PA120 SE

I’ve been using the Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 SE CPU cooler and it’s excellent quality for the price. Thermalright is always my go-to brand when building PCs — very reliable and trusted. Cooling performance is great, even on high-end Ryzen CPU builds, keeping temperatures very low under load. Installation was straightforward and it looks clean in the build. Pros: • Excellent cooling performance • High-quality build • Trusted and reliable brand • Works well on high-end CPUs Cons: • Nothing major to report Overall, a fantastic CPU cooler that I’d highly recommend for anyone building a reliable, cool-running PC.

My CPU temps were hitting up to 90-100°C on demanding games with the STOCK intel cooler (was playing Oblivion Remastered, so maybe I should say poorly optimised games lol). I’ve got an i5 14400f paired with an RTX 4070, so these temps were crazy high, and straight up dangerous for my CPU. Now, I know the stock intel cooler is generally not great, but I was not expecting the crazy results that this CPU cooler gave me. I bought this for £27 (I think on sale). And, for £27, it lowered my temps from 90-100°C in Oblivion, to 50-55°C — incredible. This game often utilises up to 70% of my CPU, and sometimes higher, and the fact that I’m getting such low temps is amazing. I was honestly expecting, and hoping for, maybe 70-75°C on this game. I am really pleased with this CPU cooler, and it seems to be working amazingly. It gets kinda noisy in-game, but still NOT as loud as the Stock Intel Cooler. It’s audible when the fans start speeding up in more demanding games/environments, but I assume it’s to maintain those lower temps. If you really wanted to, you could create a custom fan curve, and you’d probably solve this issue. It’s honestly not an issue for me, it’s really not that loud at all. Also, at least it doesn’t turn my room into a sauna like the stock intel cooler! TL;DR: good quality, really nice temps with my CPU, really affordable price, and is compatible with AM4 boards, AM5 I believe as well (double check that), in addition to Intel boards. Can get a bit noisy, create a custom fan curve or buy a more premium CPU cooler or even a Liquid Cooler if you are sensitive or disturbed by fan noise. I used to play PS4 all the time, so I can tolerate fan noise pretty well, since that console was a jet engine. But honestly, it’s not that loud at all, just audible. Even playing with speakers, and no headphones, the fan noise doesn’t bother me.

Can't fault it at all. Excellent performance; the fans never need to go above 66% of their max speed to keep the CPU cool under 60 degrees C. Nice and quiet, easy to install too.

The cooling performance on this thing is absolutely incredible for what it costs. It easily goes head-to-head with coolers that cost twice as much, keeping my CPU temperatures impressively low even under heavy gaming loads. The dual-tower design and 6 heat pipes do a massive amount of heavy lifting. If there is any downside, it is that it runs a little noisier than my old Noctua cooler when the fans really ramp up. It isn't jet-engine loud by any means, but if you are coming from a premium, ultra-quiet brand like Noctua, you will definitely notice a bit more fan hum under load. That said, considering the massive price difference, the value here is completely unbeatable. It is relatively easy to install, fits nicely into standard cases, and delivers top-tier performance on a budget. Highly recommended if you want maximum cooling power without paying a premium.

Giving this 5 stars for the price - it's a bargain. Had to RMA my h100i LCD and got this as a temporary replacement. I didn't use the bundled TIM but bought some MX-4 at the same time, which might have a positive impact on temps. Keeps my 13600KF under 60 degrees while gaming, so happy with it. Not really bad points, but: Mounting system is OK. I attached the backplate, then loosely popped on a couple of the mounting screws to keep it in place while I attached the mounting arms.. For LGA1700, you need the screws dead centre of the holes in the arms which I found to be a bit hit & miss. No arrows on fans. Assumed Thermalright logo side is intake side. This is probably just my usage case, but the front fan doesn't clear my Corsair RGB RAM, and the VRM shroud on my Gigabyte 790 UD-AX wouldn't let me attach it to the back, so had to attach the front fan slightly offset (see photo), which might impact temps a bit. Could have probably mounted vertical but didn't want it breathing in my GPU air... Not loud, but not quiet either when the fans ramp up. But then I've used AIOs for years so probably just got used to the silence. All in all though, it was relatively cheap and I can use my rig while I wait for my replacement AIO so very happy.

One of the best things about this is it's so easy to install compared to the cooler I was replacing (Hyper 212 Evo). The Evo has to be one of the most annoying products (not just coolers, but any type of PC hardware) to install. Whereas the Peerless Assassin is super easy - they definitely nailed it with an easy and frustration free mounting system. Now I will say I've recently changed out my CPU, case, case fans, and the cooler, so It is hard for me to say exactly how much this cooler contributed to my reduced temps, but I feel like it's definitely helped. I was previously using a Ryzen 3600 in a mATX case with the aforementioned Hyper 212 Evo. The temps while just doing light work and internet browsing would hover around the 45-60 degree range, which I felt was a bit on the high side. In games it would go as high as 75 degrees. I've now switched to an ATX case and a 5800x3d and of course replaced the Hyper 212 Evo with this cooler. My temps now are around 30-40 degrees while doing something like watching a Youtube video or just browsing the web, and I haven't seen them higher than about 65 degrees when under load in a game. So the overall effect does seem to be a reduction of at least 10 degrees, which I think is really impressive. Again the fact I changed from a mATX to an ATX case probably helped too, but I still think this cooler has had the main impact. The ARGB also looks cool too, and I have it synced with the rest of my ARGB PC case fans to create some nice visual effects. The only slight negative for me is that because it's so chunky, the fan closest to the front of the case has to overhang the RAM slightly and you have to attach this particular fan a bit higher than intended (physically not possible to lower it the full way since the RAM gets in the way). When I think about it, this might be an issue specific to my motherboard even though it's ATX (but I expect lots of other motherboards will have the same issue). It might be the case that if you have certain motherboards where the RAM slots are further away from the CPU socket, then maybe this won't happen. It's not a big issue, but might annoy some folks with OCD over that sort of thing since it is clear when you look at your PC case interior that the front fan on the cooler is positioned higher than the rear fan. If you don't care about how it looks or if you can't see the side of your PC case anyway, then this won't be an issue. Other than that, it's a really impressive cooler for the price and would definitely recommend it.

As always, I buy my own stuff and accordingly my reviews are honest and unbiased! Now I will readily admit, I am a HUGE fan of Noctua cooling products. I have the behemoth NH-D15 cooling an I7 13700k in one PC and it does an outstanding job on intel's portable blast furnace! :) On this occasion I was upgrading a more mainstream machine to a Ryzen 5800X and wanted a good air cooled solution. The Noctua NH-D12 was top of my list, but I also remember hearing very positive things about this Thermalright Peerless Assasin so I went off to do some research. Suffice to say the reviews are pretty much universally positive and considering the price, £35 for this RGB version when I bought it, I decided to give it a try. Packaging is excellent and gives the product a premium feel. A good start. The contents were secure and the cooler itself impressed me with its build quality. OK, it does not feel quite as high quality as a Noctua but equally it costs about 1/3 of the price! Fitting is easy with all the parts included for fitting to Intel and AMD processors and sensible instructions provided. There is even a QR code to a youtube video if you are unsure. This is a good sized cooler so please check if you are fitting in a small case. For anything mid sized or bigger you should be fine. Please note, you will need thermal paste to go on the processor and act as a heat conductor. I recommend either Notua's own paste or anything from the wornderfully named Thermal Grizzly! In use this thing is ridiculously good! I ran Cinebench R23 and Timespy multiple times and never once did the temperatures climb above 70c under more stress than than normal use will ever get to. It is also very quiet, to the point of being pretty much silent in normal use - the main reason you get an air cooler. I also noticed that Linus Tech Tips included this same cooler in a set of tests recently (a channel I highly recommend to anyone with an interest in PC's) and like me, found it to be absolutely outstanding. In short, unless you have one of Intel's room heaters in your PC, this is the cooler you should buy! If you do have one of those beasts from Intel then I recommend either the NH-D15 or a good quality (Corsair) AIO (all in one) liquid cooler, and the bigger, the better! Thanks for reading and I hope you found this review useful.

Brilliant temperature, i was getting 75°c+ on my stock cooler playing high cpu games like rocket league and then when I installed this cooler the temps went so low to 48°c, definitely worth the money also easy to attach onto my motherboard and sounds amazing 👍👍👍

J’ai voulu changer de mon beQuiet! Dark Rock Pro 4 car il était trop imposant, trop difficile à manipuler, et ne semblait pas refroidir correctement mon processeur (surtout au vu du prix). J’avais déjà vu pas mal de reviews et de tests qui parlaient de ce Peerless Assassin, et j’avais même fait une config pour un ami dans laquelle j’avais mis ce ventirad. Et pour le prix, laissez-moi vous dire qu’on en a pour notre argent. ✅ POINTS POSITIFS : • Prix imbattable • Specs imbattables (surtout vu le prix) • Qualité de fabrication • Plusieurs adaptateurs fournis • Boîte sobre mais efficace • Silencieux • Très facile à installer (surtout si je compare avec le beQuiet). ❌ POINTS NÉGATIFS : • Assez imposant (donc attention avec la ram clearance). Mais ça reste relatif, et avec de la ram low profile ça passe largement. Et puis ça permet aussi de très bonne performances. ⏩ CONCLUSION : On n’entendait pas vraiment parler de Thermalright ces dernières années, mais quel retour en force ! Pour environ la moitié du prix de mon beQuiet, j’ai quelque chose de plus performant, plus simple à installer/désinstaller, moins imposant. Les reviews disaient donc vrai. Et à ce prix là, difficile de faire mieux pour le moment. En tout cas, c’est une marque à suivre pour l’avenir. Ce produit est la preuve qu’on peut faire des ventirads pas chers, performants et silencieux : certains devraient s’en inspirer. ⭐️5/5

I recently upgraded from a Ryzen 7 2700x to a 5700x, and with the stock AMD Prism cooler, I was seeing temps up to 74c while gaming. Not a dangerous temp, but not super desirable either. My stock Prism cooler was quite old and this new chip ran hot, so perhaps a mixture of these was causing my new high temps. I was rearching what the best CPU tower cooler would be and this cooler appeared a lot in discussions, and upon further deep diving managed to pick one up. I have been blown away (pun intended) by the performance of this cooler! My temps under the same load have went from 74c~ to never hitting 60c. To add, this thing is whisper quiet unless it hits max rpm but since the fans on this are both PWM controlled, I have it hitting 70%~ at best with my current fan curve (circa ~1000RPM) and I can barely hear these fans. I also picked up 2 new exhaust fans for my case, so while some of the cooling improvements I saw COULD be attributed to those, make no mistake; most if not all of the increased thermals I have seen are down to this monster of a cooler! Installation was a breeze (pun intended) and the TF7 paste included was also an upgrade over another brand I had used before. The fans on this model are TL-C12Cs which are high quality 120MM fans and product does come with a PWM splitter, something I do not believe is mentioned in the item description. When it comes to clearance with RAM sticks, I have one of the fans slightly pulled up to not make contact with the RAM modules and I still experience incredible cooling, so no need to worry about that affecting performance. For this price, this cooler is a bargain! Dropped my temps by 15c, and performs quieter to boot with the ability to set a curve for whisper quiet fans at idle temps. Highly recommended!!!

This cooler lives up to its reputation. For the price, it is one of the best performing air coolers available. I am running it on an AMD 9900X with heavy coding workloads, and even at over 90 percent CPU usage the temperature rarely hits north of80°C. In typical use it sits around 67°C. That is with the included Thermalright paste and standard fans. It is not silent, but it is very quiet. At one point I bent a fin while moving the fans, which caused a slight whistle, but bending it back fixed the issue. The fans themselves are excellent, though they do not have airflow direction arrows, so you need to figure that out when setting them up. For me the white sticker facing out worked, with one fan in the center of the tower and one on the outside. This is not a cooler designed to look good in a showpiece build. It is large, plain, and functional. But it comes with all the mounting hardware you could need, works with multiple platforms, and most importantly delivers top-notch cooling at an unbeatable price.

Très facile à installer, la puissance de refroidissement qu'il couvre à ce prix là est imbattable.

Cool temps, almost as good as AIO coolers but much cheaper. Currently running it with a Ryzen 5 7600x and it keeps it ~78-80 Celsius under heavy load with no issues.