The H7 Universal from CRYORIG was a pleasant surprise as it offered stellar cooling performance for its size. Beating out the similarly priced mainstream favorite in the Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO by around 5%, its peformance-per-dollar rating is exceptional. Cooling performance is key, but CRYORIG's cooler managed to surprise again as it is also the quietest cooler at both 25% and 50% PWM, and it is still in the top five with its fan set to run at full tilt. With solid performance and noise output, it is also well constructed and easy to install. Not only that, but like its larger sibling, the H5, the H7 also offers perfect memory clearance. You can even mount a second fan for further performance improvements as CRYORIG includes an extra set of fan clips. Overall, there's a great deal to like about this small tower cooler and the warranty just adds to it. Should you register your cooler with CRYORIG, they will increase the warranty from three to six years. Great performance backed by a great warranty—that's something everyone can be happy about!

I did, however, find a few areas in need of improvement. The X-bar mounting system, while easy to work with and install, is nowhere near CRYORIG's "MultiSeg" mounting hardware. I am sad to see the mounting hardware take a hit as compared to that of previous CRYORIG coolers. The difference may be minor, but it's still a step in the wrong direction. Worst of all, the new mounting system only supports mainstream sockets—there is no LGA775, LGA1366 or LGA2011 support. The lack of LGA775 is not surprising, but the H7 is more than capable of cooling an LGA1366 or LGA2011 CPU. I also take issue with the packaging's lack of protection. While I don't expect much when it comes to mainstream coolers, it would have been nice to see a piece of foam to protect the backside of the heatsink. That said, the issues I have with the H7 Universal are minor as they should hardly impact typical users.

The CRYORIG H7 Universal is, in fact, a fantastic little tower cooler with a surprisingly good feature set and wonderful performance. The inclusion of extra fan clips is great because it gives users the ability to improve performance; however, an issue does crop up as every motherboard has different VRM heatsinks; some are tall, some are short, and some boards have no VRM heatsink at all. With the test system's MSI Z87-GD65 Gaming, a second fan would rest on top of the VRM heatsink. Such would have also made the cooler taller because the fan wouldn't have been flush with the top plate. It's a minor concern, but one users may wish to keep in mind if looking at using the H7 Universal in a dual-fan configuration.

With perfect memory clearance, solid performance, and low noise levels, the CRYORIG H7 Universal is the mainstream cooler to beat.