Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 White ARGB

[testman78]

Introduction

Recently, I have reviewed Thermalright's Frost Commander 140. This time I will introduce another double-tower, dual-fan air-cooled product, with a name "Peerless Assassin 120 White ARGB". As the name suggests, this cooler is painted white and adorned with addressable lighting. The cooler is 157mm high and has six 6mm diameter copper heatpipes that pass through a copper heatsink base. Through them, heat is transferred to two blocks of aluminum plates. The included TL-C12CW-S ARGB fans are also painted white. More precisely, the frames are white, and the impellers are matte and serve as backlight diffusers. The fan speed is regulated by PWM. Thermalright seriously impressed me with the Frost Commander 140 which I took a look at before this review, which had a good design, performance, and great price to boot. So the Peerless Assassin 120 White ARGB that is here for today’s review has some big shoes to fill. Let’s boot up and see how it gets on…



Apart from our test version of the day, it is available in an SE, white and black version. The platform supports mainstream Intel and AMD Platforms. The latest Intel LGA1700 also supported!




Packaging & Contents

External package marked with brand, product model and appearance, with ARGB visual lighting effect. It supports Intel LGA1700 platform.



The basic specifications of the product are marked on the back.



The Thermalright Logo is marked on the top.



Features of product are marked on the sides.




Removing the cooler an inner packaging from the box shows that Thermalright takes appropriate measures to ensure our sample showed up in near-mint condition. The cooler package includes mounting kits for installing it on Intel and AMD processors, brackets for fixing fans and a Y-cable. In addition, the cooler comes with Thermalright TF7 thermal paste with a very high declared thermal conductivity of 12.8 W/m°K. Interestingly, this is not the most efficient thermal interface from Thermalright, as the company has TF8 thermal paste in its range, the thermal conductivity of which is declared at 13.8 W / m ° K.




A Closer Look

Peerless Assassin 120 White ARGB adopts a double-tower design. The double-tower design makes the overall volume slightly larger. The body size is 125mm in length, 135mm in width, and 157mm in height. The effect of nano-sprayed white paint is also eye-catching on the bottom.



The heat sink body adopts an asymmetrical offset configuration design. The fins of the body are each 0.4mm and the pitch is 1.8mm. There are 53 fins in total. The fins and heat pipes are all whitened to increase the appearance and anti-oxidation ability. The fan between the two towers has reserved air intake space.



The outer and lower sides of the towers are retracted to achieve better memory compatibility.



The micro-wavy design on both sides of the fins can increase the airflow contact area, and the top black decorative top cover is printed with a trademark. It is noticeable that the main radiator plates have an original profile with protruding fins.



6 pieces of 6mm heat pipes are connected to the bottom C1100 pure copper nickel-plated CPU contact surface, and the pressure plates on both sides of the contact surface have spring nuts. For better compatibility with the bottom PCI-E slot of the motherboard, the heatsink is made asymmetrical, and to ensure compatibility with high memory modules, the bottom nine heatsink plates are narrower, creating a height of about 58mm from the base to the bottom wide plate.



There is a protective sticker on the contact surface of the processor, and the English mark on the top is "Warning! Please tear off before use". The bottom adopts C1100 pure copper nickel-plated CPU contact design, which provides good heat conduction effect.



Two ARGB fans are included, the model is TL-C12W-S. The FDB (Fluid Dynamic Bearing) design allows the TL-C12W-S to last up to 60,000 hours thanks to the latest shock pad and significantly reduces noise frequency to ensure quiet operation. There are trademark stickers on the axis of the 9-blade fan blades. The 4pin PWM circuit of the fan is covered with braided mesh and the length is 29 cm. The maximum speed is 1550 rpm, the noise is 25.6dBA and the air volume is 66.17CFM. You must fix the fan on the radiator with the attached elastic steel wire buckle. When installing, the elastic steel wire buckle should be embedded in the grooves on both sides of the radiator. The elastic wire buckle of the fan can only correspond to a 12cm fan with a thickness of 25mm, and a thicker or thinner fan cannot be used.




TL-C12W-S has seven colors with fourteen mode changes. With 17 modes and a favorite ARGB Symphony mode, the TL-C12W-S adds 1600W ARGB vivid colors and a gorgeous fan lighting to add an amazing element to your accessories. Due to the fan’s automatic storage function, the settings remain the same even if the PC is turned off.




Installation Process & Finished Looks

The first step is the preparation of the motherboard. We position the four washers on the fixing holes. Then we have to go through the counter plate and the motherboard using the four screws. After flipping the motherboard, we need to position the four spacers.





The two stirrups are positioned on the spacers, they are held by screws. After applying the thermal paste, we can proceed to mount the heatsink. The fastening system uses helical springs which exert perfectly controlled contact pressure. The system simply makes it possible to automatically ensure the necessary pressure without worrying about the level of tightening. This system fights against excessive tightening which is then simply impossible. All that remains is to place the fans and connect the 4 PWM pins.




The Peerless Assassin 120 White ARGB cooler with its dual tower format encroaches on the DIMM ports. But Thermalright has provided a cutout on the side of each radiator and therefore it does not interfere with the mounting of memory modules, even the highest ones. On the other hand, if you want to put the second fan on the side of the memory modules, you will have to choose fairly low modules. The higher the height of the memory, the more the fan moves upward, which will cause the fan frame to exceed the top of the radiator. If the case has restrictions on the height of the CPU radiator, then Pay attention to whether the protruding fan frame will exceed the height limit.



All that remains is to place the fans and connect the 4 PWM pins.



The lighting quality is nothing short of excellent and very well balanced.






Performance

The tests are carried out with an AMD Ryzen 7 2700X processor installed on an ASUS TUF Gaming B550M-PLUS (WI-FI) motherboard . The processor is locked at 3700 MHz on all its cores with a Vcore at 1.05 V at first, then it goes to 4000 MHz / 1.25 V and finally 4200 MHz / 1.35 V. Temperatures are retrieved with HWiNFO , while the processor is loaded with RealBench for thirty minutes. Finally, the noise pollution measurement is taken 12 cm behind the radiator in a room measured at 29.6 dB(A).



While the Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 White ARGB cooler doesn’t post the lowest thermal load temperatures, take special note of the comparison group included here. These are some of the very best heatpipe air coolers we’ve tested. Staying within a few degrees of the industry’s top performers, the Peerless Assassin 120 White ARGB makes a substantial statement in this field of pricier competitors.



Adding more speed and voltage, delivering more heat to the Peerless Assassin 120 White ARGB was of little consequence regarding how well it performs. Still landing in eight seems as if it could have been better, but again, Thermalright takes top honors for air cooling of a CPU in our charts. The difference to the big-named options increased slightly, favoring Thermalright and this Peerless Assassin 120 White ARGB over many high-end, high-priced solutions.



This last run for thermal results is where the Peerless Assassin 120 White ARGB performs impressively. That it beats the NH-D15S is no surprise, but it even comes close the much more expensive Noctua NH-D15 performance.



Performance-wise, the fans are within the range of the measurement tolerance, with the fans tending to be ahead in the lower power range. Only at full power are the Noctua fans noticeably quieter, but who runs their coolers at full power?




Final Thoughts

Thermalright has been delivering some impressive and interesting cooling solutions as of late, and the company’s Peerless Assassin 120 White ARGB air cooler looks to continue that trend. It features a pair of 120mm ARGB fans and six heatpipes extending into a handsomely designed, standard twin-tower layout, allowing the cooler’s striking aesthetics to make a statement on their own. The heatsink covers on top are another nice aesthetic addition overall. The asymmetrical configuration of the double-tower structure is beautiful and anti-oxidative All-White microwave design fins, combined with six 6mm heat pipes on the pure copper nickel-plated processor contact surface, and two TL-C12W-S FDB PWM fans with shockproof rubber pads on the outer frame, can meet the heat dissipation requirements of high-end processors. Noise levels were also acceptable, with the TL-C12W-S fans ramping up to around 1550rpm. At 157mm tall, you’ll find that the Peerless Assassin 120 White ARGB will likely fit in most cases without a worry. Also, for those who want a cooler that is just plain easy to install, Thermalright has you covered. The mounting hardware is one of the simplest and easiest to work with I have used on both AMD and Intel mainstream sockets. Clearance issues should not be a concern, as there is sufficient space for most memory kits. In terms of memory compatibility, although you can install a relatively high memory but you must move the fan up a little. Our most significant issue with the Peerless Assassin 120 White ARGB from Thermalright comes down to pricing and availability. While we were able to locate it at one site (newegg), out of the six we checked, with any connection to the Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 White ARGB , only one shows stock inside the US.



In summation, the Peerless Assassin 120 White ARGB is a damn good dual-tower air cooler. The Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 White ARGB offers an impressive performance that is fully in the premium segment. The build quality is solid, the look is stylish, the installation is simple, and the fans are surprisingly effective. To top everything off, the Peerless Assassin 120 White ARGB costs only $40. That makes this a pretty affordable cooler and low-blows the competition by as much as $30 when you take its price to performance into account.