Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 SE ARGB White CPU Air
Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 SE ARGB White CPU Air Cooler, 6 Heat Pipe Cpu cooler, Dual 120mm TL-C12CW-S PWM Fan, Aluminium Heatsink Cover, AGHP Technology, for AMD AM4/AM5 Intel 1700/1150/12
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|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Intel/AMD CPU Sockte | Intel: 1150/1151/1155/1156/1200/1700/17XX; AMD:AM4; | Intel: 1700/1150/1151/1155/1156/1200/2011/2066; AMD:AM4 | LGA1700/1150/1151/1155/1156/1200/2011/2066 and AMD AM4 | Intel: 1150/1151/1155/1156/1200/1700/17XX; AMD:AM4; | Intel: 1150/1151/1155/1156/1200/1700/17XX; AMD:AM4; | Intel: 1150/1151/1155/1156/1200/2011/2066/1700/17XX; AMD:AM4; |
| Fan Speed | 1550±10%RPM | 1800±10%RPM | 1850±10%RPM | 1550±10%RPM | 2700±10%RPM | 1500±10%RPM |
| Airflow | 66.17CFM(MAX) | 59CFM(MAX) | 82CFM(MAX) | 66.17CFM(MAX) | 42.58CFM(MAX) | 66.17CFM(MAX) |
| Heat pipe | 4.6mm heatpipes | 6*6mm heatpipes | 6*6 heatpipes | 5.6mm heatpipes | 4*6 heatpipes | 6*6mm heatpipes |
| Maximum TDP | 125W-225W | 235W | 135W | 245W | ||
| Noise Level | ≤25.6DBA | ≤26.1DBA | ≤29.6DBA | ≤25.6DBA | ≤22.4DBA | ≤25.6DBA |
| Current | 0.2A(MAX) | 0.18A(MAX) | 0.25A(MAX) | 0.2A(MAX) | 0.2A（MAX） | 0.2A(MAX) |
| Static Preessure | 1.53mmH2O（MAX） | 1.36mmH2O（MAX） | 2.1mmH2O（MAX） | 1.53mmH2O（MAX） | 1.33mmH2O（MAX） | 1.53mmH2O（MAX） |
| Weight: | 907 g |
| Dimensions: | 12.7 x 10.16 x 15.24 cm; 907.18 Grams |
| Part: | PA120SE ARGB WHite D6-Y 1700 |
| Batteries Required: | No |
| Manufacture: | Thermalright |
| Dimensions: | 12.7 x 10.16 x 15.24 cm; 907.18 Grams |
| Reference: | PA120SE ARGB WHite D6-Y 1700 |
Fair price, works well, easy to assemble and looks good in my set up. What more could you ask? Cables run into one plug in – saved us needed multiple fan ports in the mobo for it. Good value for money
Its fiddly to get the fans to fit well in place but once done it functions really well so far its cooling my Ryzen 7 7800X3D just fine
Obviously check your case has enough head room to accommodate the whole thing (I just bought a Fractal design R6) works a treat with plenty of case fans added
Needed to upgrade from the atrocious stock cooler for my i5 12400 and decided on this. Wow. All I can say is even at this low price, what I got was overkill for my CPU as temps never even go above 54C even in CPU intensive senarios. Overall, insanely good cooler, if you can fit this beast in your case that is… Almost couldn’t fit it in mine lol
Easy to install, good quality and amazing performance.
Can recommend for even those who are using high end parts like the i7 13700k (like myself). Some of the best value on the market.
I had been watching reviews of these coolers (mainly American reviews that I thought might have been “sponsored” a little) but needed a replacement cooler for my son’s PC (R5 5600 OC’d to 4.8GHz) and this is performing WAAAY above where I’d expect a 45 air cooler to be.
Even under load this is keeping a quite heavy OC’d chip under 70C with an ambient temp of c.25C.
The fans are really high quality with good air movement and the aRGB looks the part too.
If you want a good, nay great, cooler without forking out for a ND-H15 then buy this NOW!
I’ve not used the product yet as I’m still waiting on other parts but from all the reviews I’ve read it’s an excellent cooler and I can’t wait to get it installed
Daughter AIO pump failed and replaced with the Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 SE, and what a surprise. Great value for money and great cooling. It was a little bit fiddly fitting into an already build system. But I was too lazy to take out the M/B. When my AIO goes pop ill be replacing my system with one of these also, Recormended.
Good stuff, gain me -20 celsius degrees under load, replaced with a stock 5600x cooler.
Excellent value and temps, but no thermal paste included. Only down side is the fins seem a little brittle and mark easily. Overall looks better and aesthetically pleasing than the ugly Noctua NH-U12A which I replaced . Easy to install and much louder but you get used to it after a while
I picked this up for 37 – it goes head to head with the big boys for less than half the price AND it comes with ARGB fans.
Crazy value!
Pleasant cooler. As an intermediary this is currently keeping my Ryzen 9 5950x at around 69/70C with an ambient room temperature of 23C (all cores and threads running at stock) which I’m quite impressed with and to be honest was hoping for untill I can get an AIO, feel I will have to upgrade to an AIO water cooler to get the most from my CPU. For the price I really can’t moan, came with all the brackets and a tube of thermal paste, was easy enough to install and the RGB is pleasant enough. The cooler block and stack is chunky and well finished and looks the part in my system. For its performance with the 5950X I would say it wouldn’t have any problem cooling a lower end, less power hungry CPU
My I7 9700K doesn’t get hotter than 60C due to this amazing cooler. For its performance, it’s definitely cheap. Would buy it again!
kept my Ryzen 7 7700x at 38C whilst idle, was very quiet and only thing i didn’t like was how it barely fit over my RAM and that the way you fix the fans onto the radiator was a little annoying, came with thermal paste, have no clue if it’s good or not as I had used a different one, Would buy agai
This beats out high end CPU coolers, it’s very impressive, keeping my 7900xtx cool.
The stock cooler would sound like it was about to take off during normal use.
installing the 120SE was pretty easy, the only concern I had before buying this was how to remove the old cooler, but that was just a case of turning the feet with a screw driver and it popped off.
Like others have mentioned the outer fan is slightly raised because the RAM is in the way, but only by about a cm.
Before the CPU was running around 50C and spiking to over 80C
After it was running around 35C and spiking to just over 50C
Easy installation on my B550 A Pro with a 5800x3d in. Relatively silent but havent had any real load on the CPU when gaming to test the loudness. Keeps the aforementioned CPU pretty chilly at 55-60C while gaming with 2 fans on it installed with 2 fans in the 2 slots at the front. Would highly recommend for people on a budget that want to cool a decently fast CPU
This is designed for cooling performance and that it does brilliantly on my 5800X3D. My only complaint is RAM clearance with RGB. The fan has to sit on top and unfortunately sticks up above the heatsink slightly.
It does a good job of cooling the CPU, but it is a bit too noisy for me, it replaced a Be Quiet! Dark Rock Pro 4, which is much quieter, but also more than double the price.
I will be obtaining the LGA 1700 mounting kit for the Be Quiet! and replacing this.
Had to mount one of the fans slightly raised as a DIMM was on the way.
Great air cooler. Easy to mount though be careful not to apply too much pressure when screwing it down. As you risk slipping and your screwdriver going into your motherboard. Take your time and you will be fine though.
If you have a mid size case then you will be at the limit of the hight for an air cooler.
But it does a great job of cooling and is quiet aswell with all the noise from my computer coming from front fans.
The Thermalright Peerless Assassin has been getting some excellent reviews on well known youtube gaming and hardware channels recently. It’s a tossup between this and the Deepcool AK620/ Noctua D-15 for performance but the peerless assassin absolutely smashes the competition on price.
Basically it’s 95% the performance of a Noctua D15 at 30% the price.
From my stock AMD Wraith Prism cooler (itself not a bad cooler) where I was getting idle lows of 50C its gone down to lows of 35C at 40% fan speed, about 12C over ambient. Previously on stock cooler it would max out around 85C on stress test at 100% fan speed and noise, now it barely reaches 69C, and the fan is only running at a whisper quiet 50% RPM. The fan is inaudible until about 70% rpm. Overall it’s a 15C reduction in temp compared to stock but at much lower fan speeds.
This also comes with excellent TR7 thermal paste, just enough to cover 1 CPU. It’s a very thick paste so you will need some kind of spudger to spread it out.
This cooler is absolutely incredible for the low price and really is hands down as good as a far more expensive Noctua NH-D15 at cooling the fans are slightly louder but the difference is minimal and in all sense and purposes the fans are still silent fans and after changing the fan curve through software it is now silent. The setup I’m running is, MSI MAG FORGE 100R Case, MSI MPG B550 Motherboard , Ryzen 5600x CPU, 16gb Crucial Ballistix RAM, EVGA 750w PSU, Gigabyte RTX2070 Super 3x OC, and with this cooler I’m getting 32 idle and max temps full load in Prime 95 and Gaming at 4k with keyboard and mouse or playing MSFS2020 at 1080p on Ultra settings with the Honeycomb Alpha & Bravo plus 3 other low powered USB devices connected is 58 to 60 its never gone higher than 60. For Air Cooling that is epic in my book and I’ve been building PC’s for some 20 years or so now. I’d buy it while you can!
So I bought this for a budget build for a friend who wants an upgrade but doesn;t have a lot of money. Usually, I buy my goto brand whihc would be noctua. Because it is a 12th gen cpu It gonna generate some heat so i was looking at something more beefier to handle the cooling. But Noctua has become a victim of it own success and most of its products are pricey now, especially ones that Like the DH14, DH 15 etc.
So I was looking at cheaper alternatives while not trying to compromise too much on it cooling ability. I stumbled across this cooler by Thermalright. Now in the past I have used their products albeit a very very long time ago but remembered it was the class leader at the time. But they are not that popular over here compared to other countries/regions.
Like i said this build I am doing is very budget concious so I need to try and get the best possible components for the budget set. This cooler cost me 37 whihc I thought was a bargain but was worried it would not be able to handle the heat of a 12th gen CPU in this case it was a 12700k.
The build quality is pretty good but not as good as Noctua but you can’t really complain for the price. Once fitted my reservations on it cooling ability was put to rest. I was pleasantly suprised when i ran a CB23 run to stress the cooler. All I can say it passed with flying colours. Also I was pleasantly suprised with the noise levels of the fans included. They are pretty quiet until you really start cranking it up. So I set a custom fan curve and it has been so far very very quiet. I twill only really start to ramp up above 70c on my custom curve. But seeming as the setup will for the most part will never hit that kind of temps then it will run at low Rpms and therefore will be quiet in usage.
Also I found compatiability with motherboards very good and with ram modules. So on certain motherboards like z690 and predominantly Asus motherboards they have high VRM heatsinks which stop some brands being used with them as there is not enough clearance. Your mileage may vary but I found this heatsink work better than most.
I gave it a 5 star rating due to its performance and it price to performance value. I don;t know if it could beat a Noctua DH14 or DH15 as I don’t use those anymore but I am pretty sure it would be close and at 37 the whole value as a package makes it something to consider seriously.
Build quality is good and it’s very effective at keeping the CPU cool.
I recently upgraded to an i9 12900k and used my previous cooler which was an AIO. The AIO in question wasn’t capable of shifting the heat quick enough on load with average temps of 70-80 degrees.
However, with this cooler, the heat dissipation is ludicrously amazing. Average temps on load have dropped dramatically to 50-70 degrees.
Only issue I have (which is probably something to do with my motherboard) is my Dom Plats (RAM) is high stacked so one the cooler fans is 2cm higher than the radiator.
Really impressed with this cooler. Temps have dropped 10c and it’s pretty quiet. Very happy with it and the RGB fans, while not to everyone’s taste, makes my case and build pop. fits nicely in my NR200 case with the tempered glass panel too.
Fitted this to my AM 4 motherboard running 5800x whilst saving for decent AIO . For the price point I am quite impressed 26 degree idle ,Cinebench R23.2 multi core 84degrees , Single core 62 degrees . The cooler comes with an instruction leaflet that also lists parts provided . The AM4 install was easy took around 5 minutes to do . The product arrived on time and was well packaged . The only things I can see that might put someone off is the cooler overhangs Ram and it is quite noisy under load
So to summarise
Pro’s
Good Price
Easy to install
Keeps temps Down
Cons
Overhangs Ram
Bit noisy under load
All in all good cooler for the price point hence 5,Stars
Bloody huge!
This cooler was a lot larger than I expected. It’s massive.
I was scared it would come out too far and I wouldn’t be able to get the side panel on.
However with a few mil to spare it fit perfectly.
It’s cooling an i5 13600k and temps even when gaming (Destiny2) are around 48c max.
Whilst rendering it still keeps cpu cool.
Idle temps are 30c minimum and 38c max.
It’s very quiet and can hardly hear it even under load.
I’ve ram benchmarks and only just start to hear the fans ramp up keeping temps below 60c under full load, but not too loud it sounds like a jet, rather a background hum.
Overall very impressed and glad I chose this over something that cost 3x as much for negligible gains.
Also to note this cooler does a better job than my older aio which was a branded one. I5 in my old aio would reach temps at least 10c higher than this.
Probably would be fine with stock AMD Wraith cooler, but pretty nice with Ryzen 5 5600 PBO -30 all core undervolt up to 4.65 GHz boost.
Also, comes with thermal paste which was a nice surprise, though I’d already applied Arctic MX-6..
Fan mounting was slightly unintuitive as instruction manual was pretty bare bones, after looking at the provided images, realised it’s 4 vertical hooks spanning side sections of the fans to the heat sink.
For a while the middle mounting screw was hard to thread as the other mounting holes were not perfectly aligned but this might have just been user error, so the end result was the heat sink wobbling around the IHS (good thing I applied more than usual amount of paste).
Would have been 11/10 if they provided a long screw driver that automatically fits their form factor but that might be asking too much.
If anything having so much thermal headroom allows for your CPU/apu to run cooler, degrading slower than it would otherwise.. can’t go wrong as it is on par with the likes of scythe fuma/noctua nh-d15 at lower rpms but is louder than them at higher rpms… Albeit at fraction of the equivalent cost.
Lowered temps massively, idle temps on a 5600x went from 50 to 22 and under load stays around 50, hottest I’ve seen it go is 55 after a few hours under load. Very easy to install, especially for AMD users just keep the standard back plate included and mount it, fans clip on easy. Instructions were good as well and loads of videos online for those who aren’t confident with this kind of thing.
Keeps my 10900K below 50*c at 1000rpm while gaming, and you can barely hear it.
I bought this for my 5900X system to replace a 5 year old and failing h80i v2 AIO, the PA120 cooled my 5900X extremely well and I found I was able to push it to a PBO overclock of 4.5 GHz under full load with up to 5.15GHz on a single core, using +200MHz freq, 210W TDP, 135 TDC, 140 EDC and -18 all cores on curve optimiser. Achieves a CB23 multicore score of around 22600 points.
This is slightly better than what I could achieve with the h80i 120mm AIO. With an ambient room temperature around 19-20C, CPU temps sustain around the mid-high 80s celcius when stressed under full load in CB23 for half an hour. Temperatures during gaming are in the high 60s to low 70s celcius.
The fans are audible when spinning up and running at higher RPMs, but they are not of an annoying pitch so can be tolerated.
Overall the PA120 is a really great product for the price, a dual fan, dual fin stack air cooler for ~40. I think the kind of performance isn’t too far off other more expensive and higher end air coolers like the AK620 or D15.
Dropped my temps by 10 degrees compared to stock cooler, ryzen 5 5600
This seems like a great cooler. Right now, I have it just resting on my CPU with some thermal paste and no mounting bracket and it’s keeping the temps < 50C. The reason it's not attached is one of the screws provided to attach the brackets to the backplate broke off in the back plate. The screws seem to be made of a very soft metal or I had a defective screw as I broke it off while tightening with my fingers. This is all fixable, but a hassle. Second, the fans seem much louder than expected at full speed. I don't think it will ever be a problem though. The cooler works so well the fans almost never come on. I'm sure it will perform even better once I have some replacement screws and everything is mounted up correctly. Update: I got some #6x32 5/8" screws to attach the mounting brakets and installed the cooler. It's fantastic. The fans are silent all the time and the CPU (Ryzen 5700G) temps never go above 60C. If you don't want to spend twice as much on a cooler, this is an excellent value cooler.
This cooler is actually better than my Corsair AIO I highly recommend this product its cheap as chips and cools my 12900k like a champ
holy hell this thing is amazing for what you are paying, easily cooling a 5800x topping out at 65c in cinebench R23, one of the easiest coolers I have ever had to mount ( up there with noctua), literally one of the best airs coolers around and doesn’t cost 75+, highly recommended.
Best value for money. Replaced my NZXT X62 cooler when it dried up
Superb performance for the money. Easy to fit, works well and runs cold. It even looks rather nice with the RGB fans going. I bought it as a quick fix because my old water AIO was playing up and I wanted to see if it was the cooling or the motherboard/processor. This performs so well for the money. My only criticism is that the fan clips are a bit weak and poorly fitted and how they clip onto the vents isn’t entirely secure without bending the fins. And one fan covers the RAM slots, which is annoying if you got RGB RAM 🙂 – I swapped the sides of the fans to uncover the RAM and it seems to work perfectly. Highly, HIGHLY recommended. Outperforms cooling solutions that are more than double the price.
stable running on my machine…
my previous MSI liquid cooling DIED after running for months. i turn my server on 7x 24 hours and it died.
the fan cooler will be more stable on my 5900x
I was originally using my Wraith Prism from my 3900X to keep my 5800X3D cool, and I was seeing peaks in games of 90c, so I looked around and this cooler has a lot of praise, I can confirm the praise is well earned, this thing is so much quieter and cooler than the wraith prism was, in WoW it keeps my processor at 60c which is a lovely change from the 90c spikes I was seeing before, If you have a 5800X3D this cooler is perfect. The only gripe I had was with my HyperX Predator was too high so the front fan sits about 2cm higher than the other fa
My PC is on alot, that means the regular cooler gets alot of use and has failed twice in 18/24 months. This is so simple, great quality etc and a fraction of the price of big brands that the evidence suggests aren’t as good as this.
Buy it, if you can’t decide between this and something else, pick this.
I have very recently upgraded to AM5 and the 7700X. I was using the AF34eSD, but customer reviews for this TPA-120SE tweaked my curiosity and I decided to give it a go, as I thought a dual heatsink air cooler will have the edge over a single heatsink air cooler such as my AF34eSD. Please see my Amazon review of the AF air cooler.
Please note, with the 5800X and 7700X, I disabled PBO and auto-OC because the cpu temperatures were very high even at idle. For example, with PBO and auto-OC enabled, my 7700X was sitting at c.46c idle. With the above two features disabled, my 7700X was sitting at a very comfortable and constant 35c (same story with my 5800X). Both cpu’s were cooled with my AF34eSD (with a pair of Noctua 3k-rpm fans rated at 110cfm each). I am aware that many folks opted for AIO or custom loop for the 5800X, 5900X and 5950X. However, due to a bad experience in the past, I am averse to having a liquid cooling solution in my pc. I much prefer good old fashioned air coolers as they are notably cheaper than AIO and a damn sight more reliable.
I found the mounting procedure for this TPA-120SE to be a bit of a hassle as securing it to the brackets after mounting on the cpu was not straightforward (unlike the AF34eSD). It has a very different mechanism akin to my old Akasa Venom dual heatsink air cooler. As a result, the base plate for this air cooler kept sliding on my cpu and probably unevenly distributed the thermal paste which I applied to the surface of the cpu lid. But I finally got the job done.
Here are the results –
7700X cpu and AF-34Esport –
IDLE – 35c (constant).
Prime95 – 49.81c (highest reading).
Cinebench R23 – 50.97c (highest reading).
7700X and Thermalright PA-120SE –
IDLE – 36.5c (fluctuating).
Prime95 – 49.18c (highest reading).
Cinebench R23 – 51.34c (highest reading).
I wanted to perform AIDA64 test but unfortunately you need to purchase a license. It is pointless for me as I just needed it for a one off.
TBH, I am a bit disappointed with the TPA-120SE as I was hoping it would beat the AF34eSD by at least 1.5c in each benchmark reading. I will need to remove the air cooler and see if the thermal paste layer has been unevenly distributed. If so, re-apply, remount and do benchmarks again. I will also give it another three days or so to ensure the TP has properly cured.
The AF34eSD cost me 35, versus this TPA-120SE which cost 39.90. Both purchased from Amazon. Another issue with this (slim) dual tower air cooler is that the front fan still sits right on top of my RAM (slot 2). If I wanted to purchase more RAM, I would have to remove the fan, install RAM and reinstall the front fan.
Comparison aside, if I look at this cooler based on it’s own merits, then it is pretty good. The cooling performance is circa 3c behind the NHD15, but you have to look at the price difference – 90 for the NHD15 and 40 for this TPA-120-SE. It is a no brainer. If you want more cooling performance then you could add a third fan to the rear of the heatsink and that would shave off another circa 2c-3c from the temperature readings. However, you would need to purchase another fan (if you do not have a spare fan) as well as extra fan mounting clips from Thermalright.
To conclude, I am currently on the fence with this one. I may keep it as a spare (just in case). I will update my review if anything changes.
Amazing Cooler, fantastic build quality, keeps my ryzen 5 5600 at 33 degrees doing general day to day tasks and at most 60 degrees when under heavy load and that’s with the fans at 50% speed or less.
I then did some more research and everywhere seemed to suggest the Noctua NH-U12A. However, I couldn’t really bring myself to spend 90 on an air cooler.
I then found this beauty on a review website, giving it glowing reviews for its price. I was skepticle at first but for 35, it was worth a shot. Now I’m getting an extra ~5% on my cinebench scores and with 10-15c lower temps.
Now the noise is comparable to the Hyper 212 but the performance to noise ratio is just incredible.
Give this a go, you can’t go wrong at the price!