Thermalright True Spirit 140 Direct CPU Air Cooler @ [H]

FrgMstr

FrgMstr

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Thermalright True Spirit 140 Direct CPU Air Cooler - Thermalright has been laying low in North America for the last few years, actually almost 5 years the way we see it. The True Spirit 120 was an inexpensive Titan when it came to cooling hot CPUs. Thermalright's legacy is extended today with the True Spirit 140 Direct, but is it worthy of the "True Spirit" name and most importantly your hard earned dollar?
 
Hey Kyle. I see that AM4 is not listed under AMD compatibility but you used it in your Ryzen testing. Was that on a CH6 MB?
 
RAutrey said:
Hey Kyle. I see that AM4 is not listed under AMD compatibility but you used it in your Ryzen testing. Was that on a CH6 MB?
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The True Spirit 140 Direct comes out of the box with AM4 support. It was actually what I used as a template to dill all our custom backplates for Ryzen testing before any of that information was out. Thanks for the heads up. Compatibility specs are fixed. :)
 
I literally bought this an hour ago and didn't see this review yet :)

I'm glad I bought it because my H110i started sounding like an old 7200 RPM Maxtor with a bad bearing. Throwing in the towel on the AIOs. I found this on ebay if anyone wants to match up your build theme with a white accent fan... or push and pull - http://www.ebay.com/itm/201507847891
 
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Rvenger said:
I'm glad I bought it because my H110i started sounding like an old 7200 RPM Maxtor with a bad bearing. Throwing in the towel on the AIOs.
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With recent HSFs performing at near or even better temperatures than some AIO units, would have to agree. Was in a similar boat as you, except I had an H100i and found a slightly overpriced FUMA that still had a better price-to-performance ratio than everything available on the market. During the waiting period of that FUMA shipment from overseas, the Intel stock fan was installed in my system and didn't realize how much noise I had gotten used to with the AIO over the years. I recall that being a selling point of the AIOs - not only better at dissipating heat, but quieter performance than potential high RPM fans installed on a third-party cooler. Apparently improved design in surface area has reached a newer level. Of course, the units still have their place in smaller configuration PCs, but if you can fit a moderate-to-large air cooler in your system and do a bit of research, air is back, and it doesn't need to be BIG to perform admirably.

Glad to see such a popular HSF gain a worthwhile successor.
 
The AM4 support sold me on this one. Such a pain to contact the manufacturer and hope they snail mail you a bracket. Phanteks did a good job on my cousin's ph-tc12dx and it arrived in a little over a week but they should be included by now you would think or at least readily accessible for a very small cost at the e-tailers..
 
Still rockin the OG TRUE120 in my HTPC, started out cooling my Q6600 back in 2007. 10 solid years, still great temps!
 
I'm a bit confused by the heat pipe design on these types of coolers. It's my understanding that heat pipes work best when oriented either in-line with or perpendicular to gravity (i.e. hot air/coolant naturally rises relative to gravity). In this and many other cooler designs installed in a typical tower case, I see that half the heat pipes are oriented above the heat source and the other half below. I would expect this orientation drastically reduces the cooling potential of the lower half heat pipes because they are trying to conduct heat away from the CPU against gravity.

I would think better performance could be gained if the cooler was rotated 90 degrees so that the heat pipes were perpendicular with gravity and the fans forced the hot air up through the top of the case. Additionally, since hot air naturally rises this seems optimal from a thermal efficiency point of view.

Has any experimentation to this effect been documented? Or are heat pipes these days so efficient (such as using embedded wicking materials) that actual orientation relative to gravity has little consequence?
 
daringx said:
I'm a bit confused by the heat pipe design on these types of coolers. It's my understanding that heat pipes work best when oriented either in-line with or perpendicular to gravity (i.e. hot air/coolant naturally rises relative to gravity). In this and many other cooler designs installed in a typical tower case, I see that half the heat pipes are oriented above the heat source and the other half below. I would expect this orientation drastically reduces the cooling potential of the lower half heat pipes because they are trying to conduct heat away from the CPU against gravity.

I would think better performance could be gained if the cooler was rotated 90 degrees so that the heat pipes were perpendicular with gravity and the fans forced the hot air up through the top of the case. Additionally, since hot air naturally rises this seems optimal from a thermal efficiency point of view.

Has any experimentation to this effect been documented? Or are heat pipes these days so efficient (such as using embedded wicking materials) that actual orientation relative to gravity has little consequence?
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I honestly do not have the environment or equipment here to measure that sort of delta, or what I think the delta would be, but let me ask Thermaltake, and share your post, and see what feedback we get.
 
Damn, this is pretty close to AIO cooling, for the money it seems like a great buy.
 
Nice. My first enthusiast build was an Athlon with a Thermalright giant hunk of copper and Delta fan....perhaps this will pair up nicely with this summer's Ryzen build.

With the Ryzen OC tests, have you noticed the coolers being much of a bottleneck since the 4ghz mark seems to be a pretty hard and fast barrier regardless?
 
What's the best way of applying the TIM? Apply a pea size TIM on the HDT base, scrap with a card, then apply a pea size TIM on the CPU, and finally install?
 
Have you guys considered changing the test bench to include a larger processor like X79/X99 or AM4 (I actually don't know if they have a larger heatspreader than LGA 115x), or just do a comparison. I wonder if the small heat spreader and the relatively bad TIM in the non Devil's Canyon processors is causing a bottleneck for the bigger air coolers where they can't really stretch their legs.
 
Picked this up in early in the year for my 7700k. It's a great cooler. I also like the plastic shim they provide to add extra strength for socket 1151 chips known to have a little weaker PCB. Great review!
 
A quick question, Kyle.

I picked up the Noctua U12S for my Ryzen build. Not sure if you've tested that before, but if so, how does it compare? I'm curious because you said you used the True Spirit in your Ryzen OCs, and I'm wondering if the performance of my cooler ought to be comparable.
 
I noticed the be quiet Dark Rock Pro 3 in the noise chart but not in any of the others. Could you add it back in? Are they all otherwise consistent?
 
I read a few reviews here and there for this and somebody said that AM4 compatibility started in around January or so.
Some after this got back plates with the AM3 and AM4 holes, but received a plastic insulator for between the bracket and motherboard that only had the AM3 holes. They had to use the backplate as a template to drill the AM4 holes, or one guy heated up a screwdriver and melted the holes. Maybe by now all shipping units have the plastic insulator with both the AM3 and AM4 holes, but just wanted to mention what I read.
 
AlderaaN said:
Thank you for reviewing this unit, Kyle!

Question please:
Will the first PCIe x1 slot that's usually found on most modern motherboard get blocked due to the width of said cooler?

For example, will it block the first PCIe x1 slot on these motherboards:
http://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/GA-AX370-Gaming-K7-rev-10
https://www.asus.com/ROG-Republic-Of-Gamers/ROG-CROSSHAIR-VI-HERO/


Regards,
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I just pulled the one out I have here and eyeballed it on a mobo currently on the test bench, and no it does not push over the socket-side edge of the PCie x1 slot on this board. GBT Z270 Gaming Ultra.
 
nice, I think I'll use one of these to replace my buddy's dead HSF and revamp his gaming comp. I love the compatibility options
 
AlderaaN said:
said cooler won't interfere with it due to its width (at least not on GB GA-Z270X-Ultra Gaming board)?
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No the cooler should not interfere. Basically what you are talking about is whether or not it violates PCIe spec, and it seems to not violate that space.
 
I've been using a AIO for the past couple of years - but there's a certain dignified beauty about an air cooler.

Thanks for the AM4 blurb (how it performed well during your Ryzen testing) at the end of the review. I was itching to whine here in the forum about it, but you had it covered.
 
I still chose AIO's to act as my cases primary fans and to make it easier to navigate my case.

If these came out a while ago before I bought my Fuma, I'd rather have this.
 
Napoleon said:
Yea there were 2 yesterday and now they're gone. Crap! I was going to buy one as well
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yeah i've been checking back periodically still haven't seen them relisted.. trying to hold out hoping they do so i can pick one up for my new build otherwise i need to figure out an alternative since 240mm AOI coolers aren't an option for me.
 
Arrgghh. Needed a new cooler and narrowed it down to this and Fuma.
Neither one available.
 
AlderaaN said:
Thank you for reviewing this unit, Kyle!

Question please:
Will the first PCIe x1 slot that's usually found on most modern motherboard get blocked due to the width of said cooler?

For example, will it block the first PCIe x1 slot on these motherboards:
http://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/GA-AX370-Gaming-K7-rev-10
https://www.asus.com/ROG-Republic-Of-Gamers/ROG-CROSSHAIR-VI-HERO/


Regards,
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I pulled out an X99A motherboard this weekend and it DID encroach on the 1st PCIe slot. And I immediately started thinking about this thread. I reached out to Thermalright on this, and they did explain to me that the TrueSpirit 140 Direct DOES NOT inside PCIe specifications. That said, I had no issues with it on other motherboards. BUT, not all motherboards put the 1st slot right up to the PCIe spec limit. The board I found the issue with was an MSI X99A Godlike Gaming and had four x16 PCIe slots....so jammed packed. Here are the measurements.....and the fan mount wires add a couple mm to this.

upload_2017-5-10_20-44-1.png



IMG_20170506_145422.jpg
 
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