@@zhbader As far as I'm aware yes, it seems to me the SE (Simplified Edition?) just has the ornamental plates on top meant to hide the ends of the heat pipes removed and also stands a little shorter in that dimension as a result. Performance should near to if not identical. The fin array number density size fan type ETC. all seem indistinguishable, the fans have same given rating for RPM air flow/pressure ETC., but there's a 15g difference in weight, no idea what they changed TL-C12C (SE) vs TL-C12. 3 less fin pieces in the SE array but the dimension of the fins and gap between them seems the same, maybe the ornamental plates are counted? Hell if I know. Same C1100 Nickel plated copper base plate. Same number and dimension of heat pipes. Given weight is 750g* vs 730g* (SE) so aside from the 15g fan spec difference 5g weight discrepancy with respect to the ornament/fin array change. Performance is likely indistinguishable between the two variants, maybe over the long term the fans are more likely to fail. I recommend keeping a 5 pack of Arctic P12's in your closet for a rainy day either way. *Mislabeled full product weight initially.* *
they should definitely review Thermalright Frost Commander 140 and Frost Spirit 140 which beats NH-D14 in temperature with lower noise level. it's not fair comparing 120mm fan PA120 with 140mm NH-D14
I doubt most realize Thermalright has been around for 20+ years. They were like Noctua back then. I used to buy their coolers and think my first was a sk-6 with a delta fan.
@@sdrubaa I’m talking SK-6 all copper from 1999 or so. They made the best coolers back then. They seemed to drop away for a long while and then I just noticed their products again in the last two years. I bought a dual tower 120mm for my sons Ryzen 5800x.
buying the NH-D15 a couple of years ago was the best decision I've ever made. Free upgrades for new platforms, incredible performance and fast support make it the best of the best - its now in my 4th build.
Same..i bought mine in 2017 for $105 CAD (NCIX) for my (then R7 1700X), and it's been cooling my 9900K @ 5GHz all core for a few years... but just. I've always been a Thermalright lover though, and this peerless assassin is tempting...moving forward. The NH-D15 is $130+ CAD now, i would just as soon throw a 360 on for that price. Edit: spelling
I have it too and when I saw my friends 360 AiO, I changed my mind. Difference is too big to justify it in this price. Still, it will not break overtime like AiO, but performance is not that great.
@@innocentiuslacrim2290 Everywhere. Noctua can't handle spikes and temps even browsing internet are in 60's. Air is just not good for new CPUs, but it have cons. If I would buy cooler second time, I would buy AiO without second thought. But D15S will stay with me on next build if it ever happens, cause I'm not willing to pay these prices for PC. I could, cause I can, but I won't.
I'm glad Thermalright is making a comeback.. they were THE one to get back in the day, their huge solid copper coolers were fantastic. Looks like they're getting back in the game these days. I'm glad to see it.
@@ChadKenova I have used a Le Grand in my last 2 builds, it's still the best air cooler out there. It kinda annoys me that everyone is testing the peerless assasin (a great cooler) but ignoring the Le Grand Macho in all of these "best CPU cooler" roundups. I know it's old, but you can still buy it and it still beats everything in this list...
I'm surprised that Thermalright gets so little recognition. They were around at the very beginning, and it was TR that had the first heatpipe and then later heatpipe tower cooler way back in the early 2000s.
There was Koolance and their insanely overengineered watercooling setups (which I still have a soft spot for). And then, it was either Zallman, Thermalright, or Thermaltake... at least in my little meta of enthusiasts. Remember the Thermaltake Volcano series? Thing sounded like it could grind a screwdriver to the handle and kinda looked like it could too :D
Coolermaster had the first heatpipe based CPU coolers for mainstream, back when 60mm fans were normal, knocking Globalwin and Thermoengine off the podium. It used them to spread the heat up to the top of the fins closer to the fan.
It's from China and has always being the best seller there (like Deepcool). I guess it's only recently that buyers from other countries found their coolers overpriced and turn back for budget alternatives.
A "fan normalized" chart would be an amazing addition to these reviews. Would love to see their performace with T30's & the budget option P12's. Also adding Liquid Freezer II 280/360 to the chart would be a super useful for the average person trying to decide between air & AIO. Great video btw,
Yeah we might add that in the future but one of the main issue is that there is no "choice fan" and nothing will please everyone. The main issue with the T30 is that it simply won't fit between the fin stacks of dual tower coolers so that's outta the running. Also, its thickness makes it incompatible with most brackets included with these coolers.
One of the problems with fan normalizing an air cooler is that the price will be significantly impacted in many cases… most people want plug and play and budget.
It's really a good time to be in the air cooling market, you've got a bunch of really good options from being able to get the 1% best at any cost all the way down to a (just as good) cooler and case full of (nearly as good) fans for the cost of a Noctua cooler.
@@katherinehackworth I think Arctic and Deep Cool's fans are both good on that performance/noise balance and both are pretty cheap in multi-packs. I haven't gotten to try the Thermalright ones but they look promising and are a bargain too. Even the Noctua Redux (essentially last gen designs) are a solid option for around 90% of the performance at half the price of their mainline fans (though that's still 2-3x more expensive than the previously mentioned ones). I'd definitely buy any of those again (or try the Thermalright ones) over something like what Corsair or similar are charging a premium for.
I bought the PA120 for a 5600x that I installed a few days ago. I was actually confused at how quiet my PC was compared to before. 3600x with a stock cooler was SO loud, not to mention went from about 72-79C underload on the 3600x to 50C underload on my 5600x.
It keeps a 13700k chilled while gaming.. not so much for benchmarking however! Can't beat it for $40!!! Actually, can't beat it until you spend $80-120
I put a Phanteks T30 onto my Dark Rock Pro 4 and it's insane how much better it is now. Highly recommend since the cooler is really held back by the stock fans.
@@JasperLTZ nope. The cooler comes with different sized clips that fit standard fan hole placement. I had to bend them a bit to fit the added thickness but I've had it on there for months now and no issues at all
Bought NH-D15 (non chromax) early 2015, been using it for i7-4790K, i7-6700K, i7-8700K, Ryzen 7 3800X. Now serving Ryzen 9 5900X. Got mounting upgrades for free via Noctua support (SecuFirm2). RMA'd push faulty fan (1x A15) without questions circa 2020. All shipped to Indonesia free of charge. This beast's warranty (6y) was only beaten by my PSU warranty (Seasonic Snow Silent 1050W, 7y) that bought around 2014. Still using both of them now. Cost when bought are justified by their performance & longevity.
I have been using the same Noctua NH-D15 since the Ryzen 7 1800X came out. I've since upgraded to a Ryzen 7 5800X, and then a 5800X3D, and the same NH-D15 has been able to cool them all without issue! I absolutely love Noctua and the fact that their air coolers can beat most, (not all), water cooling AIOs!
Would love to see a comparison of the coolers while using the same fans, to see which cooler has the better design, for us who plan to switch out the fans anyway, for maybe RGB or just whatever fans we prefer.
I use two BeQuiet! Dark Rock Pro TR4's on a dual AMD EPYC workstation, absolutely amazing never see CPU temps above 40c with only the single middle fan installed. In a Fractal Torrent EATX case.
With the BQ Dark Rock Pro 4 cooler, there are also additional brackets in the packaging that are made for standard 120mm fans. So you can mount any 120mm fan you want. (Have NF-A12 on mine)
Great, finally there is a big comparison of the most popular coolers. Special thanks for the tests at 13900K. And it would be great if you pay attention to such models as Thermalright Frost Commander 140 (vs D15) and Thermalright U120EX REV.4 (vs U12A).
Loving this air cooler content recently, it’s the best of its kind out there. Would love to see these top air coolers compared to different AIOs for reference.
I bought a DRP4 a few years ago to cool a 10850K. I was upgrading from i5-6600K with NH-D14 (yes, overkill for that cpu). I saw higher than expected temps with the DRP4. I ended up slapping my older Noctua D14 on it, and I noticed this same 4-5 degree C drop in temps. I assumed this was due to better fans on the D14 and the fact that the DRP4 has the black coating. For looks, I swapped the fans on the D14 to black and sold the DRP4 to a buddy. Thermalright is interesting option for the price, but you can't beat the combo of performance and longevity with Noctua imo.
Bought the PA120 RGB version for my 13600k based on your initial review of it, it has NOT disappointed! My motherboard allows my 13600k to pull up to 288w (I’ve only ever seen it pull about 230 in R23), and in gaming workloads my 13600k sits in the mid 50s. Running a 10 minute Cinebench R23 pass saw a peak temp of 92* and just under 23000 point multi core score. The Peerless Assassin is an absolute unit of a tower cooler, I can’t recommend it enough!
Both systems at home are running NH-D15S (since 2016 and 2018, bought both of them used for around 50 Euros). The asymmetrical towerdesign compared to the NH-D15 gives it better clearence and when a second fan is installed (second pair of brackets is included) the D15S performs like the D15. Accompanied by Noctua case fans both systems are running silent and cool. I love my owls :D
I used the original Fuma2 (1500rpm) on my Ryzen 3600. low temps/low noise. When I upgraded to a Ryzen 5950x I also bought 2 1800rpm Kaze Flex fans just to be sure the Fuma2 would be able to cool a 16core beast, and he does. The newer Fuma2 Rev.B already comes with the faster fans. I even put 2 normal size fans on it instead of one normal and a slim one, because I only use 2 16GB DIMMs. If you use 4 you need the slim one in front.
Just built a Zen 4 7700x for my brother with an Arctic Freezer 34 E-sports Duo. Tuned PBO UV/OC with a 135w max power limit (138 is default) and ended up 5.75 GHz peak boost, 5.15 GHz all core, MAX temp was 92c during Prime95. Rock solid stable. The Freezer 34 Duo (2 fans) is a very good, very economical, and very compact cooler that gets within a few degrees C of the NH-D15. Wish you had included it in this review.
Considering the noctua nh-u12a is only a single tower cooler compared to the others which are two tower coolers, I must say it does a perfectly fine job in comparison and hanging close with the rest of the pack. For the price value and cooling performance, my pick would be the nh-u12a if you're going for a single tower cooler. The thermalright peerless assassin is the choice for cost and performance for two tower cooler. I have the nh-u12a paired with the i7 13700kf and it cools it perfectly fine. Also to note, I'm using thermal grizzly kryonaut which does a better job than noctua's nt-h1 paste. just fyi.
I'm running a nh-u12a on a 13700K in a sff NR200 case and Noctua NT-H2 paste... no issues. It's a great cooler, just overpriced. You are really paying for the 2 premium noctua fans. If I had the room I probably would have gone with the PA 120. That cooler rocks
Great testing, nice to know that you can actually cool the 13900k on air. Thermalright has always impressed me with their TD low profile coolers, nice to know their big coolers are just as good.
I made custom fan mounts for my DRP4 and replaced the fans with much stronger ones, moving about 2x the CF/M and the performance of the heatsink increased dramatically. So yes, the issue is the fans primarily.
@@Galaxy-du9qj I always suggest to wait for reviews. I'm sure it's gonna be good, but wait for the data. In the Deepcool lineup, the Assassin 4 is higher end than the AK620, so it should be better. How much better? And how much better than a D15? Reviews will tell :D
I used a DH15 in my build last year, but it was also the only one of the fans listed here in stock. Had any of the others been the only one in stock, I would have gladly used it.
Now for the obvious "What If" request:. What if you replace the bundled fans with better ones? For some people the extra cost of replacement fans is still preferable to switching to liquid cooling. Phero reports here that his Dark Rock 4 Pro improved a lot.
Why buy a cheaper cooler, then replace the fans by spending more money? Just buy a more expensive cooler... That being said, for the money, the Peerless Assassin 120 is the best bang for buck. I have 3 of them and just moved to a ML280 AiO for my 7700X because I got it for $60. The Assassin was mostly fine before, just got a good deal.
I recently tore apart my custom loop and went back to air. Just a super industrial build with minimal RGB and packed with fans. Dark rock pro 4, phanteks 719 case, and 14 silent wings 4 fans. Incredibly quiet, and the performance is impressive
The Peerless Assassin has been my go-to recommendation for air cooling for people since last year. Surprised to see it beating out the NH-D15 in your testing my that much. Thermalright has some really good value coolers, and I own a Frost Spirit 140 myself. Great testing!
It's been mine too. There's genuinely a vast swath of the market, all the way from the Ryzen 5 7600 to the i7-13700K, that should look absolutely nowhere else.
I’ve always preferred Air coolers over AIOs, it’s much more aesthetically cleaner to me. I’m glad brands are continuing to improve them for the new series of CPUs.
Just a thought for another video - what about using different 120mm fans on the peerless assassin? Would be interesting to see how much performance can be achieved with that cheap cooler.
Have you seen the fan showdown, peeps design fans, sends the design in, the guy prints them and tests them for temp, airflow, etc, its pretty cool and you can get in on the action is you like.
Got my TR PA 120 in December for my upgrade. Bought the ugliest one too for a few bucks less. Couldn't be happier with it. I'm usually a hyper 212 guy, but wanted the extra performance of a dual tower and these Thermalrights are currently less than the cooler master hyper 212. Amazing product.
Great video. There is one thing not talked about though. If you buy a Noctua cooler, you have an upgrade path, Noctua will supply you with adapters even for future sockets for its coolers - for free. Also, those Noctua fans are rated for a serious life span. Cheaper competitors do not even bother to tell you any life span of their fans. Also, dB ist not dB. The sound profile can vary a lot at the same dB and you hear quality when you listen closely (motor noises etc). I don't say one needs to fork out 100 EUR when the Thermalright will do a great job likely at least for the lifetime of a PC but I am saying there is still a case for paying extra for a Noctua cooler, if one is inclined to pay for extra quality.
Could you please do a similar comparison review for water cooling, including their compatibility for upcoming AMD 7000 3D cache CPUs? Like all the different custom water blocks (with overkill radiators so the limit is only the block itself, like two 420mm radiators) and you could include the top of the range AIOs (like 360 and 420mm radiator AIO versons) so we can see how they compare, and determine the best possible CPU cooling kit for the hottest CPUs?
I don't think I have ever seen a side by side comparison of the several different EK CPU water blocks & in turn comparing those to alpha cool, thermal take, etc...
PA120 on my 5800X3D... Awesome cooler, runs quiet at all times while giving me temps I am comfortable with. Literally the best bang for buck cooler in existence ATM.
Omg mike I just literally bought thermalright 2 days ago after I saw that Peerless Assassin review of yours... Thank god it's still top of the class in this review.
Thermalright has been a sleeper brand for a while, glad to see them finally becoming more well known. Their macho coolers are also decent, especially if you need ram clearance
Yeah they just don't really advertise their stuff, so when the "PC gamer" industry went mouth-to-mouth communication to large advertising campaigns as the market grew, they kinda fell behind in terms of brand recognition, but they've never stopped competing.
Love your cooler reviews. Would love to see some 240mm AIO reviews. It’s been a while since anyone’s done a good round up, and there’s a lot of new AIO coolers out there.
For anyone curious about the Dark Rock Pro 4 (which I'm using with the 7950X3D). I replaced the front Silent Wings 3 fan with a Silent Wings 4 fan and saw quite a difference.
This is helpful as I am building one with a regular 7950x. I wanted 3D but worried the MSI motherboard won’t have the correct bios version to run it properly. Pc builder threw the error. Could I ask what motherboard you use?
The results are quite different from your own Ak620 review... I kinda wonder what the difference is. As a BOTH PA120 and AK620 User, I really feel AK620 has slightly lower noise than the PA120 at the same Temp.
@@HardwareCanucks In my personal experience, AK620 was even close to PA120's big brother, FC140, on AM4 CPUs. Maybe its LGA-1700 mount isn't as good as the AM4 and the LGA2066 ones. I only test the coolers on i5 12400 for LGA 1700... And it was obviously an Overkill which only explains that in very low fan speed Ak620 was the best out of three. Nice to see the results of high load scenarios in this vid.
Thanks for the great review again. I just ordered black ridge and set of different fans to make some test on my own. Hoping that single top mounted Artic P12 slim will do the job just fine with ryzen 5500.
You didn't speak about RAM clearance in your video. If I'm not missing something here, the NHU12A is the only cooler with full ram clearance because of the singletower design. That alone may be worth the price to some people. Also, it would be awesome if you could incorporate noise frequencies in your testing in the future, because fans with the same decibel can sound drastically different. Anyway, love your videos regardless, thanks for making these!
I have it and it is somewhat noisy, its low tone is not very pleasant when it exceeds 75%, if you want a little more stability in temperatures and less noise I advise you to go for the D15 or D15S
There are just soooo many Thermalright products out there. Which one is the best? For example, what's the difference between FS140 V3 and Peerless Assassin 120?
Have you seen the fan showdown, peeps design fans, sends the design in, the guy prints them and tests them for temp, airflow, etc, its pretty cool and you can get in on the action is you like.
Excellent review, but some suggestions. First suggestion is, there are 2 high end coolers missing from this comparison. I assume you don't include the assassin 3 because its getting a replacement soon,, but you should definitely try the FC140 from thermalright. I think it's going to top your charts! Second of all, with the 13900k, instead of comparing clockspeeds, you could just compare power draw when these cpus hit 100c.
Hmm i guess i could take your words and solidify my decision of sticking and using only air cooling. Like i always have. I've never ever had an AIO cause i've never trusted any liquids around electronic PC components. No matter how reliable liquid cooling sates it is. I'll never trust it. Especially when there's noisy pumps involved and liquid flushes. Screw that $hit. Air is " Set and Forget " and the worst thing that could happen is a fan to stop working but you'll still have alright cooling till you replace your dead fan. Never using liquid
Great video guys. Ryzen 5-7000 really benefits from a big, flat cooler base. I run watercooled and bought a techn waterblock and even on my 5800x3d I'm in the 60s in gaming, that's with the GPU in the loop as well. Flat bases are going to be so important for Ryzen.
@@bluej511 Good, i'll like a custom EKwb liquid coolinq (i'll waiting for monoblock quantum x). Temperature at max watt on cpu and gpu? Rpm fans and decibels? Thanks! But... which softwares or games use more than 8 cores?
Thank you for this video, it has really given me a lot of insight into planning an upcoming build. I just wish that these coolers made a better effort to be clear about what ram sizes will fit next to them. It sounds like the NH-D15 will only accommodate 32mm height ram (which rules out nearly all good DDR5 options), with the peerless assassin I'm having a harder time to discover.
I love DRP4s especially for its silent profile and I'm a silence freak. But I've always wondered what could happen by replacing the stock fans.. with some work I believe I could try out a NF-A12x25 at least in the front and see if it improves.
If you do it, let me know how it turned out. I have a DRP4 as well on a 13700K with a silent fan curve and am now wondering if I should switch to another cooler or just replace fans. My system is already relatively quiet but I like tinkering around.
@@adoksym I don't have time to tinker around atm, but there should be a set of longer clips that I wonder if they are to be used for a 3rd fan or for a regular 120mm fan. Or else I was thinking to slap a NF-A12x25 I have sitting around, because maybe the holes for the rubber pads (that you can remove from the fan frame) *might* adapt to the DRP4 proprietary clip. I think I won't be able to do much with the center fan, unless trying a NF-P14r, but I bet that there's not much difference between that or the stock silent wing 135mm.
The reason why I recommend D15 over anything else is because it can outlast the next few centuries, a nuclear meltdown and a few apocalypses. The fans and the bearings that noctua uses are industry leading plus they keep supporting newer platforms by providing free compatible brackets to users upgrading from an older platforms. Noctua are absolute Chads of the industry. The word "planned obsolescence" doesn't exist in their dictionary!
I am using a Dark Rock 4 - not the Pro version - since 4 years now. It's been great on my 2600 overclocked and also does a magnificent job on my new 5600x with PBO/Curve Optimizer. While at the time of purchase it looked to be quite expensive ( 45€ ), it has proven to be worth it. Has been running for countless hours and also the fan still works and is as quiet as Day 1.
The problem with the Dark Rock Pro 4 is that you probably did not apply enough mounting pressure. After reading user problems on a forum, I tightened the screws very well and the cooler worked flawlessly.
There's enough pressure. The heatsink itself was roasting hot (67C in some spots) so heat was being transmitted to the fin arrays. It just wasn't being moved out fast enough.
In mid december 2022, i started to gather tech infos for my new gaming PC build. Very fast, i knew that the Noctua NH D15S was the absolute best and i can see a confirmation here. DeepCool might be almost as impressive at the cooling aspect but its way louder on the job and it is not acceptable for me. I record a lots of audio with my PC so i need my PC be the quietest as possible when i record. And when i am gaming, i want the best cooler solution. So Noctua NH 15DS is my obvious choice.
Arctic Freezer 34 Esports Duo is what I've been using and I'm really happy with it, capable cooler and really silent. I even switched to Arctic P14s for my case fans I really liked the brand.
Awesome video! Also when you are flashing the parts with another colour such as at 14:32, there is the faintest but audible high pitched sound that is very distracting. I would recommend removing that. It happens a number of times throughout the video. Keep up the great work!
Besides , noctua will bring new 140mm fans with the new D15 , you can simply buy those fans and put them in your old D15... they will be pretty identical But even if you dont , i dont think the difference will be THAT huge in the first place , but hey !
Please make a separate playlist with your videos about cooling systems. You're very cool. You have the most informative videos about cooling systems. Keep up the good work!!!
I think the noctua u12a looks like the winner for most people. Much smaller footprint than the others and still maintains competitive performance up to 200w+.
I gave the old 8700k (liquid metal Mod) away to someone, recently needed a new cooler and it shouldn't cost much. ~ 1 week ago I looked for the "Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 SE + ARGB" and after 2 days it arrived at the person. The cooler is already running so very cool and also quietly. With standard and 95 watt, it's 58°C in CinebenchR23. Stable at 4.7 GHZ and ~125 watt, it freezes at 64°C in CinebenchR23. In a game 43°c at 58 watt and 80 watt at 50°c.
Cool review. I would say you need to test also single or dual core Prime95, as the cores will heat up a lot more vs multicore and noise measurements will be interesting. On a Ryzen 5500, I'm just limiting temps to 65°C, as the coolers can't really do much and will spin to the max a few percent improvement of Precision Boost. I would have also liked to know how the mounting mechanisms compare. Some are just a put off on some coolers.
I was going to buy the deepcool ak620 but as soon as I saw the PA120 performance, I was convinced to switch, it sells for 25 euros less! Amazingly detailed and technical tests live the data man even more the prestine and intuitive presentation of it. Great video
@@TheCarboy1 oh man, I couldn’t be happier with it! I love it. It is perfect for gaming as for working as well. It’s helping my rtx 2070 super a lot for now, hopefully I’ll make an upgrade to a 4070 by the end of the year. But yes, the 13700k was definitely worth it in my opinion. I went from playing at 1080p to 2K and it made my experience a lot better.
@@davidoque That's great to hear. Mind me asking which motherboard did you go with? I've been looking at 13900k and 13700k. In your opinion, you think I can go with the 13900k and the Peerless assassin, since both 13700k/13900k consume 253W max, assuming no overclocking?
Do you think we will start to see coolers incorporating vapor chambers as opposed to just having heatpipes connected so a solid block? This combination works amazing for GPUs and I'm surprised nobody has attempted it on a tower cooler yet.
Props for the effort put into the video, it looks super clean as ever. However, I'll disagree with you on the fact that a contact frame is a "helper" Intel's ILM design on LGA1700 is so terrible that, for anything from a 12400F performance level onwards, it is a must. The fact that the ILM bends the CPU makes things even worse than the AM5 IHS design, which will mean that none of these coolers are actually getting to perform as well as they could. I hope you add the contact frame to your future videos. Keep up the good work.
Dude your videos are great!!! Could you help me...this thermalright or deepcool ak620 or ag620, supports an R75800x3d.Unfortunately I can't find any information about this processor with Air Cooler...but I've seen Ak620 taking a quiet R9 5950...I saw that thermalright has excellent air with up to 7...8...heatpipes...thanks a lot 👍
I just find the CPU coolers market to be the most interesting part of the PC market right now. This was a hell of a video. I Primarily build with Thermalright since last year. Have not been disappointed.
When I asked my brother to build a computer for me he added a Noctua NH-D15 for more than 100 euros. I live in a Mediterranean weather which is quite warm in the summer and a little bit cold in the winter. I thought it was too much, but 2 years later he was right.
I got the NH-D15S and added another NF-A15 to the heatsink because I was worried about thermal throttling in my i5-13600k rig, but I was so happy and pleasantly surprised to see that it didn't even break 80 degrees Celsius during any application: gaming, cinebench, etc all while not even being undervolted! Noctua for cpu cooler and case fans leaves me blown away (pun intended)! (for those wondering why I didn't just use a NH-D15 it was for compatibility issues with the mobo)
Thanks for the review. Exacly what I needed. I have a 13700K and my NH U12S with a second Noctua NF-F12 fan can not cool down the 13700K at 250W. I have to limit the CPU to 200W. I was thinking should I get the U12A or the D15. I guess it's an easy choice now. D15 it is :)
I have the i7 13700 and the Noctua U12A doesn't get along very well with that cpu, the temperatures rise sharply in some scenarios, try the D15 which is surely a little more stable as it has a double tower, the temperatures will surely rise more gradually. I have it at 190W maximum, maybe with the D15 you can put it at 210W, but don't expect much more. I am referring to the stress tests, in games it adapts better since they do not usually go above 125W on average.
Need to check out the new Thermalright PS120SE. Its the same as the peerless assassin, but has 7 heat pipes instead of 6. It's also rated for 280W instead of 265W.
a very good test, I hope there will be a second part of the test with same fans on each coolers to compare only radiators and for further conclusions about the preinstalled fans
Excellent review! Hope to see more like this in the future. But i have 2 suggestions: one, take all the contenders and put in a single test with a standard (very good) fan, specific model, so as to take the stock fans speed and flow out of the way. Two: maybe consider using liquid metal? I think the higher the tdp, higher must be the heat transfer from ihs to the cooler, and thermal pastes are way behind LM in this regard. At least i think this way, don't know if I'm wrong. Once again: on higher tdp (250w+) scenario.
im using peerless assassin with ryzen5 5600X no OC, i can game for hours without any overheating issues, the only limitation is my ancient gtx 1050ti 4gb
It's astounding how good of a value the Thermalright Peerless Assassin is, especially at it's $40 (!!!) pricepoint.
@@stephenxs8354 Yeah I've seen the SE models go for like $31. Insane value
@@StefandeJong1 what's the difference between the PA120 and PA120 SE? Is it just aesthetics?
@@zhbader As far as I'm aware yes, it seems to me the SE (Simplified Edition?) just has the ornamental plates on top meant to hide the ends of the heat pipes removed and also stands a little shorter in that dimension as a result. Performance should near to if not identical.
The fin array number density size fan type ETC. all seem indistinguishable, the fans have same given rating for RPM air flow/pressure ETC., but there's a 15g difference in weight, no idea what they changed TL-C12C (SE) vs TL-C12.
3 less fin pieces in the SE array but the dimension of the fins and gap between them seems the same, maybe the ornamental plates are counted? Hell if I know. Same C1100 Nickel plated copper base plate. Same number and dimension of heat pipes.
Given weight is 750g* vs 730g* (SE) so aside from the 15g fan spec difference 5g weight discrepancy with respect to the ornament/fin array change. Performance is likely indistinguishable between the two variants, maybe over the long term the fans are more likely to fail. I recommend keeping a 5 pack of Arctic P12's in your closet for a rainy day either way.
*Mislabeled full product weight initially.* *
A Silver Soul at the same price is just as good because you're going to replace those fans anyway
I have the noctua redux. Works great for me
Finally someone reviews a thermalright.
they should definitely review Thermalright Frost Commander 140 and Frost Spirit 140 which beats NH-D14 in temperature with lower noise level.
it's not fair comparing 120mm fan PA120 with 140mm NH-D14
I doubt most realize Thermalright has been around for 20+ years. They were like Noctua back then. I used to buy their coolers and think my first was a sk-6 with a delta fan.
Seriously
I still rock a thermalright silver arrow since socket 775, it still cools my 9900k without any issues, 65 euros well spent way back in the day.
@@sdrubaa I’m talking SK-6 all copper from 1999 or so. They made the best coolers back then. They seemed to drop away for a long while and then I just noticed their products again in the last two years. I bought a dual tower 120mm for my sons Ryzen 5800x.
buying the NH-D15 a couple of years ago was the best decision I've ever made.
Free upgrades for new platforms, incredible performance and fast support make it the best of the best - its now in my 4th build.
Same..i bought mine in 2017 for $105 CAD (NCIX) for my (then R7 1700X), and it's been cooling my 9900K @ 5GHz all core for a few years... but just. I've always been a Thermalright lover though, and this peerless assassin is tempting...moving forward. The NH-D15 is $130+ CAD now, i would just as soon throw a 360 on for that price.
Edit: spelling
@@Mr1Tanker 130? Holy shit... Got mine for 50€ with a voucher in 2017 the original price was 89€.
Yeah, I have a D15S Chromax, and Noctua just sent me for free the mounting kit for 1700, coming from amd.
I have it too and when I saw my friends 360 AiO, I changed my mind. Difference is too big to justify it in this price. Still, it will not break overtime like AiO, but performance is not that great.
@@innocentiuslacrim2290 Everywhere. Noctua can't handle spikes and temps even browsing internet are in 60's. Air is just not good for new CPUs, but it have cons. If I would buy cooler second time, I would buy AiO without second thought. But D15S will stay with me on next build if it ever happens, cause I'm not willing to pay these prices for PC. I could, cause I can, but I won't.
I'm glad Thermalright is making a comeback.. they were THE one to get back in the day, their huge solid copper coolers were fantastic. Looks like they're getting back in the game these days. I'm glad to see it.
Yea i have a thermalright macho rev b, sbm and le grand all great coolers and came with a nice screwdriver. The le grand was a beast
@@ChadKenova I have used a Le Grand in my last 2 builds, it's still the best air cooler out there. It kinda annoys me that everyone is testing the peerless assasin (a great cooler) but ignoring the Le Grand Macho in all of these "best CPU cooler" roundups. I know it's old, but you can still buy it and it still beats everything in this list...
I'm surprised that Thermalright gets so little recognition. They were around at the very beginning, and it was TR that had the first heatpipe and then later heatpipe tower cooler way back in the early 2000s.
There was Koolance and their insanely overengineered watercooling setups (which I still have a soft spot for).
And then, it was either Zallman, Thermalright, or Thermaltake... at least in my little meta of enthusiasts. Remember the Thermaltake Volcano series? Thing sounded like it could grind a screwdriver to the handle and kinda looked like it could too :D
Coolermaster had the first heatpipe based CPU coolers for mainstream, back when 60mm fans were normal, knocking Globalwin and Thermoengine off the podium. It used them to spread the heat up to the top of the fins closer to the fan.
I agree, I was using Thermalright back in the Pentium 4 days, SLK-948U was a great cooler back in the day.
Running a TR Frost Commander 140, Keeps my r7 5800x nice and cool.
It's from China and has always being the best seller there (like Deepcool). I guess it's only recently that buyers from other countries found their coolers overpriced and turn back for budget alternatives.
A "fan normalized" chart would be an amazing addition to these reviews. Would love to see their performace with T30's & the budget option P12's.
Also adding Liquid Freezer II 280/360 to the chart would be a super useful for the average person trying to decide between air & AIO.
Great video btw,
Yeah we might add that in the future but one of the main issue is that there is no "choice fan" and nothing will please everyone. The main issue with the T30 is that it simply won't fit between the fin stacks of dual tower coolers so that's outta the running. Also, its thickness makes it incompatible with most brackets included with these coolers.
One of the problems with fan normalizing an air cooler is that the price will be significantly impacted in many cases… most people want plug and play and budget.
@@junkmail6567 It's about measuring the performance of the heatsink without different fans skewing the results goofus
use p12 max
It's really a good time to be in the air cooling market, you've got a bunch of really good options from being able to get the 1% best at any cost all the way down to a (just as good) cooler and case full of (nearly as good) fans for the cost of a Noctua cooler.
except most of them are that expensive it isn't funny. They are way more expensive then 240 AIO's.
@@carisi2k11 And those cheap 240 AIOs aren't even keeping up with these air coolers.
Which fans are you talking about?
@@katherinehackworth I think Arctic and Deep Cool's fans are both good on that performance/noise balance and both are pretty cheap in multi-packs. I haven't gotten to try the Thermalright ones but they look promising and are a bargain too. Even the Noctua Redux (essentially last gen designs) are a solid option for around 90% of the performance at half the price of their mainline fans (though that's still 2-3x more expensive than the previously mentioned ones). I'd definitely buy any of those again (or try the Thermalright ones) over something like what Corsair or similar are charging a premium for.
Thermalright has been around LONGER than Noctua, and was always at the top.
I bought the PA120 for a 5600x that I installed a few days ago. I was actually confused at how quiet my PC was compared to before. 3600x with a stock cooler was SO loud, not to mention went from about 72-79C underload on the 3600x to 50C underload on my 5600x.
Yeah, that cooler is amazing and ACTUALLY AVAILABLE in most regions.
@@HardwareCanucks Amazing cooler, can't believe it was only 45$ CAD
It keeps a 13700k chilled while gaming.. not so much for benchmarking however! Can't beat it for $40!!! Actually, can't beat it until you spend $80-120
@@HardwareCanucks Not here in Sweden it seems like.
I paid 35€ for the SE version, bargain.
I put a Phanteks T30 onto my Dark Rock Pro 4 and it's insane how much better it is now. Highly recommend since the cooler is really held back by the stock fans.
How did u put the T30 fan on the Dark Rock using the original 25mm bracket? Did u zip tie it?
@@JasperLTZ nope. The cooler comes with different sized clips that fit standard fan hole placement. I had to bend them a bit to fit the added thickness but I've had it on there for months now and no issues at all
@@phero6933 that's good to know, thanks!
Did you replace both fans or only the middle or front one?
@@maksadam3258 I replaced both. The front is the T30, it's too thick for the middle so I put a Noctua NF-A12x25 in the middle.
DeepCool AK620 is a BEAST! I have it on my 5800X3D, and it hardly ever sees 70-75C regardless of load.
Bought NH-D15 (non chromax) early 2015, been using it for i7-4790K, i7-6700K, i7-8700K, Ryzen 7 3800X. Now serving Ryzen 9 5900X.
Got mounting upgrades for free via Noctua support (SecuFirm2).
RMA'd push faulty fan (1x A15) without questions circa 2020.
All shipped to Indonesia free of charge.
This beast's warranty (6y) was only beaten by my PSU warranty (Seasonic Snow Silent 1050W, 7y) that bought around 2014.
Still using both of them now. Cost when bought are justified by their performance & longevity.
I have been using the same Noctua NH-D15 since the Ryzen 7 1800X came out. I've since upgraded to a Ryzen 7 5800X, and then a 5800X3D, and the same NH-D15 has been able to cool them all without issue! I absolutely love Noctua and the fact that their air coolers can beat most, (not all), water cooling AIOs!
The NH-D15 can cool a 5950X with no issues whatsoever. If that cooler can fit on a processor properly it can cool any processor put out these days.
I got the D15S for my 5800X3D and have been very impressed with the performance, especially under full cpu load.
Would love to see a comparison of the coolers while using the same fans, to see which cooler has the better design, for us who plan to switch out the fans anyway, for maybe RGB or just whatever fans we prefer.
Brilliant idea! Yes please.
I use two BeQuiet! Dark Rock Pro TR4's on a dual AMD EPYC workstation, absolutely amazing never see CPU temps above 40c with only the single middle fan installed. In a Fractal Torrent EATX case.
My Peerless Assassin is chilling the hell out of my 12700K. I love it. Also you can control the RGB using signal RGB. What a beast.
With the BQ Dark Rock Pro 4 cooler, there are also additional brackets in the packaging that are made for standard 120mm fans. So you can mount any 120mm fan you want. (Have NF-A12 on mine)
Does it make it much better?
I just bought a new one a couple weeks ago and it didn't come with any extra fan clips period.
Great, finally there is a big comparison of the most popular coolers. Special thanks for the tests at 13900K.
And it would be great if you pay attention to such models as Thermalright Frost Commander 140 (vs D15) and Thermalright U120EX REV.4 (vs U12A).
Loving this air cooler content recently, it’s the best of its kind out there. Would love to see these top air coolers compared to different AIOs for reference.
I bought a DRP4 a few years ago to cool a 10850K. I was upgrading from i5-6600K with NH-D14 (yes, overkill for that cpu). I saw higher than expected temps with the DRP4. I ended up slapping my older Noctua D14 on it, and I noticed this same 4-5 degree C drop in temps. I assumed this was due to better fans on the D14 and the fact that the DRP4 has the black coating. For looks, I swapped the fans on the D14 to black and sold the DRP4 to a buddy. Thermalright is interesting option for the price, but you can't beat the combo of performance and longevity with Noctua imo.
Bought the PA120 RGB version for my 13600k based on your initial review of it, it has NOT disappointed! My motherboard allows my 13600k to pull up to 288w (I’ve only ever seen it pull about 230 in R23), and in gaming workloads my 13600k sits in the mid 50s. Running a 10 minute Cinebench R23 pass saw a peak temp of 92* and just under 23000 point multi core score. The Peerless Assassin is an absolute unit of a tower cooler, I can’t recommend it enough!
Good to hear!
That Dark Rock Pro 4 is my all time favorite. Kept my 5800X cold! Now keeping my wife's 7900X nice and cool
Both systems at home are running NH-D15S (since 2016 and 2018, bought both of them used for around 50 Euros). The asymmetrical towerdesign compared to the NH-D15 gives it better clearence and when a second fan is installed (second pair of brackets is included) the D15S performs like the D15.
Accompanied by Noctua case fans both systems are running silent and cool.
I love my owls :D
I used the original Fuma2 (1500rpm) on my Ryzen 3600. low temps/low noise. When I upgraded to a Ryzen 5950x I also bought 2 1800rpm Kaze Flex fans just to be sure the Fuma2 would be able to cool a 16core beast, and he does. The newer Fuma2 Rev.B already comes with the faster fans. I even put 2 normal size fans on it instead of one normal and a slim one, because I only use 2 16GB DIMMs. If you use 4 you need the slim one in front.
Just built a Zen 4 7700x for my brother with an Arctic Freezer 34 E-sports Duo. Tuned PBO UV/OC with a 135w max power limit (138 is default) and ended up 5.75 GHz peak boost, 5.15 GHz all core, MAX temp was 92c during Prime95. Rock solid stable. The Freezer 34 Duo (2 fans) is a very good, very economical, and very compact cooler that gets within a few degrees C of the NH-D15. Wish you had included it in this review.
Considering the noctua nh-u12a is only a single tower cooler compared to the others which are two tower coolers, I must say it does a perfectly fine job in comparison and hanging close with the rest of the pack. For the price value and cooling performance, my pick would be the nh-u12a if you're going for a single tower cooler. The thermalright peerless assassin is the choice for cost and performance for two tower cooler. I have the nh-u12a paired with the i7 13700kf and it cools it perfectly fine. Also to note, I'm using thermal grizzly kryonaut which does a better job than noctua's nt-h1 paste. just fyi.
I'm running a nh-u12a on a 13700K in a sff NR200 case and Noctua NT-H2 paste... no issues. It's a great cooler, just overpriced. You are really paying for the 2 premium noctua fans. If I had the room I probably would have gone with the PA 120. That cooler rocks
Great testing, nice to know that you can actually cool the 13900k on air. Thermalright has always impressed me with their TD low profile coolers, nice to know their big coolers are just as good.
I made custom fan mounts for my DRP4 and replaced the fans with much stronger ones, moving about 2x the CF/M and the performance of the heatsink increased dramatically. So yes, the issue is the fans primarily.
Yeah it is. Thanks for confirming!
Hey, you can only change the 120mm fan, right?
I am super happy you guys did this new video given how different cooling is now. Very appreciated
Your tests are so good, really hard to find on another channels these detailed tests. 👍
Can't wait to see the improvements of the DeepCool Assassins 4!
And the D16 (but it will be released in 2024).
PS Mike your tests are great as always!
I can buy the deepcool assassin 4 right now, should I buy it or buy the ak620 instead?
@@Galaxy-du9qj I always suggest to wait for reviews. I'm sure it's gonna be good, but wait for the data. In the Deepcool lineup, the Assassin 4 is higher end than the AK620, so it should be better. How much better? And how much better than a D15? Reviews will tell :D
@@simoSLJ89 thanks for the reply 👍👍👍
I used a DH15 in my build last year, but it was also the only one of the fans listed here in stock. Had any of the others been the only one in stock, I would have gladly used it.
Now for the obvious "What If" request:. What if you replace the bundled fans with better ones? For some people the extra cost of replacement fans is still preferable to switching to liquid cooling. Phero reports here that his Dark Rock 4 Pro improved a lot.
Why buy a cheaper cooler, then replace the fans by spending more money? Just buy a more expensive cooler... That being said, for the money, the Peerless Assassin 120 is the best bang for buck. I have 3 of them and just moved to a ML280 AiO for my 7700X because I got it for $60. The Assassin was mostly fine before, just got a good deal.
Personally using the NH-U12s redux for my 13700k and it surprised the hell out of me, coming from a 4790k with a CM Hyper 212 😅
How are the thermals and noise? I was considering that cooler but thought it would be insufficient for the 13700k.
I recently tore apart my custom loop and went back to air. Just a super industrial build with minimal RGB and packed with fans. Dark rock pro 4, phanteks 719 case, and 14 silent wings 4 fans. Incredibly quiet, and the performance is impressive
The Peerless Assassin has been my go-to recommendation for air cooling for people since last year. Surprised to see it beating out the NH-D15 in your testing my that much. Thermalright has some really good value coolers, and I own a Frost Spirit 140 myself. Great testing!
It's been mine too. There's genuinely a vast swath of the market, all the way from the Ryzen 5 7600 to the i7-13700K, that should look absolutely nowhere else.
I’ve always preferred Air coolers over AIOs, it’s much more aesthetically cleaner to me. I’m glad brands are continuing to improve them for the new series of CPUs.
Just a thought for another video - what about using different 120mm fans on the peerless assassin? Would be interesting to see how much performance can be achieved with that cheap cooler.
I saw a review earlier and the stock ones are actually pretty good on par with the artic P12, there's no much gain or a relevant one
Have you seen the fan showdown, peeps design fans, sends the design in, the guy prints them and tests them for temp, airflow, etc, its pretty cool and you can get in on the action is you like.
Thermalright Fans usually are really good. Lots better than most other stock fans. So I wouldn't expect huge improvements.
love your cooler reviews Mike, good work! There are a lot of great options now, can´t wait to see what the new d15 can do.
Got my TR PA 120 in December for my upgrade. Bought the ugliest one too for a few bucks less. Couldn't be happier with it. I'm usually a hyper 212 guy, but wanted the extra performance of a dual tower and these Thermalrights are currently less than the cooler master hyper 212. Amazing product.
Great video. There is one thing not talked about though. If you buy a Noctua cooler, you have an upgrade path, Noctua will supply you with adapters even for future sockets for its coolers - for free. Also, those Noctua fans are rated for a serious life span. Cheaper competitors do not even bother to tell you any life span of their fans. Also, dB ist not dB. The sound profile can vary a lot at the same dB and you hear quality when you listen closely (motor noises etc).
I don't say one needs to fork out 100 EUR when the Thermalright will do a great job likely at least for the lifetime of a PC but I am saying there is still a case for paying extra for a Noctua cooler, if one is inclined to pay for extra quality.
Could you please do a similar comparison review for water cooling, including their compatibility for upcoming AMD 7000 3D cache CPUs? Like all the different custom water blocks (with overkill radiators so the limit is only the block itself, like two 420mm radiators) and you could include the top of the range AIOs (like 360 and 420mm radiator AIO versons) so we can see how they compare, and determine the best possible CPU cooling kit for the hottest CPUs?
I don't think I have ever seen a side by side comparison of the several different EK CPU water blocks & in turn comparing those to alpha cool, thermal take, etc...
My U14S is eight years old now. It still performs flawlessly. Thermalrights are awesome. Can’t wait for the Noctuas new 140 mm fan and a new D15.
PA120 on my 5800X3D... Awesome cooler, runs quiet at all times while giving me temps I am comfortable with. Literally the best bang for buck cooler in existence ATM.
Omg mike I just literally bought thermalright 2 days ago after I saw that Peerless Assassin review of yours... Thank god it's still top of the class in this review.
Hope you enjoy it!
Thermalright has been a sleeper brand for a while, glad to see them finally becoming more well known.
Their macho coolers are also decent, especially if you need ram clearance
Thermalright was the brand to beat back in the day. I have a 20year old cooler still in use from them. Bought back in the socket 775 days xD
Yeah they just don't really advertise their stuff, so when the "PC gamer" industry went mouth-to-mouth communication to large advertising campaigns as the market grew, they kinda fell behind in terms of brand recognition, but they've never stopped competing.
Love your cooler reviews. Would love to see some 240mm AIO reviews. It’s been a while since anyone’s done a good round up, and there’s a lot of new AIO coolers out there.
The next gen NH-D15 coming Q4 is not "relatively soon" when we're talking about it in January.
For anyone curious about the Dark Rock Pro 4 (which I'm using with the 7950X3D). I replaced the front Silent Wings 3 fan with a Silent Wings 4 fan and saw quite a difference.
This is helpful as I am building one with a regular 7950x. I wanted 3D but worried the MSI motherboard won’t have the correct bios version to run it properly. Pc builder threw the error. Could I ask what motherboard you use?
@@DigitalFF2808 Aorus X670 AX Elite
The results are quite different from your own Ak620 review... I kinda wonder what the difference is. As a BOTH PA120 and AK620 User, I really feel AK620 has slightly lower noise than the PA120 at the same Temp.
The results are on two completely different platforms. The delta between the two is exactly why we decided to update this asap. :)
@@HardwareCanucks In my personal experience, AK620 was even close to PA120's big brother, FC140, on AM4 CPUs. Maybe its LGA-1700 mount isn't as good as the AM4 and the LGA2066 ones. I only test the coolers on i5 12400 for LGA 1700... And it was obviously an Overkill which only explains that in very low fan speed Ak620 was the best out of three. Nice to see the results of high load scenarios in this vid.
Thanks for the great review again. I just ordered black ridge and set of different fans to make some test on my own. Hoping that single top mounted Artic P12 slim will do the job just fine with ryzen 5500.
You didn't speak about RAM clearance in your video. If I'm not missing something here, the NHU12A is the only cooler with full ram clearance because of the singletower design. That alone may be worth the price to some people. Also, it would be awesome if you could incorporate noise frequencies in your testing in the future, because fans with the same decibel can sound drastically different. Anyway, love your videos regardless, thanks for making these!
rgb rams...who cares.
Good point thanks for bringing it up
I have it and it is somewhat noisy, its low tone is not very pleasant when it exceeds 75%, if you want a little more stability in temperatures and less noise I advise you to go for the D15 or D15S
There are just soooo many Thermalright products out there. Which one is the best?
For example, what's the difference between FS140 V3 and Peerless Assassin 120?
seeing how different computer coolers perform is still one of my favorite things to watch
Have you seen the fan showdown, peeps design fans, sends the design in, the guy prints them and tests them for temp, airflow, etc, its pretty cool and you can get in on the action is you like.
@@Ozzy3333333I'm only really interested in fans and coolers that are actually on the market
Excellent review, but some suggestions.
First suggestion is, there are 2 high end coolers missing from this comparison. I assume you don't include the assassin 3 because its getting a replacement soon,, but you should definitely try the FC140 from thermalright. I think it's going to top your charts!
Second of all, with the 13900k, instead of comparing clockspeeds, you could just compare power draw when these cpus hit 100c.
Im actually more confused about the performance of the ak620 than the dark pro 4.
The timing of this video is excellent, was just looking to replace my dead AIO 😅
Hmm i guess i could take your words and solidify my decision of sticking and using only air cooling.
Like i always have. I've never ever had an AIO cause i've never trusted any liquids around electronic PC components. No matter how reliable liquid cooling sates it is. I'll never trust it. Especially when there's noisy pumps involved and liquid flushes. Screw that $hit. Air is " Set and Forget " and the worst thing that could happen is a fan to stop working but you'll still have alright cooling till you replace your dead fan. Never using liquid
Great video guys. Ryzen 5-7000 really benefits from a big, flat cooler base. I run watercooled and bought a techn waterblock and even on my 5800x3d I'm in the 60s in gaming, that's with the GPU in the loop as well. Flat bases are going to be so important for Ryzen.
Air beats liquid cooler? Is it possible a test?
And, for gaming and blender gpu render is necessary a multicores cpu?
Thanks!
@@ricbattaglia6976 i run a full custom loop so I'll beat air every time lol.
@@bluej511 Good, i'll like a custom EKwb liquid coolinq (i'll waiting for monoblock quantum x).
Temperature at max watt on cpu and gpu? Rpm fans and decibels?
Thanks!
But... which softwares or games use more than 8 cores?
Thank you for this video, it has really given me a lot of insight into planning an upcoming build. I just wish that these coolers made a better effort to be clear about what ram sizes will fit next to them. It sounds like the NH-D15 will only accommodate 32mm height ram (which rules out nearly all good DDR5 options), with the peerless assassin I'm having a harder time to discover.
I wonder if the peerless assassin would completely overtake the nh-d15 if you added a phanteks t30 onto it. It would still be cheaper too.
Just get the 140mm thermalright cooler ;)
Thank you, Mike. Just finished two builds recently and put the Thermalright Peerless Assassin in both. Seems to work pretty well.
I love DRP4s especially for its silent profile and I'm a silence freak. But I've always wondered what could happen by replacing the stock fans.. with some work I believe I could try out a NF-A12x25 at least in the front and see if it improves.
If you do it, let me know how it turned out. I have a DRP4 as well on a 13700K with a silent fan curve and am now wondering if I should switch to another cooler or just replace fans. My system is already relatively quiet but I like tinkering around.
@@adoksym I don't have time to tinker around atm, but there should be a set of longer clips that I wonder if they are to be used for a 3rd fan or for a regular 120mm fan.
Or else I was thinking to slap a NF-A12x25 I have sitting around, because maybe the holes for the rubber pads (that you can remove from the fan frame) *might* adapt to the DRP4 proprietary clip. I think I won't be able to do much with the center fan, unless trying a NF-P14r, but I bet that there's not much difference between that or the stock silent wing 135mm.
Excellent, extensive and very clear review
The reason why I recommend D15 over anything else is because it can outlast the next few centuries, a nuclear meltdown and a few apocalypses. The fans and the bearings that noctua uses are industry leading plus they keep supporting newer platforms by providing free compatible brackets to users upgrading from an older platforms. Noctua are absolute Chads of the industry. The word "planned obsolescence" doesn't exist in their dictionary!
I am using a Dark Rock 4 - not the Pro version - since 4 years now.
It's been great on my 2600 overclocked and also does a magnificent job on my new 5600x with PBO/Curve Optimizer.
While at the time of purchase it looked to be quite expensive ( 45€ ), it has proven to be worth it.
Has been running for countless hours and also the fan still works and is as quiet as Day 1.
The problem with the Dark Rock Pro 4 is that you probably did not apply enough mounting pressure. After reading user problems on a forum, I tightened the screws very well and the cooler worked flawlessly.
I just want to be able to change the fans out to the Silent Wings 4.
There's enough pressure. The heatsink itself was roasting hot (67C in some spots) so heat was being transmitted to the fin arrays. It just wasn't being moved out fast enough.
Because of your review of pa120, i decided to buy it for ryzen 5600(overkill i know), and damn, 35c idle, 45-50c in games.
Worth adding air cpu coolers in the title 🤙🏼
this!
Good call! Done.
In mid december 2022, i started to gather tech infos for my new gaming PC build. Very fast, i knew that the Noctua NH D15S was the absolute best and i can see a confirmation here. DeepCool might be almost as impressive at the cooling aspect but its way louder on the job and it is not acceptable for me. I record a lots of audio with my PC so i need my PC be the quietest as possible when i record. And when i am gaming, i want the best cooler solution. So Noctua NH 15DS is my obvious choice.
Arctic Freezer 34 Esports Duo is what I've been using and I'm really happy with it, capable cooler and really silent. I even switched to Arctic P14s for my case fans I really liked the brand.
Yes, I checked the comments to see if anyone else was using it. I bought the same cooler last year when I got a 12600k.
Awesome video! Also when you are flashing the parts with another colour such as at 14:32, there is the faintest but audible high pitched sound that is very distracting. I would recommend removing that. It happens a number of times throughout the video. Keep up the great work!
Besides , noctua will bring new 140mm fans with the new D15 , you can simply buy those fans and put them in your old D15... they will be pretty identical
But even if you dont , i dont think the difference will be THAT huge in the first place , but hey !
Please make a separate playlist with your videos about cooling systems. You're very cool. You have the most informative videos about cooling systems. Keep up the good work!!!
I think the noctua u12a looks like the winner for most people. Much smaller footprint than the others and still maintains competitive performance up to 200w+.
Plus you can switch both fans for a t30
You pay a premium to have noctua, for the brand and quality. Its worth it if you can afford it tho :D
I gave the old 8700k (liquid metal Mod) away to someone, recently needed a new cooler and it shouldn't cost much. ~ 1 week ago I looked for the "Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 SE + ARGB" and after 2 days it arrived at the person. The cooler is already running so very cool and also quietly. With standard and 95 watt, it's 58°C in CinebenchR23. Stable at 4.7 GHZ and ~125 watt, it freezes at 64°C in CinebenchR23. In a game 43°c at 58 watt and 80 watt at 50°c.
Cool review. I would say you need to test also single or dual core Prime95, as the cores will heat up a lot more vs multicore and noise measurements will be interesting.
On a Ryzen 5500, I'm just limiting temps to 65°C, as the coolers can't really do much and will spin to the max a few percent improvement of Precision Boost.
I would have also liked to know how the mounting mechanisms compare. Some are just a put off on some coolers.
I was going to buy the deepcool ak620 but as soon as I saw the PA120 performance, I was convinced to switch, it sells for 25 euros less! Amazingly detailed and technical tests live the data man even more the prestine and intuitive presentation of it. Great video
Literally the best ad I have ever seen on TH-cam and it ain’t close.
You earned a new subscriber! Thanks for the video, I have now made my decision and went with the Peerless assassin for my i7 13700k 😁
Is your 13700k stable so far with gaming and everyday tasks?
@@TheCarboy1 oh man, I couldn’t be happier with it! I love it. It is perfect for gaming as for working as well. It’s helping my rtx 2070 super a lot for now, hopefully I’ll make an upgrade to a 4070 by the end of the year. But yes, the 13700k was definitely worth it in my opinion. I went from playing at 1080p to 2K and it made my experience a lot better.
@@davidoque That's great to hear. Mind me asking which motherboard did you go with? I've been looking at 13900k and 13700k. In your opinion, you think I can go with the 13900k and the Peerless assassin, since both 13700k/13900k consume 253W max, assuming no overclocking?
Do you think we will start to see coolers incorporating vapor chambers as opposed to just having heatpipes connected so a solid block? This combination works amazing for GPUs and I'm surprised nobody has attempted it on a tower cooler yet.
I love ur Cooler Reviews!! Hoping the thermal right does well!!!
Really didn't expect the Dark Rock Pro to be that bad. I'm glad I picked the trusty old D15 over that one.
I was looking for a video like this from a reputable source just a couple days ago, thank you so much! Definitely helps finding my AIO replacement
Props for the effort put into the video, it looks super clean as ever.
However, I'll disagree with you on the fact that a contact frame is a "helper"
Intel's ILM design on LGA1700 is so terrible that, for anything from a 12400F performance level onwards, it is a must. The fact that the ILM bends the CPU makes things even worse than the AM5 IHS design, which will mean that none of these coolers are actually getting to perform as well as they could.
I hope you add the contact frame to your future videos. Keep up the good work.
Dude your videos are great!!! Could you help me...this thermalright or deepcool ak620 or ag620, supports an R75800x3d.Unfortunately I can't find any information about this processor with Air Cooler...but I've seen Ak620 taking a quiet R9 5950...I saw that thermalright has excellent air with up to 7...8...heatpipes...thanks a lot 👍
Great video! I'd still love to see a similar video for AMD-made CPUs.
I just find the CPU coolers market to be the most interesting part of the PC market right now. This was a hell of a video. I Primarily build with Thermalright since last year. Have not been disappointed.
When I asked my brother to build a computer for me he added a Noctua NH-D15 for more than 100 euros. I live in a Mediterranean weather which is quite warm in the summer and a little bit cold in the winter. I thought it was too much, but 2 years later he was right.
What a GREAT video, thank you!
You might have to check out the MONTECH DT24 , it's a cooling beast !
Interesting choice!
I got the NH-D15S and added another NF-A15 to the heatsink because I was worried about thermal throttling in my i5-13600k rig, but I was so happy and pleasantly surprised to see that it didn't even break 80 degrees Celsius during any application: gaming, cinebench, etc all while not even being undervolted! Noctua for cpu cooler and case fans leaves me blown away (pun intended)!
(for those wondering why I didn't just use a NH-D15 it was for compatibility issues with the mobo)
I hope you guys make "The Best Liquid Cooler out now". I could use a recommendation for a 240mm or 280mm AIO cooler for my 13600K.... thanks 🙏.
Thanks for the review. Exacly what I needed. I have a 13700K and my NH U12S with a second Noctua NF-F12 fan can not cool down the 13700K at 250W. I have to limit the CPU to 200W. I was thinking should I get the U12A or the D15. I guess it's an easy choice now. D15 it is :)
I have the i7 13700 and the Noctua U12A doesn't get along very well with that cpu, the temperatures rise sharply in some scenarios, try the D15 which is surely a little more stable as it has a double tower, the temperatures will surely rise more gradually. I have it at 190W maximum, maybe with the D15 you can put it at 210W, but don't expect much more. I am referring to the stress tests, in games it adapts better since they do not usually go above 125W on average.
Great video! Makes me so happy to have purchased the Thermalright PA120SE instead of the better looking AK620!
Need to check out the new Thermalright PS120SE. Its the same as the peerless assassin, but has 7 heat pipes instead of 6. It's also rated for 280W instead of 265W.
i have one. it is crazy good for my 7950x3d.
a very good test, I hope there will be a second part of the test with same fans on each coolers to compare only radiators and for further conclusions about the preinstalled fans
Excellent review! Hope to see more like this in the future. But i have 2 suggestions: one, take all the contenders and put in a single test with a standard (very good) fan, specific model, so as to take the stock fans speed and flow out of the way. Two: maybe consider using liquid metal? I think the higher the tdp, higher must be the heat transfer from ihs to the cooler, and thermal pastes are way behind LM in this regard. At least i think this way, don't know if I'm wrong. Once again: on higher tdp (250w+) scenario.
Just bought the Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120SE brand new for just $32, what a steal.
im using peerless assassin with ryzen5 5600X no OC, i can game for hours without any overheating issues, the only limitation is my ancient gtx 1050ti 4gb
So What cooler should I use for amd 7950X? Thermalright Assasin or noctua D15 should be ok or we should go liquid for amd?
Awesome review, I was curious to my my i7 139 was getting freakishly hot... thanks. Peerless assassin ordered!