Phantom Spirit 120 SE (PS120SE, English, Chinese): 7x6mm AGHP gen4, 280 W DTPC, TL-C12B v2, 125 x 135 x 154 mm, fins 10+40, November 2022 Due to requests from our readers, I’ve begun to include 95W results, which should be broadly applicable to CPUs like AMD’s Ryzen 5 5600V or Intel’s Core i5-12400. In these lower wattage tests, the Peerless Assassin once again lives up to its name, outperforming it’s nearest rival by six degrees C when fans ran at the default fan curve, and a whopping 12 degrees C when set to 50% fan speeds. This change of mind return policy is in addition to, and does not affect your rights under the Australian Consumer Law including any rights you may have in respect of faulty items. My motherboard also doesn't have an A-RGB header so I can't utilize the RGB, but that's no fault of Thermalright. While it’s nice to see how Intel’s flagship responds to different levels of cooling, those results don’t always correlate with lower-tier CPUs. Today’s review features two lower-end (though still powerful) CPUs – AMD’s Ryzen 7 7700X and Intel’s i7-13700K. Testing Methodology

I would also recommend installing cpu temperature monitoring software as well to make sure that everything is working correctly. Phantom Spirit 120 (PS120, English, Chinese): 7x6mm AGHP gen4, 280 W DTPC, TL-C12B v2, 125 x 135 x 157 mm, fins 10+44+1 (short+main+top cap), May 2023 Generally speaking, the more powerful your CPU is, the bigger and better cooler you'll need. This will vary across architectures depending on how efficient they are, how many cores, and at what frequencies your CPU runs. If your desktop PC needs a lot of power and you travel with it, you're likely to feel safer with a radiator that's attached to your case via 8 or 12 screws than with a huge chunk of metal hanging off your motherboard. Remember that, all else being equal, more fans equals better cooling, but more noise. The coolers that do the best job of moving warm air away from your CPU and out of your case are also often the loudest. If fan noise is an issue for you, you’ll want a cooler that does a good job of balancing noise and cooling. If you can set your cooler's fan speeds based on temperatures in your motherboard's BIOS, that should also help.

With OCCT, Thermalright’s Peerless Assassin SE continued to deliver outstanding results. While it wasn’t able to pass 200W with reduced fan speeds in this scenario, at the default fan curve it averaged 64 degrees C over ambient – once again degrees C cooler than DeepCool’s AK500! The case was closed, also at the top (The Define C has an option to open the top plate but it was closed) Another reason to use water cooling is if you have a slim case that doesn't have the space for a larger air cooler, or even for a fan near the CPU. On the other hand, a pump is much harder to replace than a fan if it broke, and while rare, the possibility of leaks within an electronic device can be scary. Regardless of which type of cooler you need, this guide will cover many great options at every size and price point. I looked at the Peerless Assassin and was initially put off by the installation. But then, what is the guy in the review doing? He complains about the amount of force required and the bend on the MB, but he's installing it where all the corners are elevated on 1 inch high pins? I presume this is the 'professional' way to do it, but wouldn't you put it flat if it was bulging like that? Saw a couple of other installs where they were done on flat surface with ease. Installation is simple enough. Lots of people made videos installing this CPU cooler into their machines. I happen to have done this on a AM5 motherboard with a 7800x3d chip.

To test the limits of a cooler's thermal dissipation capabilities, I run two primary stress tests: Cinebench and OCCT, each for 10 minutes. While this may be a short amount of time, it is sufficient to push most coolers–air and liquid–to their limits. Radiators marketed as "360mm" may sound better than those "280mm," but this naming scheme only takes into account the combined length of the fans, and ignores their width. Spinning at the same speed, two 140mm fans will cool almost as well as three 120mm ones, while making less noise, being easier to maintain, and fitting into cases with 5.25" bays.Product specification】Thermalright PA120 SE ARGB White; CPU Cooler dimensions: 125(L)x135(W)x155(H)mm (4.92x5.31x6.1 inch); heat sink material: aluminum, CPU cooler is equipped with metal fasteners of Intel & AMD platform to achieve better installation, double tower cooling is stronger This change of mind return policy is in addition to, and does not affect your rights under the Australian Consumer Law including any rights you may have in respect of faulty items. To return faulty items see our Returning Faulty Items policy. Modern CPUs, whether Intel or AMD, are difficult to cool in intensive workloads. In the past reaching 95C+ on a desktop CPU might have been a cause for concern – but with today’s high-end CPUs, this is considered normal operation. Similar behavior has been present in laptops for years due to cooling limitations in tight spaces.

Phantom Spirit 120 EVO (PS120EVO, English, Chinese): 7x6mm AGHP gen4, 280 W DTPC, TL-K12, 125 x 135 x 157 mm, fins 10+44+1 (short+main+top cap), October 2023 It doesn't come with a screwdriver like some other coolers, but you don't need it because it has access to the mounting screws, unlike some coolers where you need to insert a long screw driver to a tiny hole If it's priced higher, though, not so sure, as the fans are pretty cheap. TR already has their new GT/A12x25-esque 120mm on the Ultra120s. a. This means no power limits on Intel’s i7-13700K, and AMD’s default power limits on AMD’s Ryzen 7 7700X.While stress testing in Cinebench, I run both with power limits removed and with an enforced 200W CPU power limit, using MSI’s Z690 A Pro DDR4 Motherboard and Be Quiet’s Silent Base 802 Computer Case. Only the most capable coolers are able to pass Cinebench testing when power limits are removed. I've been round the bend trying to find a cooler for the 7800X3D that meets the following criteria. This means that coolers that kept previous-gen products like the i9-10900K nice and cool sometimes struggle to keep Intel's i9-12900K under Tj max–the maximum temperature before the CPU starts to throttle. Many coolers, air coolers in particular, fail to keep the i9-12900K under TJ max when power limits are removed in workloads like Cinebench and OCCT when I’ve tested them, including many coolers I previously considered top of the line.