Review Thermalright Phantom Spirit 120 EVO Review: This isn’t a competition. This is a massacre.

[Admin]

Thermalright took what was already one of the best designs on the market and made it even better, making it hard to recommend any other air cooler on the market.

Thermalright Phantom Spirit 120 EVO Review: This isn’t a competition. This is a massacre. : Read more

 

[kyzarvs]

$43 claimed with an advert for it at over $60 (£52) in the UK, for when a 1:1 conversion rate doesn't quite stick it to us brits enough...

My mother lives in Oregon, I'll ask her to send me one!

 

[slash3]

Still trolling us with your wacky DIMM placement, you evil person, you.

Great cooler.

 

[SantaSade]

A good 2C cooler than a Noctua D15 is a massacre? Talk about hyperbole.

 

[oussama baccara]

please add the frost spirit 5 x 8mm pipes.

 

[Albert.Thomas]

Still trolling us with your wacky DIMM placement, you evil person, you.

Great cooler.

I suppose I'm gonna have to add some clarifying language.

This is on purpose - to make sure the cooler won't have compatibility with 4 DIMM systems.

 

[Albert.Thomas]

please add the frost spirit 5 x 8mm pipes.

I have the Frost Commander 140 which has 5 x 8mm in the results

 

[Albert.Thomas]

A good 2C cooler than a Noctua D15 is a massacre? Talk about hyperbole.

$42 vs $100+, and 2C cooler AND quieter? Yes, that's a massacre.

 

[mwm2010]

Those fans are wild. Does Thermalright sell them separately?

 

[Alexen.irk]

Those fans are wild. Does Thermalright sell them separately?

Yep, TL-K12 model and non rgb TL-B12 version if you no need it.

TL-K12 – Thermalright

www.thermalright.com

TL-B12 – Thermalright

www.thermalright.com

 

[Amdlova]

A good 2C cooler than a Noctua D15 is a massacre? Talk about hyperbole.

Two degree on air cooler is a massacre and 1/2 price it's another massacre

 

[Amdlova]

@Albert.Thomas Thanks for the review... I have here the thermalright sl-100 keeping the cpu on ambient temps...
you need to get one of those to test

 

[islandwalker]

A good 2C cooler than a Noctua D15 is a massacre? Talk about hyperbole.

Noctua is great. But the D15 costs nearly three times as much (at least in the US) and performs measurably worse than this cooler. Better performance at 1/3 the price sounds like a massacre to me.

 

[Trake_17]

Why has Tom's stopped including the Noctua NH-D15 in their comparisons? They show the D15S regularly but stopped showing the regular D15 which is slightly larger and has a second fan. I thought that was the reigning champ from a few years ago, so it's weird that they stopped even talking about it

 

[drjohnnyfever]

I just put the Thermalright Phantom 120 SE ARGB in a beginning gamer with a i5-14600K for my son. Ran the CPUZ CPU stress test and it never went over 72C. Took about 4 minutes to get there, then just hovered at 70-72C. Fans were only barely audible because I did the test with the glass off the case. Excellent results.

It was someone on Tom's that recommended the Phantom to me on another thread about a different PC that provided the info. Grateful for the knowledge... and this confirmation of it.

edit - the Amazon price was $35.99 ...winner!

 

[bit_user]

I seem to recall Cooler Master's Stealth coolers had a similar type of black coating that increased the surface area. I do wonder if such a coating accumulates dust more readily.

 

[palladin9479]

That thing looks ridiculously huge, but I can see it being very good when coupled with this fans. I think the fans are the real winner here, powerful yet quiet 120mm that can be mounted on many things.

 

[bit_user]

That thing looks ridiculously huge,

Not to disagree with you (huge is a subjective judgement, after all), but I just thought it'd be interesting to compare with the NH-D15.

Model	Width	Height	Depth	Weight
Phantom Spirit 120 EVO	125 mm	157 mm	110 mm	1030 g
NH-D15S	150 mm	160 mm	135 mm	1150 g
NH-D15	150 mm	165 mm	161 mm	1320 g

I believe all of the above measurements are "with fans". It's definitely not small.

 

[35below0]

Why has Tom's stopped including the Noctua NH-D15 in their comparisons? They show the D15S regularly but stopped showing the regular D15 which is slightly larger and has a second fan. I thought that was the reigning champ from a few years ago, so it's weird that they stopped even talking about it

I think they're exactly the same except the non-S ships without the extra fan. This fan is optional on the D15 so it kinda makes sense to only include the D15S.

I do like the Noctua, it's very nice and freaking huge and all that. But in performance there are simply better coolers. I use a D15 with the i5 13600K, single fan, all is well. A more powerfull i7 or i9 will need the other fan. Again this is mostly ok but in truth there are better coolers, esp. if you factor in ambient temperatures.
An overclocked modern i7 or i9 can still be somewhat cooled by the D15 but it is clearly outclassed by better performing coolers.

It's still a very good cooler. But the few years have introduced hotter and more demanding CPUs, and Noctua's rivals have come up with excellent products.

 

[35below0]

Not to disagree with you (huge is a subjective judgement, after all), but I just thought it'd be interesting to compare with the NH-D15.

​

​

Model	Width	Height	Depth
Phantom Spirit 120 EVO	125 mm	157 mm	110 mm
NH-D15S	150 mm	160 mm	135 mm
NH-D15	150 mm	165 mm	161 mm

I believe all of the above measurements are "with fans". It's definitely not small.

Huge is subjective, agreed. But with that said, the D15 is monstrously huge. I stared in disbelief at just the box it came in. Later i stared in disbelief at the tower block covering up the motherboard once i installed it.

I'm happy with it, and didn't mind the price. BUT a) it is definetly huge and PC case size is a consideration, and b) it is not as affordable as the Phantom spirit nor does it offer as much cooling for top end intels of the latest generation.
so yeah. massacre is not hyperbole.

Whether or not everybody needs this kind of cooling is another matter. But given what the Phantom spirit 120 Evo costs, and frankly how nice it looks and how well it's built, it deserves to be on everyone's radar.

 

[Albert.Thomas]

Why has Tom's stopped including the Noctua NH-D15 in their comparisons? They show the D15S regularly but stopped showing the regular D15 which is slightly larger and has a second fan. I thought that was the reigning champ from a few years ago, so it's weird that they stopped even talking about it

There are two reasons I'm using the D15S:

1) Noctua sent that model for testing

2) There's only so many coolers I have time to test. I've been using this particular cooling setup for less than a year, and with this review we have 50 comparison results in total (for the noise normalized section).

 

[NedSmelly]

@Albert.Thomas thanks for the review. I've been sensing a passing of the torch lately from Noctua to Thermalright as top pick amongst the enthusiast crowd (along with DeepCool). But is there anything else we need to be aware of besides performance? Quality control, after sales support, and perhaps even industrial practices?

(Noctua, BeQuiet, and Cooler Master dinosaur user here)

 

[bit_user]

I think they're exactly the same except the non-S ships without the extra fan. This fan is optional on the D15 so it kinda makes sense to only include the D15S.

They have the same dimensions, without fans, but the design of the S model was apparently altered to enable the fan to sit lower, thus reducing the final height by 5 mm. I'm not sure what other changes might've been made.

BTW, I think they missed an opportunity to harness a bit more of their fan(s) airflow by allowing part of the fan frame to extend beyond the heatsink profile. If I had one of these coolers, I'd tape something over the gap, on the exhaust side, so that all of the downstream air was forced to go through the fin stack.

 

[bit_user]

is there anything else we need to be aware of besides performance? Quality control, after sales support, and perhaps even industrial practices?

I wonder about the flatness of the base, and consistency in that regard.

In general, I think it would be neat to see someone do cooler teardowns to try and pick apart the strengths and weaknesses of different coolers and find out just what are the ingredients needed to make a top-performing model.

 

[HideOut]

Two degree on air cooler is a massacre and 1/2 price it's another massacre

Not sure what he's seeing when he said 2C. Theres a 5C difference @ 125W. AND while being quieter, in the world of air cooling PC's (decades old at this point in time) it kinda is a massacre.