Verdict: Looks more impressive than it is.
Hyper 212 sounds like something that a sound technician would say before a rock concert to test the microphones, but it is, in fact, a massive heatpipe-assisted CPU cooler from the self-styled master of cooling.
Essentially, Cooler Master has tweaked the traditional heatpipe/heatsink fan design. The most noticeable characteristic of the Hyper 212 is that, at 16cm tall, it's much bigger than your average HSF. Clearly, the maxim 'more surface area means better cooling' is in play here. The Hyper 212 uses four U-shaped heatpipes as opposed to the conventional three, and the usual bank of aluminium fans extruded from these is divided into two groups, with one set of fins on each branch of the four U-shaped heatpipes. The gap between the banks of fins should help with airflow from the 120mm fan.
The LGA775 attachment mechanism is fiddly to assemble, especially as you have to remove your motherboard to tighten the nuts on the cooler's legs to attach it. When running, the fixed-speed fan was as refreshingly quiet as the stated 19dBA noise suggests.
As big and imposing as the cooler is, it's surprisingly light. The use of thin sheets of aluminium for the cooling fins helps to keep the weight down, especially when compared with lavish all-copper coolers.
Our overclocked and overvolted quad-core Intel Xeon X3210 was too much for the Hyper 212 though. Our test CPU became 4ûC hotter than it did with the reference quad-core Intel cooler, although the Hyper 212 was quieter.
Conclusion
Typically, large CPU coolers provide a greater surface area for more effective cooling and allow the use of bigger, quieter fans. However, the Hyper 212 failed to cope with our overvolted quad-core CPU as well as the Intel reference cooler. Granted, the cooler was much quieter, which makes the Hyper 212 worth considering if you're more averse to noise than heat.
