current best air coolers

pendragon1

pendragon1

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good comparison of the best air coolers at the moment.
he stresses about the TR PA120 being loud but i dont think its that loud, especially with a gpu goin. still best bang for buck out there for a 120mm cooler.




if you dont want to watch
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I've found it to be slightly louder than the Noctua u12a chromax (w/dual
nf- a12s) in my back up rig. I agree, definitely not enough to notice the difference between them when gaming with the 2070 in my backup rig. Spending $50-$70 more for something else that might garner 3c or 4c lower temps? Nah. I paid $60 for the u12a and another $30 for the 2nd a12 right after it came out (Cuz Noctua FINALLY did a proper black hs lol).
Knowing what I do now... I would much rather have gotten a pa120 for the back up rig and a FC140 for my bench at around the same price.

But yeah, price to performance? Nothing comes anywhere near the pa120/se and that's unlikely to change for a very long time.
 
pendragon1 said:
good comparison of the best air coolers at the moment.
he stresses about the TR PA120 being loud but i dont think its that loud, especially with a gpu goin. still best bang for buck out there for a 120mm cooler.




if you dont want to watch
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I guess its loud if you let it go all out. But, in that chart, it tracks quite closely to the D15 (up to the point at which the D15's fans don't spin any faster). The D15 is also larger, with larger fans.
In this comparison at the same decibel level, which would be like a decent noise level for a heavy load: they are essentially the same. It would come down to which fan's actual noise character you prefer.

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Yea i was pleasantly surprised by the Peerless Assassin also, but my gripe about the assassin and the dh15 is the size. I just can't get over how much of the motherboard they take up even covering up the ram entirely. when you've had a small water block on it for so long it pains me to think about having a monstrosity like this hanging off the board as bad as i want to ditch water, I still can't do it. I managed to ditch the gpu water blocked for a air cooled gpu because that's on the lower half and looks badass imo but the way the cpu cooler is right in the middle covering the rgb ram and so close up against the gpu bottom touching the gpu top plate everything is just so crammed i mean the massive 4090 is HUGE enough adding a thermal right assassin would make me claustrophobic :(
 
xDiVolatilX said:
Yea i was pleasantly surprised by the Peerless Assassin also, but my gripe about the assassin and the dh15 is the size. I just can't get over how much of the motherboard they take up even covering up the ram entirely. when you've had a small water block on it for so long it pains me to think about having a monstrosity like this hanging off the board as bad as i want to ditch water, I still can't do it. I managed to ditch the gpu water blocked for a air cooled gpu because that's on the lower half and looks badass imo but the way the cpu cooler is right in the middle covering the rgb ram and so close up against the gpu bottom touching the gpu top plate everything is just so crammed i mean the massive 4090 is HUGE enough adding a thermal right assassin would make me claustrophobic :(
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If you move the fans as intake, you won't cover the RAM. You will need a top exhaust, though ;)
 
D-EJ915 said:
It's too bad they didn't get a Frost Commander 140 to stick in this, it's the 140 with 5 8mm heatpipes it should perform much better than the rest.
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maybe. have you seen it compared to the D15 anywhere?
 
xDiVolatilX said:
Like flipping the cooler backwards? Or only the fans? Or only mounting the front fan to the rear closer to the rear case fan?
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im not exactly sure what he means, maybe bottom to top airflow? but you can move the fan from the front to the back to uncover your rainbow puke ram(;), assuming front to back flow like normal). also, it wont touch the gpu, it will be fine.
 
xDiVolatilX said:
Like flipping the cooler backwards? Or only the fans? Or only mounting the front fan to the rear closer to the rear case fan?
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Move the fan from over the RAM, to the back of the cooler. You can also flip the fans to be intake, for a little better cooling.
 
chameleoneel said:
You can also flip the fans to be intake, for a little better cooling.
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i think this is the part causing confusion as the heat sink is internal, there is no intake/exhaust. do you mean push vs pull or to use the back fan as an intake to blow straight into the PA120? or do you mean turn it 90 so it blows bottom to top?
 
pendragon1 said:
i think this is the part causing confusion as the heat sink is internal, there is no intake/exhaust. do you mean push vs pull or to use the back fan as an intake to blow straight into the PA120? or do you mean turn it 90 so it blows bottom to top?
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With the heatsink positioned for lateral airflow, you can flip the fans either direction. Exhaust or intake. If you do intake, would be best to move the fan from over the RAM, to the rear of the heatsink. And that would also uncover the RAM, so you can see the LED's.

I understand my first post about this was a little vague. But....now I dunno why I had to break this down to such a fine degree ;)
 
chameleoneel said:
I understand my first post about this was a little vague. But....now I dunno why I had to break this down to such a fine degree ;)
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because typically people dont say intake/exhaust when talking about the heat sink, its push vs pull. intake/exhaust is usually for the cases. this attempt is still confusing, youre using the incorrect terms, even "lateral" doesnt fit as youre using it...
 
pendragon1 said:
because typically people dont say intake/exhaust when talking about the heat sink, its push vs pull. intake/exhaust is usually for the cases. this attempt is still confusing, youre using the incorrect terms, even "lateral" doesnt fit as youre using it...
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pull is generally when the fans have their backs against something. In this situation, the heatsink. Push fans have their fronts against something.

With a dual dower, there is no good reason to pull, with the backs of the fans against the heatsink. Unless you add a 3rd fan, it would have to be a 'pull' fan.

Lateral From Merriam-Webster:

: of or relating to the side. especially, of a body part : lying at or extending toward the right or left side
----------
The fans will either be pushing through the heatsink, toward the back of the case, as exhaust. Or pushing through the heatsink towards the front of the case, as intake. These are lateral airflow. (Yes, you could say this orientation pushing towards the front, is also pulling air from the rear vent).
 
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How bout we just wait for the deepcool assassin 4 where they already have the a double pull config so it doesn't block the ram? I may or may not jump on this when it releases if it's priced right

Could be up to $100 which isn't appealing compared to the 39.99 of the peerless assassin fml.
 
xDiVolatilX said:
Yea i was pleasantly surprised by the Peerless Assassin also, but my gripe about the assassin and the dh15 is the size. I just can't get over how much of the motherboard they take up even covering up the ram entirely. when you've had a small water block on it for so long it pains me to think about having a monstrosity like this hanging off the board as bad as i want to ditch water, I still can't do it. I managed to ditch the gpu water blocked for a air cooled gpu because that's on the lower half and looks badass imo but the way the cpu cooler is right in the middle covering the rgb ram and so close up against the gpu bottom touching the gpu top plate everything is just so crammed i mean the massive 4090 is HUGE enough adding a thermal right assassin would make me claustrophobic :(
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NH-D15S to the rescue.
 
Frost commander? Isn't the peerless assassin the best one? The one that competes and even beats the Noctua d15 for less than half it's price?
 
xDiVolatilX said:
Frost commander? Isn't the peerless assassin the best one? The one that competes and even beats the Noctua d15 for less than half it's price?
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its the best 120, the FC is 140. i havent seen any comparisons yet, and havent had a chance to watch those above vids.
 
xDiVolatilX said:
Frost commander? Isn't the peerless assassin the best one? The one that competes and even beats the Noctua d15 for less than half it's price?
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Frost Commander is a bigger Peerless Assassin. Frost Spirit 140 is also extremely similar, but with one less heatpipe than the Frost Commander.

I'm still using the Le Grand Macho RT in my 3950X build. Looks like its been discontinued for the dual tower designs.
https://www.techpowerup.com/review/thermalright-le-grand-macho/5.html
What a ridiculous massive heatsink.
 
pendragon1 said:
maybe. have you seen it compared to the D15 anywhere?
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I have one but never compare the two. There's a few on ocn that have done some informal tests when they upgraded from LGMRT or others to it and it was a lot better.

TheSlySyl said:

Never really heard of this reviewer, a little bit amateurish. Pretty decent for a solo act though.
The FC140 is awesome, but a bit loud, so he made this follow up video:

Where he replaces the stock fans with a bunch of different fans.
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The TL-C/D14X fan honestly sucks, I got one to compare with the regular C14 and the regular one was better at everything but when the C14X was at max fan speed where it was a huge amount louder, especially on radiators the C14X is trash.

Interestingly, it looks like they've scaled down the classic cooljag/thermalright 140 design to a 120 now the TL-E12: http://www.thermalright.com/product-category/products/system-fan/120-mm/
 
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TheSlySyl said:
Frost Commander is a bigger Peerless Assassin. Frost Spirit 140 is also extremely similar, but with one less heatpipe than the Frost Commander.

I'm still using the Le Grand Macho RT in my 3950X build. Looks like its been discontinued for the dual tower designs.
https://www.techpowerup.com/review/thermalright-le-grand-macho/5.html
What a ridiculous massive heatsink.
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I have LGMRT. It’s a good cooler, but for AM4 you can do better. PA120 is a great little cooler, emphasis on little because compared to FC140 it is tiny lol.
 
freeagentt said:
I have LGMRT. It’s a good cooler, but for AM4 you can do better. PA120 is a great little cooler, emphasis on little because compared to FC140 it is tiny lol.
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Tiny? Holy shit. The frost commander must be rediculous because the peerless assassin is already silly huge. The whole reason I don't have a peerless assassin is because of its size lol
 
xDiVolatilX said:
I love hardware canucks air cooler reviews though great watch and good attention to detail. I might get a thermalright peerless to have one in my stash just in case lol.
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I agree, their reviews are very good. I actually have a NH-D15 and a NH-U12A here as back ups. Both have performed well, but this go around with the 13900K I went back to an AIO, and the 12400F doesn't apply in my back up PC as it would be overkill IMO.
 
Niner21 said:
I agree, their reviews are very good. I actually have a NH-D15 and a NH-U12A here as back ups. Both have performed well, but this go around with the 13900K I went back to an AIO, and the 12400F doesn't apply in my back up PC as it would be overkill IMO.
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Why is a 12400 overkill? Any gaming? I have a 12700 I'm planning on using for my backup gaming rig.
 
pendragon1 said:
a 120 dual tower is kinda tiny compared to 140 dual towers.
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Lol 😂 this size is comical. Is it just me that find this funny? I'll be darned. Maybe it's cause I haven't air cooled in over 10 years? I recently just went back to air on the 4090 because there is literally no benefit to water cooler a 4090 but the CPU still needs water for the high end.
 
Youtube channel Machines and More, which typically focuses on ITX, posted a video showing that the Thermalright Silver Soul 135, is slightly better than the Noctua NH-D12L (Noctua's low profile and "slim" 120mm dual tower). And the Silver Soul does it at 10mm less in height. Which is a lot!

*The same video also tests the ID-COOLING SE-207-XT. It came out a little better, as well. It is also 10mm shorter.
 
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freeagentt said:
I have LGMRT. It’s a good cooler, but for AM4 you can do better. PA120 is a great little cooler, emphasis on little because compared to FC140 it is tiny lol.
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Yeah, but I already own the LGMRT, and no reason to buy another new cooler if it's already working gr...

Who am I kidding, I grabbed a FS140 when it was on sale for $25 and its just sitting in my closet waiting for a build.
 
TheSlySyl said:
Yeah, but I already own the LGMRT, and no reason to buy another new cooler if it's already working gr...

Who am I kidding, I grabbed a FS140 when it was on sale for $25 and its just sitting in my closet waiting for a build.
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I own LGMRT, TS140P, TRUE (2007), TRUE Black Rev4, 2x FC140, PA120SE, and some little ones for SSDs, a GPU, and my old 939..

:D
 
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