPU cover (the part where the heatsink connects to the CPU; alcohol or cleaning solution) and apply thermal paste according to your thermal paste instructions. If your thermal paste doesn't come with instructions, you should have enough paste covering the portion of the cap just above your processor's core(s). If you can't find specific directions on Google, you can try putting a little plus sign in the middle. To get the right amount of paste, you only need an amount equivalent to a line covering about 50% of the length of the CPU cover. So if you put a plus sign, it should only be about 25% of the canopy length. If your processor doesn't have a cap, simply place a rice-sized dot in the center of each core. Again, most processors have instructions online for this. When you're done, remove the tape from the heatsink. I recommend cleaning the area you removed the adhesive from (again with a lint-free cloth and cleaning solution), but it's not necessary. If you want to check if you've applied enough or too much paste, you can place the heatsink against the processor, apply some pressure (enough to spread the paste), and rotate the heatsink slightly in either direction. If you pull on it and the paste runs off the edges, you have too much and you should use a lint-free cloth to wipe the excess off the edges. They should be at least enough to cover the round area of all cores. You now need to carefully align the brackets and align the heatsink. Continue turning each screw slightly. Once you've tightened all 4 screws, go around and tighten them all. Finally, reattach the fan, plug it in, done. So what did I like about it? I lowered my idle temps a bit (to around 27C idle and around 48C under load, with core temps hitting around 63C under load) and fixed the overheating issue I was having with my stock heatsink. Presumably the temperatures will improve over time as my thermal paste settles out, but I don't expect a huge difference. The fan didn't noticeably increase the noise level inside my PC, which is pretty quiet. I had a bit of trouble keeping the fan from touching the heatspreader on the nearest stick of RAM, but I managed to move into the tiny gap. The top of the heatsink comes very close to the other side of my case, but there is a gap. Overall I would say that I am satisfied. When I first installed a stock heatsink, it did a pretty good job (but not very well, as even a slight overclock resulted in overheating) to cool the processor. However, after about 3.5 years my inactivity temperature almost doubled and games started to overheat it. I had a choice. I could either clean the heatsink and CPU and apply new thermal paste or buy a new heatsink. I figured if I was going through this much trouble I might as well invest in a good radiator. This heatsink is compatible with a large number of processors. Also, I don't plan on using my i5-3570K any time soon. So, even considering the age of the processor, I think I'll get my money back from the heatsink. Too bad I wasn't too lazy and bought this heatsink when I was assembling this computer. For anyone wondering, this is my motherboard and case. ASUS P8Z77-V PRO LGA 1155 Intel Z77 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX motherboard Intel Thermaltake Armor series VA8000BWS