Slimmest 120mm CPU tower-style cooler?

I am blinging up my main workstation with RGB (mostly because I'm bored with my current computer). This is a temporary setup as I intend to go watercooling but only after I upgrade the CPU/motherboard/RAM (I'm waiting to see what Ryzen3 brings to the table).

I have purchased 2x Phanteks Halo Digital LUX frames to screw onto Corsair ML120 fans and mount on a CoolerMaster Hyper212 EVO heatsink. The problem is that the frames add 7mm of thickness on each side of the heatsink/fan combo and overhang the first RAM slot. I want to avoid this partly because the fan has to be offset a bit (which looks a bit ugly) and partly because it is blocking the RGB on the RAM heatsink.

I'm a bit leery about getting a slimmer fan, I tested a 12mm thick fan years ago and it burnt out relatively quickly. I'm not a huge overclocker (CPU is i7-4770K OC to 4.3GHz) but I do prefer reasonable cooling to keep things stable. This is why I bought ML120 non-LED fans (75CFM) instead of RGB ML120 Pro's (55CFM), I am reluctant to lose that much airflow.

The Hyper212 EVO is about 55mm thick, ideally a replacement should be no more than 40mm thick.

It has to fit 120mm fans because I use a Core P7 case, I am concerned that a 140mm CPU cooler tower would be too tall and prevent me from mounting the glass panel (with the current offset my fans are almost touching the glass now).

Anybody know of a cooler that fits my requirements?

Thermalright TRUE 120mm should fit the bill for you. http://thermalright.com/product/true-spirit-120-direct/ . It is very slim, yet the 140mm was still able to cool our highly overvolted Ryzen 7 test rig with a single fan.

Alternatively you could perhaps look for a taller cooler to clear the ram better. I'd have to dig it out to measure, but I believe the Reeven Justice is taller than the 212 for RAM clearance.

rgMekanic said:

Thermalright TRUE 120mm should fit the bill for you. http://thermalright.com/product/true-spirit-120-direct/ . It is very slim, yet the 140mm was still able to cool our highly overvolted Ryzen 7 test rig with a single fan.

Alternatively you could perhaps look for a taller cooler to clear the ram better. I'd have to dig it out to measure, but I believe the Reeven Justice is taller than the 212 for RAM clearance.

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Thank you for the suggestion!

A taller cooler might still hit the glass. Worse, it means the RAM is underneath the fan so you can't see the RGB.

The TRUE looks interesting, but I can't find a Canadian store that stocks it. It's pretty expensive as well.

I found the Cooler Master Hyper T4, which is about a quarter of the price of the TRUE and is 44mm thick (the TRUE is 42mm). According to reviews performance is meh (not as good as the Hyper212 EVO) but should be good enough for my rig - did [H] ever review that heatsink? I did a search, couldn't find a review here.

rtangwai said:

Thank you for the suggestion!

A taller cooler might still hit the glass. Worse, it means the RAM is underneath the fan so you can't see the RGB.

The TRUE looks interesting, but I can't find a Canadian store that stocks it. It's pretty expensive as well.

I found the Cooler Master Hyper T4, which is about a quarter of the price of the TRUE and is 44mm thick (the TRUE is 42mm). According to reviews performance is meh (not as good as the Hyper212 EVO) but should be good enough for my rig - did [H] ever review that heatsink? I did a search, couldn't find a review here.

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It doesn't look like the T4 has been reviewed by us, but it does look quite similar to the True Direct, so it is likely that performance would be pretty comparable. While we did not do a full review of the True Direct, the 140mm version is used as the baseline for our "Dollars per Degree," and has been tested on our latest test bench. You can see it in the charts of all the reviews from this generation of test rig. Here is the latest one.

This test rig is running at 1.475v with all 8 cores @ 3.9GHz and SMT enabled. THat gives us an average of around 150-170w of package power during the combined test, and I've seen over 215w of CPU+SoC power draw. The 140mm True Direct kept it cool (just) with only the included fan, so I imagine with a pair of ML's you will be just fine.

If you're trying to NOT block your RAM and have bling at the same time, WHILE having a moderate overclock... I see no reason not to use one of the budget 120mm AIO watercoolers. They have decent bling built-in, will absolutely allow you to show off your RAM, will definitely keep a moderate OC cool, and you can bling out the radiator with an RGB fan as well. Mine was $54.99 which isn't much more than a budget air-cooler like the Hyper 212 EVO if you're buying extra fans. And it definitely won't be too tall

Ryom said:

If you're trying to NOT block your RAM and have bling at the same time, WHILE having a moderate overclock... I see no reason not to use one of the budget 120mm AIO watercoolers. They have decent bling built-in, will absolutely allow you to show off your RAM, will definitely keep a moderate OC cool, and you can bling out the radiator with an RGB fan as well. Mine was $54.99 which isn't much more than a budget air-cooler like the Hyper 212 EVO if you're buying extra fans. And it definitely won't be too tall

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I would love to do that, but because I'm using a Core P7 case the hoses on most AiO watercoolers are too short (unless I mount it beside the motherboard, which means the fans would be pointing at the glass front). I actually want to go watercooling but I'm waiting to upgrade first as I may go dual 360mm radiators and both GPU and CPU waterblocks (I am currently using a RX 580 but that will change when I upgrade the CPU).

The Noctua NH-U12DXi4 is pretty close to the size you're looking for; the heatsink itself is 45mm thick. Might be a tight fit if you're looking for 40mm, but it's the slimmest I've found that would actually be decent.