PA120 SE

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.

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.

Mounting the cooler is relatively easy, however, you have to be careful to not hit/damage other components due to its sheer size. This in itself could also cause problems with higher RAM sticks, or RAM on top of which you want to mount some fans. For instance, I'm using DDR5-8000 memory which gets quite hot under load without cooling (~60C+) so I'm using some top-mounted fans to cool it down. In this scenario, unfortunately I cannot use the ThermalRight cooler as with it mounted, there is no more room for the RAM fans. And no, the front (push) fan on the cooler doesn't help dissipating the heat from the RAM as it sits right on top of it. Moreover, I had to raise the front fan slightly above the heatsink as it wouldn't fit otherwise due to the RAM sticks themselves. The RAM sticks are G-Skill Trident Z series which are not a high-profile RAM like let's say the Corsair Dominator, so if you have the latter, you might run into issues mounting this beast. The cooling performance is rather good, having installed it on an i9-14900K, with Arctic MX6 thermal paste, the load temps were not above 85-86C however, the noise the fans make is very annoying. The fans are audible even at low RPM, let alone in high RPM. Otherwise, the cooler looks nice in white, ARGB lighting is good, however, I could not put up with the fans noise so went for a AIO cooler instead. One of the main advantages of this cooler though is its price, which in this category is unbeatable, incomparably cheaper than an AIO option. So in conclusion, if you're not bothered by the fan noise, possible RAM clearance issues and bulkiness of the unit itself then for this price think no further.

This Thermalright CPU cooler is impressive in both performance and design. Installation was straightforward, and all the mounting hardware was included and well-made. The dual 120mm fans provide excellent airflow, keeping my CPU temperatures consistently low even under heavy load. The six heat pipes do a fantastic job of dissipating heat efficiently. I also love the ARGB design. The lighting is bright, vibrant, and fully compatible with my motherboard software, which adds a sleek aesthetic to my build. The white finish looks clean and modern, complementing other components perfectly. Noise levels are minimal, even when the fans ramp up during intensive tasks, which makes it perfect for both gaming and productivity work. Overall, this cooler combines excellent cooling performance, quiet operation, and stylish design. It is ideal for anyone looking to keep their CPU cool while adding a touch of flair to their build. Highly recommended.

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.

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.

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

Great performer, keeps CPU cool, quiet under load

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

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.