Thermalright high-end air coolers questions.

GotNoRice

GotNoRice

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I have had really amazing results with the larger thermalright air coolers in the last year or two. I have two systems with Xeon E5-1660 v3 CPUs on X99 motherboards, which are basically i7-5960X Xeon equivalents, both highly overclocked. Those CPUs are absolute heat factories with an aggressive overclock. One system is now running a Peerless Assassin 120 and the other is running a Phantom Spirit 120 and they work great (the later works better).

There just seems to be a lot of product congestion up top, where they have a lot of fairly similar coolers around the same price without much guidance about which way to go.

I think one of the only things that is pretty much undisputed is that the Phantom Spirit 120 is better than the Peerless Assassin 120, since it's essentially the exact same design but with 7 heatpipes instead of 6. Beyond that, there are a lot of questions.

How does cooling performance compare between SE and non-SE models of the same heatsink (Phantom Spirit 120 vs Phantom Spirit 120se, for example)? Lots of conflicting information here. Some claim that the SE models are actually improvements, but to me they really look like cost-cutting versions where they mostly omit the top part of the heatsink, which is why the tops of the heatpipes are exposed on the SE versions. I personally prefer the non-SE versions, but if there is actual compelling evidence that the SE versions are better I'd love to know.

How does the Frost Spirit 140 compare to the Peerless Assassin 120 and Phantom Spirit 120 models? The Frost Spirit 140 has been on sale for such a good price lately, I ended up buying two of them recently. I'm pretty sure that the Frost Spirit 140 will not outperform the Phantom Spirit 120, but I'm debating swapping the Peerless Assassin 120 in my other computer with one of the Frost Spirit 140 heatsinks.

What's up with the Frost Commander 140? This is supposed to be Thermalright's premium air cooler if you have money to burn, right? It's similar to the Frost Spirit 140 but it has 5 large heatpipes instead of 4. But Hardware Canucks did a video where the Frost Spirit 140 clearly outperformed the Frost Commander 140. They supposedly checked these results multiple times using multiple different Frost Commander 140 heatsinks. Their conclusion is that even though it has 5 heat pipes instead of 4 like the Frost Spirit, the location of the heat pipes means that only three are being used most of the time whereas with the Frost Spirit all 4 are being used most of the time. Seems like this would obviously vary depending on the CPU, but really adds to the confusion. Some seem to regard the Frost Commander 140 as being better than the other three heatsinks mentioned, while others regard it as even being worse than a Peerless Assassin.

Out of all the high-end thermalright air heatsinks, which one responds best to fan upgrades? It looks like, even on heatsinks like the Frost Spirit 140, we're mostly still talking about 120mm fans or 140mm fans that happen to have 120mm mounting holes. The fan clips that come with the heatsinks (even the 140mm heatsinks) only seem like they are big enough to support 120mm fans, which is why the 140mm fans on the Frost Spirit and Frost Commander both have 120mm mounting holes that are used. Since I bought two Frost Spirit 140 heatsinks, I was thinking about grabbing the 140mm fans from both and using them on one of heatsinks, and then just using both 120mm fans on the other. I'm not sure if there is actually a benefit to having the 120mm+140mm fan mix, but I'm not a huge fan of how it looks; I kind of prefer matched fans, all things being equal.
 
Thermalright has great products but a terrible marketing and product management team. Their website is a mess with every model they've made going back 15 years all lumped into the same list and it doesn't help that they have what seems like 5+ variants of each "core" model. (with new ones coming out seemingly weekly)

I've always wondered myselft why the FC140 doesn't outperform the FS140v3. I have the later myself and its fantastic.
 
Nobu said:
fwiw, more pipes isn't always better. The Frost Spirit can easily beat both phantom spirit and peerless assassin in some situations:


View: https://youtu.be/iaJBsQPqxRA?si=CG9UVXY7PVbB-15z
Click to expand...


That's the same video that I mentioned in my first post. I don't see where it shows the Frost Spirit beating the Phantom Spirit though. I see them being close, mostly tied, with the Phantom Spirit pulling ahead at higher noise levels and allowing for higher boost clocks.

FS2.jpg


FS1.jpg


The video also does not address at all any difference between the SE and non-SE models (apparently just assuming that there are none?)

And this all brings up another good question, which is the differences between the Frost Spirit 140 (which is the version being heavily discounted at the moment) and the Frost Spirit 140 v3. The only thing you can tell for sure from the pictures is that the new version has a slightly redesigned top, but it could be purely cosmetic. It's hard enough to find reviews for the Frost Spirit at all, nevermind reviews that compare different versions of the Frost Spirit...
 
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GotNoRice said:
That's the same video that I mentioned in my first post. I don't see where it shows the Frost Spirit beating the Phantom Spirit though. I see them being close, mostly tied, with the Phantom Spirit pulling ahead at higher noise levels and allowing for higher boost clocks.

View attachment 637930

View attachment 637929

The video also does not address at all any difference between the SE and non-SE models (apparently just assuming that there are none?)

And this all brings up another good question, which is the differences between the Frost Spirit 140 (which is the version being heavily discounted at the moment) and the Frost Spirit 140 v3. The only thing you can tell for sure from the pictures is that the new version has a slightly redesigned top, but it could be purely cosmetic. It's hard enough to find reviews for the Frost Spirit at all, nevermind reviews that compare different versions of the Frost Spirit...
Click to expand...
Ah, I missed that. It handles the Frost Commander, and beats the Peerless Assassin (which does have more heatpipes) easily by 2 degrees, almost across the board.

Screenshot_2024-02-26-13-44-58-44_4d38fce200f96aeac5e860e739312e76.jpg
 
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Nobu said:
It handles the Frost Commander, and beats the Peerless Assassin (which does have more heatpipes) easily by 2 degrees, almost across the board.
Click to expand...

Yeah I agree the Frost Spirit 140 looks pretty amazing, which is why I snapped up two at that sale price even though I arguably didn't really need them. I just find it interesting, that the Frost Spirit 140 was introduced way back in 2019, yet it never seemed to get the same hype that others like the Peerless Assassin 120 did. It makes me feel like there is a catch somewhere that I'm missing. All I can figure, based on some of the older reviews, is that the intro price for the Frost Spirit appears to have been much higher ($40-50), so it wasn't really an amazing deal like it is now.
 
I've seen several people mention size as the reason they went with the Peerless Assassin or Phantom Spirit over the Frost Spirit.
 
Frost Spirit:
Dimension：L140 mm x W121 mm x H158 mm
Phantom Spirit:
Dimension：L110 mm x W125 mm x H157 mm
Peerless Assassin 120SE:
Dimension：L125 mm x W110 mm x H155 mm
Peerless Assassin 120 mini:
Dimension：L125 mm x W110 mm x H135 mm

They're all pretty tall (aside from the mini). The Frost spirit is 140mm "long" because of the 140 fan (well, the fin stack is lengthened to match, but offset slightly), but otherwise it's pretty much the same as the other two.
 
Nobu said:
Frost Spirit:
Dimension：L140 mm x W121 mm x H158 mm
Phantom Spirit:
Dimension：L110 mm x W125 mm x H157 mm
Peerless Assassin 120SE:
Dimension：L125 mm x W110 mm x H155 mm
Peerless Assassin 120 mini:
Dimension：L125 mm x W110 mm x H135 mm

They're all pretty tall (aside from the mini). The Frost spirit is 140mm "long" because of the 140 fan (well, the fin stack is lengthened to match, but offset slightly), but otherwise it's pretty much the same as the other two.
Click to expand...
I think the overhang is the main dealbreaker for many but I've also seen several people mention that they picked the SE version of the PA or PS over the non-SE because the latter wouldn't fit in their case and for the PA that's only a 2mm difference.
 
For what its worth, both FC140 and PS120SE and EVO can take 260w from my 5900X. Not using stock fans though.. Both can run my 5800X3D semi passively, and up to 180w ppt on my 5900X semi passively. I do not have FS140, but I still have a hard time believing it is better than the coolers that replaced it.
 
I dunno...I have put three assassins on systems and then an si-100. The crazy thing is they are all so affordable that ya dont feel super guilty putting them on an old machine. The si-100 I put on a 4790k and it really does a good job keeping it cool. One of the assassins is on an old xeon. Probably overkill, but what other cooler for under $40 would you choose for an old machine?
 
applegrcoug said:
The crazy thing is they are all so affordable that ya dont feel super guilty putting them on an old machine. The si-100 I put on a 4790k and it really does a good job keeping it cool. One of the assassins is on an old xeon. Probably overkill, but what other cooler for under $40 would you choose for an old machine?
Click to expand...

Yeah, one of the Frost Spirit heatsinks is going on an old Sandy-Bridge 2700k in one of my retro/spare computers. Overclocked to 5.2Ghz, it pushes the CM212 it has on it right now to it's limits. The ~$28 for the Frost Spirit is almost the same as what it would cost just to buy the fans that it comes with.
 
I have a Phantom Spirit in a budget 14600k gaming build and it manages just fine with a overclock. It’s quieter than I expected for the $30 or so I paid for it . I’m using the normal edition not the se version.
 
The SE actually came out first for some strange reason. It is ok if you are space constrained I guess. I prefer the taller version, that way the fan that sits on my Tridents is flush with the top of the cooler. With the SE if you use the front fan, there is like a 1/4" gap between the top of the cooler and the fan. For that cooler I like to wedge a T30 in there. I have the PS EVO too, much nicer.
 
I was swapping a Peerless Assassin 120 for a Frost Spirit 140 in one of my systems, and took a few comparison pictures while they were both removed. The Peerless Assassin is the non-SE model (which I prefer personally). The swap wasn't really necessary, but I still wanted the better heatsink in the system where it would be best put to use, and since they both use the same socket mount, I didn't have to change anything on that end.

FS_PA1.jpg


FS_PA2.jpg


FS_PA3.jpg


FS_PA4.jpg
 
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