Cooler Master Hyper 612 Apex CPU Cooler Review
While our recent case tests have made extensive use of one of Corsair’s better-known liquid coolers, it’s been two years since we’ve covered one of its big air models. The firm sent its shiny new Hyper 612 Apex to change that, and its specs certainly seem encouraging:
| Cooler Master Hyper 612 Apex (MAP-T6PN-225PK-R1) | |
| Type | Cross Draft Single Tower |
| CPU Support | LGA 1851/1700/1200/115x, AM5/4 |
| Height/Width/Depth | 159mm / 127mm / 114mm |
| Base Height | 38mm |
| Offsets | 20mm rearward |
| Fan Size | (2) 120mm x 25mm |
| Connectors | (2) PWM |
| Weight | 1176g (42oz) w/AMD kit |
| Warranty | 5-years |
| Web Price | $80 |
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With a 5-year warranty to help ease the sting of its high price, the Hyper 612 Apex is covered 2.5 times longer than Cooler Master’s other air coolers. Since so many of its sellers don’t seem to know this, we went ahead and screenshot the cooler’s web page.
We also verified that the same 5-year period was laid out in the product’s warranty guide, which ships along with the installation guide, fan splitter cable, Intel installation kit, AMD installation kit, a set of nuts that fit the standoffs of both installation kits, and a tube of Cooler Master Cryofuse thermal paste in the Hyper 612 Apex retail box.
We’ll be using our own paste instead, since Arctic sent us enough MX-4 to assure consistent test practices for several years.
The Hyper 612 Apex connects six heat pipes to its copper base and aluminum fins for optimal heat transfer. We noticed that the base appears to have been cut on a lathe and lightly polished, but other noteworthy features include that it’s 20mm closer to the front of the front fan than it is to the back of the rear fan, that its integral cross bracket uses two spring-loaded screws to connect the cooler to its AMD or Intel installation kit, and that each fan has a 4-pin PWM connector to enable motherboard speed control.
The decorative top cover is magnetically affixed to the rest of the cooler, and pulling it off makes it easy to see how both fans slide onto the heat sink’s frame.
The attachment hardware, along with the silver covers on the fan’s faces, are screwed onto standard fan frames. Each of these fans is marked as a Mobius 120P Black Edition, part number FA12025M12LPZ, and rated as supporting speeds up to 2400 RPM.
How To Install Cooler Master’s Hyper 612 Apex
If you scroll up to our unboxed photo above, you’ll see a large black X-shaped plate that’s used behind the CPU socket of Intel motherboards to provide some mechanical support for the cooler, while also providing threads for its mounting holes to engage included standoffs. AMD AM5 and AM4 builders get to ignore that part since their boards are factory equipped with a support plate already installed: All they’re required to do is unscrew the black brackets from the top side of the board, and replace those brackets with special standoffs that have AMD’s thicker threads on one end and Cooler Master’s thinner threads on the other.
After replacing the factory screws and brackets with the Hyper 612 Apex’s included AMD standoffs, we topped the standoffs with the included AMD brackets and then cap the tips of the standoffs with the includes knurled nuts. Cooler Master even added cross cuts to the top of its nuts so that you could tighten them with a #2 Phillips screwdriver.
After applying a paper-thin coating of thermal compound to the CPU’s heat spreader, we placed the CPU cooler over the brackets in a manner that aligned their screws with the threaded holes in the center of those brackets, and tightened the cooler’s two spring-loaded screws.
We then slid the mounting brackets of both fans back onto those of the heat sink, routed their power cables neatly out the upper rear corner of the sink, and placed the magnetic cover over the top of the cooler as shown. We then connected the fan’s inputs to the splitter cable’s outputs, plugged the splitter cable’s input to our motherboard’s CPU fan header, and tucked the excess cable behind the motherboard tray.
Since we prefer to keep our results consistent over many reviews, we clock locked a Ryzen 9 at a long-term-safe voltage level to complete today’s tests.
| System Configuration | |
| Case | Thermaltake Ceres 500 TG ARGB |
| CPU | AMD Ryzen 9 7900X: 12 cores/ 24 threads, 64MB L3 Cache O/C to 5.00 GHz at 1.25 V Core |
| Motherboard | ASRock B650E PG Riptide WiFi, BIOS 1.18 |
| RAM | Sabrent Rocket SB-DR5U-32GX2 64GB DDR5-4800 |
| System Drive | HP SSD FX900 M.2 1TB NVMe SSD |
Hyper 612 Apex Performance Results
The Hyper 612 Apex finishes in a CPU cooling tie with the A620 Pro SE and Dark Rock Elite, though the A620 Pro SE leaks a bit less air onto our voltage regulator. Most motherboards actually need a little help from the CPU cooler in this area, though some can get by using just the airflow from the case’s rear fan.
Fortunately, the Hyper 612 Apex is a little quieter than the low-budget A620 Pro SE. It even finishes our tests with the highest cooling-to-noise ratio.
Our The Hyper 612 Apex’s leading cooling-to-noise ratio qualifies it for our top-level Excellence award, regardless of any misgivings we may have regarding a single-radiator heatsink cooler being priced at or near $80. Fortunately, we’ve seen recent discounts to a final price as low as $65 that could make this model far more attractive to value-minded buyers.
| Cooler Master Hyper 612 Apex (MAP-T6PN-225PK-R1) | |
| Pros: | Cons: |
| Best cooling-to-noise Five-year warranty | Pricey |
| The Verdict: | |
| The Hyper 612 Apex doesn’t offer buyers much hardware for $80, but it does lead its class in cooling-to-noise ratio, and that might be enough to convince value buyers to look for previously spotted discounts. | |
