It looks like russian PC commuity also likes Thermalright. I am building AMD 5600X. I asked AM4 cooler forum about best price/efficienty coooler. People told me to buy PA120 SE for $40. At first I was scetical and asked something cheaper. But they tell "just buy PA120". So yeah. After this video i understand why they reccommend it. Also in my country PA 120 white/black is about 2.5 times cheaper then Dark Rock Pro 4. I wanted to buy PA 120 SE but it was sold out for it's best price.
Old people will remember the name ThermalRight with fondness. Back in the day, the T.R.U.E. was an amazing cooler, as was their follow-up that no one talked about for some reason, the Venomous-X.
I used to have a Thermalright SK6 back in the day. It was one of the best heatsinks available at the time (back before heatpipe coolers became mainstream).
Yup. I still have my IFX-14 that i bought for my first AM2-system working in my HTPC. I am not able to tell by hearing if the PC is running. And that´s not just because i am apparently old :)
This is incredibly good value. Here in Australia the Noctua NH-D15 Chromax is $219aud or $150usd. The Peerless Assassin is $49AUD *with* the LGA 1700 bracket included! It’s literally 24% of the price!!
where did you find it for $49? im looking for the white SE ARGB version (in australia) and Amazon has it for $98. aliexpress has one for like $75 as well but im not sure I trust it
but the question is will i get a socket adapter for free with next new sockets? cause i got adapter for socket 1151 and 1700 for free from noctua, i paid 90 euro for mine, not that bad after all with that service.
I'm actually sad as everytime new air coolers come out from Thermalright no one pays attention to them. They have been a very solid choice for many many years. Happy to have seen you guys reviewing this! Hope Thermalright stays around keeping offering great prices and performance.
I wish I was more keen inside the world of PC tech, like how I am with audio gear. I love the feeling of being aware of underrated gems that typically evades the public.
Can confirm that this is a great cooler for the price. Got it for about 70 CAD from Amazon, and it keeps my 2700x pretty cool even with all power limits maxed out. (~165w heat load)
@@seanathan14 I've moved on to another build since my original post here so can't confirm exact figures but I recall it being around ~70c when gaming and able to keep it around ~90c when stress testing. Case didn't have the best air flow though as it was matx, would probably have been a bit better in an atx build.
Just wanted to let you know that I bought and installed one of these coolers because of your video. I was using the the stock AMD 5600X cooler and when I used handbrake to convert videos using my CPU the temps would go up to 98C, after installing this cooler the temps were steady at 58C and below. I almost spent the extra money on a Noctua and I am so glad I didn't, saved a lot of money and this one preforms well. Thanks again. Keep up the great work.
The exact same boat as you brother, handbrake put mi 5600x to cry, but instead of the stock cooler the wraith stealth i was using the wraith spire witch is a higher TPD. 90°C on full load even on spec is insane.
@@kravenfoxbodies2479 Yea, for the price and results I don't think I will consider Noctua and the expensive ones. This one keeps the temps under 55 degrees no matter what I'm doing, compared to over 90 with the stock cooler.
Well i do sure am glad im not the only one that had issues with 5600X insane temps even when undervolting it was 70 to 75 easy if not 80 peak only gaming. I ordered today a Peerless assasin 120 along with a new mobo as old died and the cpu so it was time to put normal cooler instead of the stock one which was driving me crazy. Btw its 5600X again so :D i hope for good results
Thermalright's big boy dual-tower air cooler is the Frost Commander 140, which is also the brand's proper competitive product up against the likes of NH-D15 and Dark Rock Pro4, while still undercutting them in price of course, might want to check it out!
@@fdjw88 Unfortunately, the availability seems to be restricted to the asia-pacific region. Let's hope Thermalright improves the availability of their products in the future.
Here are my before and after temp results: (My old heatsink was the AMD Wraith Prisim). Before / After Idle 52 / 36 CPU-Z Stress test: 80 / 64 Prime95: 90 / 78 3DMark Time Spy: 87 / 72 Pretty easy to install without removing the motherboard. (I have a pretty large case.) A helpful heads up to those who want to install this without removing the mobo from the case - ONLY remove 1 of the old AM4 brackets at a time, and then install the new bracket. Then repeat with the other old AM4 bracket. Why? If you remove both of the AM4 brackets then the backplate probably will fall out. The only thing that worried me was the orientation of the new brackets and what direction the curve went, but the pictures on the installation manual cleared that up pretty fast. Finally, the spring clips that hold the fans scared me to death since I had never used that style before and so I was worried that I would damage the fins on the heatsink tower. I watched Thermaltake's RU-vid video and saw how they are installed and then I did it pretty easily. I think I could now do it blindfolded since I now know it wont damage the cooler fins to pull the spring back that far and use that much force.
@@flipdryI'm not OP but I am using Ryzen 5600, the cooler works like a charm, when I played last of us on the stock cooler, the cpu turned up to 95 degrees celcius, but now it only gets up to 60 degrees. Amazing cooler
@@LeumazDnazor That's awesome to hear it works so well for you 😁. I also have the same cooler with a Ryzen 7 5800x3d and it only ever gets to 70C while gaming with the fans at 50%. Max temp is 74C under cinebench/prime95 loads. This cooler is the new standard imo kinda like the how the Cooler Master Hyper 212 was for 10 years.
@@karthick6028 the price of the PA120 seems to vary a lot. I was able to get one on prime day for less than the AK400. The AK400 is still one of the better single tower coolers for lower TDP heat loads.
Thermalright used to have one of the best socket 2011 tower coolers. I think it was the SilverArrow. Crazy amount of heatpipes and huge performance, it was a Noctua fighter from the start.
I saw the small thermalright 120 (something like that) going for about $35 and thought it was pretty solid. Made me think this dual tower one would be a great buy as well but some user reviews people complain about fan noise. Im glad you did this test to because i imagined a custom fan profile would fix that and this video proves it. This is pretty bomb.
another great video Mike, I love your presentation style! And this cooler is absolutely gorgeously looking! Though I would prefer the black one - and it's not even to be found at where I live. Not a single shop sells them. Wow. But still, I for myself simply cannot understand why people would choose an AiO over a cooler like this. It's just awesome.
@@HardwareCanucks not sure why my comment disappeared, but it’s $65 on Amazon. Won’t post the link this time just in case that’s why. This cooler is still the better deal for sure. But the fuma 2 doesn’t compete in the same bracket as the D15s and dark rock pro 4. It competes in the mid-range bracket.
The Scythe Fuma 2 is nowhere NEAR $90 USD. It's $65 MSRP for the Rev2 version, and it's priced that way right now, so based on price this isn't much better. But the Scythe Fuma 2 has years of users and manufacturing checking it and it's a high quality part off the manufacturing line. I'd rather stick with that regardless. I love that cooler and the price difference isn't enough to worry about it. The Scythe doesn't even need the fan curve adjusted. It runs at a max of 1500RPM and it will ramp up to that speed if needed, and at that speed it's about the quietest cooler around. You made an error of 40% in saying the Fuma 2 is $90 USD.
Was building a new rig after Microscenter forced me to buy a 12700k + Mobo for a great price. Def needed a new CPU cooler as my noctua is 10 years older and Id rather not deal with whatever is waiting for me in my current PC case that I haven't opened in years lol. Ran into this one and it was an instant buy seeing it compete at that price. $49 after tax for the all black version
Huh I don't get it I have a 13700k and this thing is idling at 50°, getting up to 80° in gaming and in cinebench is thermal throttling way earlier than my U12S I bought this to replace.
11400 stock vs thermalright pearless assasin 123 se on a coolermaster nr200 itx -stock idle: 42 c max load: 85 c cinebench score 8180 -thermalright cooler idle : 28 c max load: 60 c cinebench score 9958
neck to neck at 120W @ 100% fan speed but get 5°C hotter on the 260W @ 38dB test. It all depend of the test, just like a Subaru Vivio can win a race against Formula 1 race car if you add snow to the mix.
The Thermalright similar to the Noctua D15 is not the peerless assassin but the Silver Arrow IB-E Extreme Rev. B who cost 113$ on Amazon... please don't mix up anything and everything, because the Peerless assassin is VERY noisy with the fans at full speed, while the Noctua is barely audible
I notice you're using the 10980XE for your reviews. Would a newer platform eg the 13900K make a difference? Apparently that thing is a real beast to cool down.
I picked up a PA120SE White ARGB to handle the extra heat on the 5800x3d I picked up. It cools well, it's white, it has ARGB, it's way less expensive than my U12S that it is replacing (way, way less than the Noctua D12L, D14, D15 dual tower equivalents) The SE models are 2 mm shorter than the normal PA120. 155mm vs 157mm. This allows cases such as the Coolermaster NR200 to get the side panel closed.
Just picked one of these up in anticipation of a new build 👍. A lot of TRs coolers are discounted right now on Amazon! Still using my old lapped TRUE I bought back in 2010 with my current 4790k rig, working great.
The only reason I tried other coolers was because there waa a period of a few years where you could only get Thermalright from a couple of vendors. Good to see the availability improve and a new generation of builders seeing the performance and value. If you get a chance to test their Macho lineup or their older HR-02 Plus, I suspect you'll be surprised at how well those work without being loud.
Just got this for $48 after tax on Amazon Canada! Really excited to see how this does with my 5600x as it seems incredibly impressive in the tests I've seen.
I can't believe I paid $120 for the U12A last year when this thing was around as an option. 😭 Oh well, it was for my SO's build and she thinks it looks cool, so I'll say it's still worth. Currently rebuilding my own rig's aesthetics and just got this Peerless Assassin SE in white for only $35, so at least I saved money *this* time. 😅 Thanks for the review, 'Nucks!
hi, love the review! i think this is the first good review of the PA120 i've seen from any western media, it really is an underrated cooler. just wanted to let you know there's a minor mistake at 7:45, where the cooler pictured is an NH-D14, not NH-D15
Thank you, you pretty much answered all of my questions thoughout the review, except maybe: how does it cool an AMD CPU and vs. AK620? Would love to see Frost Commander 140 review under highest W CPU load!
I'm still using a Noctua U12a with Phanteks T30's on an AsRock x570 Razer Edition with a 5950x oc'd to 4.4 at 1.2v. I even have my Corsair Vengeance 3200 ram oc'd to 3533mhz with infinity fabric at 1767mhz. Everything super stable and running cool for 16 cores. I have zero desire to move up to a 670/650 board with Zen5. Not worth it for me as I have more than enough performance than I even need right now.
INTEL 17XX was included with mine! It looks like a recent addition, with a new sticker slapped on the box. Thanks for this review, nobody talks about my favorite air cooler. My PA120 still only costs 42 us on amazon. It's gray/aluminum, includes the top caps and gray fans that match Noctua Redux. A few details: - I can see solder at the joint of the cold plate and heat pipes, many cheap coolers don't use solder. - The stacks are offset further from your graphics card (like Noctua's), allowing my hot gpu back plate better ventilation. - People avoid this because a limited number had slightly short mounting screws for AMD, negative reviews complain about needing to apply dangerous pressure to start the screws. Those are older reviews and mine installed perfectly on AMD, like most reviews. - Absolutely the best value in my pc, and one the best coolers I've owned. I returned a Scythe Fuma 2 when I found the Thermalright simply looked and felt better built. Also, I can't confirm, but it's been said that Thermalright will also offer updated mounting hardware years later, perhaps for a small price.
You're providing the best CPU cooler coverage on RU-vid, but I wish you'd speak more on after-sales care on these products. What continues to make Noctua a great brand for example is their generous warranty service and free mounting hardware upgrades so you can use the same cooler for multiple generations. It ends up being great value in the long run. I think this matters more than 1 or 2 degrees temperature difference.
@@HardwareCanucks Noctua are not the only ones to provide free mounting hardware but I don't know if anybody else ships with DHL Express for 2,50€ extra. I got moutnting kits next day from another country twice now and I think that's amazing. Also I got the cooler second hand and all I had to provide is a photo of the cooler and respective motherboard for the needed kit with a time stamp.
This is extremally important, Scythe global policy is that it does to NOT provide mounting kits for existing customers, without charging additional cost. For example, a customer would have to pay extra for an LGA1700 kit and pay again for any future mounting hardware. Irrespective of Scythe official global policy, in my experience Scythe’s customer service is poor. Scythe failed to help me even buy a kit, after a month of messing around I had to return the Fuma 2. Most of the major CPU cooler makers (like Arctic Cooling and Noctua) will support customers. I have now gone back to Noctua whose customer support is impeccable. Peace to everyone and stay safe.
Great video. I currently have the Scythe Fuma 2 on my 3900x. I bought it a few years ago for around $60. It's been great. I may have to think about this cooler when it is time to update my system. It really looks like an impressive cooler.
I recently bought my PA 120 se rgb for $34 off of Amazon. I only have a i3-12100f, but $34 for such a good cooler was a steal and I couldn't turn it down.
After upgrading to a Ryzen 7 5800X3D, my dual fan Noctua NH-U12S was not able to keep up. I upgraded to the Thermalright Frost Commander 140 BLACK and the difference was immediately noticeable. Temps dropped by 5 degrees on average, it is much quieter and the CPU can boost higher at 90 degrees.
Watched this AFTER I already bought the base model. I am so hyped and I also shared this video to my buddies on Discord that made fun of me for not buying a “known” brand. As far am I’m concerned, as long as it makes a solid connection with my CPU on the baseplate I’m already winning
At 8:50 you say "never keep your fan profiles on your motherboards at Auto settings", and ""optimze for performance and noise levels". OK, how is that done? Are you suggesting setting a constant fan speed? Or ...?
love love love your cpu cooler reviews. bought an se-224-xt on your advice, and not a single regret ever. i would love to see an inexpensive case thermals roundup for 2 reasons: 1) cases costs a lot more than coolers. easily running over $100. with high oil prices, higher shipping costs, they are actually getting more expensive over time. 2) with all that high powered next gen components coming, getting good airflow is becoming more important. even a great cooler can get bad results in a stuffy case. many thanks for your time. your hard work is much appreciated.
*2degC sometimes matters a LOT. Sometimes not much...* I found my R9-3900x (12-core) easily gets over 75degC with just a few cores running (tweaked the voltage yada yada running 4.225GHz to optimize power/performance). It's weird, but I guess with a chiplet design maybe the IO chiplet or something has a hotspot. Not sure. Anyway, the STOCK fan was constantly ramping UP and DOWN just in idle. Yuck. When I put my Noctua NH-D14 (with PWM fan) on it had the same problem but was less severe... but... when I carefully adjusted the fan profile so it was (30%/65degC, ramp to 50%/75degC, ramp to 100%/85degC) so basically level, slight ramp, then STEEP ramp my system was nicely FUNE TUNED. I got rid of those spikes. (So when you've got these kind of spikes that force you to have a steep ramp to get around a couple degrees really matters. Although since arguably "high" temperatures such as 90degC doesn't really damage a modern processor I don't see the logic of running a processor under 60degC if you can hear the fan. Seems kind of stupid. To gain some processing power because of how modern processors adjust frequency? Meh. It's pretty insignificant usually.) If I didn't understand how cooling works I would have probably ran out and got an AIO then ran that out some unnecessarily loud fan speed.
I bought this thing and you made the review like four days later lmao. I got the RGB one only to discover that it needs their silly RGB controller brick... now I'm thinking of just slapping some Arctic fans in it or something :( My expectations for RGB seem to have been spoiled by the Wraith Prism.
I'm shocked that this brand was forgoten by many of the main reviewers out there. I was in the hunt for a cooler for my 5600x because for me 90°C on full load even on spec is too much. A there he is the peerless assasin, where in my country a top brand is like 150 to 200 Usd this was only 60. I was looking al over youtube for a review and the only reviews are for Noctua, Thermaltake or Scythe. Maybe they show some love now that you have reviewed this model.
Lol, the PA120 isn’t even their top product. I wanna see the Frost Commander 140 go up against Noctua D-15. The Frost Commander has an even heavier heat sink and larger fans. It’s unfair to compare to compare this to the D15 when it’s not the same size or weight class. The Frost Commander is the obvious D15 competitor.
No offense, but the Fuma 2 normally sells for around the same $60 price point. No idea why it's incredibly expensive online right now, but NORMALLY it's a $60 cooler, which puts it in direct competition with this ThermalRight cooler." Source: I purchased a Fuma 2 for my GF's NR200 build for $59.99 on March 9, 2022. From Amazon.
No offense taken. But I've talked to Scythe about this. The $60 Fumas were shipped to retailers prior to the current shipping crunch and prior to the Rev.B being introduced.
The two bigger brothers to this cooler are the Frost Spirit 140 and the Frost Commander 140. They have 8mm heatpipes and they're essentially the successor to my OG Thermalright Silver Arrow. Great value.
The FS140 is a sidegrade at best. It's worse than the PA120 under ≈200W, and not better enough past that point to make much sense VS the PROPERLY SUPERIOR FC140.
Crazy that this just came out when I got my Fuma2, lmao. I love Scythe as far as I have tested it, but there's no reason to pay 20 bucks more for it if you get similar results with this one. Any new builders have it real easy with CPU coolers, I envy you.
The NH-15D and Dark Rock Pro 4 should be compared to the Thermalright Frost Commander 140. Those are comparable coolers in size and design, especially the NH-15D and the FC140. The results would be a clean sweep for TR, but it would be a more equal comparison.
For someone looking for beefier cooler without breaking a bank, I would recommend checking it's bigger brother. I've been running Thermalright frostcommander 140 since December of last year. it is on par with Noctua best offering.
9:45 "Hardly anyone will be pushing their processor to output this kind of heat." How about routine video editing, compiling, and attempting to cure cancer with BOINC nearly 24/7? On a 5950x. Yeah - I'm tapping thermal throttle all the time and need a better cooler than the AIO I'm running.
@@HardwareCanucks I find it odd at 120W and 260W the NH-U12S is showing lower temperature than the NH-U14S. larger fan with more air being moved on a larger heatsink should result in better heat dissipation I would think.
I was going to initially go with the Noctua NH-D15 to replace an AIO that went bad, but looked at these reviewes on the Thermalright PA. Glad I did, saved $115 and it's working like a champ!
I came across the U120EX recently but could not find any reliable reviews for it. It looks really nice and comes with the thermalright version of the nf-a20/gentle typhoon (TL-B12). It's currently at $69 and $79 for the white and black respectively. The fans alone are $23.
I couldn't use this CPU cooler because the height was too much for my builds, but I'm using two Thermalright Silver Soul 135 Black Dual Tower CPU coolers on two 5700G NAS systems 12HDD(x2) in a tight space and getting far better thermals than what I was previously using, which was the little Noctua NH-D9L which is around 10 dollars cheaper but not worth it.
I want to ask what is the best PC Case should I put this in with? I need something that is bang for the buck but with good airflow too. I'm currently planning on getting DarkFlash DLM22 but I'm not quite sure if it fits after putting the mobo and CPU in. TIA
I got the white ak620 for only £60 and that's a great alternative to noctua too Peerless assassin aren't available in UK Don't get the SE model. It has reports of cold plate flatness problem
i knew it they just selling a badge of their own product they put a high price tag cuz they got promoted by famous tech youtuber, i'm waiting for this moment finally, thanks for reviewing this
Great review! Thermalright is very underrated, it would be awesome to see a review of the TA120 EX MINI and the Silver Soul 135... They are very interesting because both use 120mm fans with a height of just 135mm, that could be the best possible cooling for a SFF, maybe better than the NH-U9S?
I think I heard somewhere (here maybe?) that the fans longevity leaves a smidge to be desired. But I guess for what it costs out the gate there's not much to complain about.
Honestly if you can get the peerless asssassin for 30 bucks off the internet? it just makes me dislike the Noctua brand at face value. That means they've way over priced their fans. Don't like greedy companies 1 single bit. I hope thermalight continues to make other companies reconsider the scams they are running on people. There's almost nothing too that you need to run that would need more than this. If you did there's water cooling unless you're afraid of it or dislike the hassle like me. I prefer the 3d space of air coolers over the horizontal consumption of space that AIO coolers offer. And you don't even need them. I was able to overclock the ryzen 5 7600 with the stock cooler and never got over 80 Celsius even running benchmarks. The 7600X? Yea but the 7600X by every benchmark and measure is only something like 4-6% better (even when overclocked) and every redditor or forum user will tell you "just pick the one that's cheaper." Despite that tiny bit of 5% squeeze that amd wasted on a cpu, the 7600X draws way more power and gets way hotter but I've seen people say they swapped the 7600 stock fan onto it with 0 problems. I just built my pc and intend to upgrade later to the 7800x3D. That's why I bought this as a part of my starting build. But I am realizing how absolutely overkill it is. This thing could probably cool all the components in the case. Heck it might even be doing that. My front case fans pull in air and the back ones blow it out. As a result this means my front case fans are shooting fresh air at the peerless assassin, and the peerless assassin is shooting air at the back case backs, the back case fans are shooting that air out of the case. The only way this could get cooler would be for me to put the case on its side on top of an hvac vent or some kind AIO cooler (which I refuse to use until air coolers are completely obsolete) that used water that was a few degrees above freezing constantly (basically dumping water on the cpu ig) The thing is too almost none of the cpus in the 7000 series really perform all that better in benchmarks until you compare the 7600 to the 7990x3D. And even then it's only like 13% better by the numbers. What really makes the x3D's powerful isn't necessarily their processing power but the extra 3D cache they have which gives the more space to cache or use or store RAM for 3D rendering. The most cpu intensive game i own and is renown for being cpu intensive is Rust and I basically never drop below 55 frames and it only gets that low because of my budget gpu which I intend to ugprade.
it seems to me they came out of nowhere but in doing a deep dive into the brand they have a good history and reputation. I am using their lga 1700anti bend bracket for my build
I have both, NH-D15 and Peerless Assasin running 2 identical systems 5950X Strix 3090 and while I run BD rebuilder re-encoding 4K UHD 80GB videos and using only h265 and h264 Assasin can't keep up and makes my CPU go over 80C while NH-D15 keeps it at 65C MAX. Yes, for the money Peerless Assasin is OK, but not even in the same class of coolers opposed to e.g. NH-D15 and Dark Rock 4 Pro, but then again you getting $50 cooler. Bottom line is, your video is good, but you shouldn't not compare 2 different class coolers and if you talking 120Wats, that is low wattage range, must well get 212 EVO, it will be close to that.
Might try this one out for my I5-4670K which ive overclocked and uses a lot of heat because of the vcore volt.. im kinda thermal limited in full load right now.. i think. Now i use Noctua NH-U9B SE2 but have a Noctua NH-U9S as well. Kinda comparable. Any inputs of this? Swap my Noctua for this Thermalright on my I5-4670K?
Heard a lot of good things about this one, high performance and relatively low price, it's can't get any better than that. Still, the D-15 cooler is a very high performance cooler, be a waste to simply discard it, might as well get an mounting kit for the newer CPUs and keep using it a while longer. Even CPU coolers are not meant to last forever, they'd have to be replaced at some point. Either way, Pearless Assassin is definitely a good choice for a new build.
