Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 SE CPU Air Cooler,PA120 SE,6 Heat Pipes CPU Cooler

Was having issues with CPU temperature, considered water cooling, but bought this instead and never had any heating issues since. It has been worth the purchase for me

Kay · 2026-04-30 · via amazon

Before I write the review, I thought I would share the difference between this and the normal PA120: The SE version is slightly cheaper, slightly shorter, and doesn't have the heatpipe covers that the normal version has. Performance between the two is within margin of error. The only other mentionable difference is that the normal PA120 comes in black coated variant, while the SE does not at the time of writing have a black version. The height difference is very small, but can matter in very cramped cases. For example. in the NR200p. the SE fits while the normal PA120 presses against the sidepanel. This cooler is really great performer at a really great price. The coldplate flatness and mounting pressure is suberb compared to every other cooler in the price class and even compared to much more expensive coolers, and this is why it is able to preform so well. Installation is easy enough, and quite a bit easier than some other air coolers. Fitment can pose issues in builds that have tall ram and tall VRM heatsinks... If you have both, you may have a hard time putting the second fan on the cooler. On normal ATX boards this shouldn't be an issue as things are more spread out, but microATX and ITX it is something to be aware of. I have multiple of these and actually have testing single fan performance on a 7800x3d in a build that couldn't elegantly fit the second fan, and it actually is totally fine with just 1 fan for moderate heatloads <100W.

Brent · 2024-03-31 · via amazon

I upgraded from a Ryzen 5 2600X to a Ryzen 9 5900X and thought I could use the same cooler. It was not nearly powerful enough. I did some research and found this to be the most consistently recommended cooler and bought based on that. It is BIG and it can be a little tricky to install and route around, but it works REALLY WELL, and it's very reasonably priced. Probably exceeded my expectations tbh. Highly recommend.

Ben · 2025-01-25 · via amazon

Moved from an AMD Ryzen 3700x to a Ryzen 5950x CPU. The 5950x CPU states to use a AIO for cooling. However, I don't really trust AIO because of the potential of water leaks. Also I didn't want to trust using the stock cooler from the 3700x. It seemed like a recipe for disaster since the 3700x is 65watts and the 5950x is 105watts. After doing a lot of research, mainly YouTube, the Thermalright Peerless Assassin seemed like the best fit for the price. Something things to consider before buying: 1. This heatsink is "MASSIVE". (I also have a Cooler Master 212 for different build and the Peerless Assassin looks twice the size.) The motherboard and case needs to provide a lot of unused real estate around the CPU. I had to change the "push air" through the fins to an "extract heat" from the fins so that the fans did not interfere with the memory sockets. Moving from a "push" to "extract" could have change cooling but the CPU temp is still within a respectable 65 degrees during game play (using Riva Tuner) 2. You need to be comfortable, which most DIY are, to do some mods on the mother board. Mainly removing the standard cooler brackets from the mother board and install the included brackets. Installation of the brackets seem easy, and installation of the cooler was also easy. 3. The cooler did come with some Thermalright thermal paste. However, I would suggest buying one of their name brand paste or an equivalent name brand like Thermal Grizzly. I really doubt that the included paste is the same quality as Thermalright TF7 or TF9 paste.

CBerg · 2024-10-06 · via amazon

This cooler is very good for the money. It's well built, has dual fans that move plenty of air while being fairly quiet, and even comes with thermal paste, though I personally wouldn't opt to use it. I pulled a Noctua NH-D15 from my current rig to transplant it into a new build. I replaced that cooler with the Assassin to keep the machine running during the transfer to the new computer. It's currently cooling an Intel i7-7700k with a slight overclock. So far, the Peerless Assassin is performing on par with the Noctua in every test I've thrown at it. That's not saying the Noctua isn't a better cooler overall. It's just overkill on this particular chip. The Peerless Assassin can handle mid to upper tier chips pretty well. The only complaint I really have is the mounting system. It comes with all the parts needed for a few different sockets and mounting the bracket to the board is not a problem. Mounting the cooler was a bit of a nightmare. The posts on the bracket were just slightly out of alignment with the posts on the cooler. I had to wrestle with it to get enough angle to seat the tips of the posts together and pry it over enough to screw it down without cross-threading it. I think this just comes down to manufacturing tolerances being a little off. A slightly different mount with some play in the bolt hole would easily eliminate this.

Chad Simmons · 2023-05-14 · via amazon

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VALUE SCORE

Price

$20

Price

$23.99