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

[doughillman]

No way I would buy this vs a Hyper 212 Evo which $30 $12 cheaper and has excellent cooling (C2Q Q9650@3.8Ghz and i7 920@3.8Ghz with temps maxing at 79C ).

Why you quoting max temps on things I use as a doorstop these days?

 

[Darkbreeze]

Long term fan testing is something that I would love to have the ability to do, but even if I had a facility where I could have fans running variable loads 24/7 - is anyone really going to be interested in an article 5-10 years down the line about the longevity of a fan from a decade prior?

Well, even before I found this link while simply looking for when the original reviews of the NF-A14 PWM were done, which for the record was about ten years ago, I'd have said yes. Apparently, there are an awful lot of others that agree. So, I'd say, yes. Maybe not for cheap run of the mill fans, but definitely it could be of interest for higher end models. But of course simply running a product for ten years isn't usually how they determine failure rate or longevity. Otherwise, they'd need to create a product, then run it for X amount of years before starting to sell it just so they could say "this is the expected lifespan".

Noctua NF-A14 PWM: Relevant even after a decade - HWCooling.net

Noctua NF-A14 PWMThere aren’t many 140mm fans that are more popular than the NF-A14 (PWM). This Noctua model has maintained that for a long time, for over a decade. In the meantime, naturally, a host of newer competing solutions have come along, and the question is how Noctua’s still-flagship...

www.hwcooling.net

 

[Darkbreeze]

I use hypee 212 for initial build testing as well quite frequently; but regardless getting 900+ Mhz OC on air with 4c8t is nothing to be dismissive of. Amazon has the updated version for $30

The Hyper 212 is an overpriced, OLD, entry level piece of CM junk. End of story. It's only relevant in regions where better models are not available. It hasn't been relevant as a competitive product in any of the major markets for MANY years. Not when you can get an 18 dollar Thermalright cooler that will grossly outperform it. Or even a similarly priced Deepcool Gammax 400 v2 cooler that IS available in a lot of markets that don't have a lot of great choices, that whups it's buttocks.

Believe me, I've written guides on the Hyper 212, and that was like 9 years ago. It was already rather old then.

 

[35below0]

The Phantom Spirit EVO does have one knock. Minor but still. The instruction manual is one page filled with a few illustrations that aren't the most intuitive or instructive. Doesn't affect performance, but that "manual" is crap.

Manuals by Noctua and Deepcool are more complete.

Request the headline be amended to "minor massacre" instead 😉

 

[Darkbreeze]

Thermalright's user manuals always suck. I've used MANY of their coolers, for years and years, and they've always been terribly unclear and fundamentally useless. Fortunately we have Youtube, so it's not like it matters because I have yet to find a mainstream cooler that lacks somebody having done an installation guide on it, on there. Especially if it's been out for more than like a month.

 

[drjohnnyfever]

The Phantom Spirit EVO does have one knock. Minor but still. The instruction manual is one page filled with a few illustrations that aren't the most intuitive or instructive. Doesn't affect performance, but that "manual" is crap.

Manuals by Noctua and Deepcool are more complete.

Request the headline be amended to "minor massacre" instead 😉

Thermalright's user manuals always suck. I've used MANY of their coolers, for years and years, and they've always been terribly unclear and fundamentally useless. Fortunately we have Youtube, so it's not like it matters because I have yet to find a mainstream cooler that lacks somebody having done an installation guide on it, on there. Especially if it's been out for more than like a month.

I'll chime in on the manual, given I just installed one last week... 😉

The instructions were pretty clear and what made the installation even easier is the individual packaging of the three different mountings with color coded standoffs. Even the brackets were easy enough to discern, altho, I admit to making a mistake on where to install them because I relied on experience rather than the instructions. lol. I installed the LGA1700 brackets to the left and right of the CPU before realizing they needed to be above and below the CPU. But, as I say, that was user error and I was corrected easily by referring to the instructions.

 

[Darkbreeze]

Right. For those who have a decent amount of experience with installing various air coolers it's understandable. For somebody who has never installed one before, it is not. Definitely not as clearly outlined as the user installation guides offered by a lot of other cooler manufacturers and certainly, for a greenhorn/noobie, not as helpful as most of what you find on YT.

Now, I haven't seen the installation guide for THIS Thermalright cooler, so it might be better than some others from previous models, but I HAVE installed maybe ten different models of Thermalright cooler over the years and can say that by comparison to other guides from other brands, they were not particularly easy to digest if I wasn't fairly experienced already.

 

[vijosef]

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

At this price, at this noise level, in this part of the country, localized entirely within your kitchen?

 

[Eximo]

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8R3qHKS-dk

 

[edlivian]

I might be mistaken, but why does the orientation of the heatsink not match the sample image of the phantom spirit evo on the amazon page, does it not matter?

The thermalright logo of the sample image and in the instructions of the heatsink is facing the opposite direction.

I bought this cooler a week ago for the microcenter deal for 7800X3D/Gigabyte B650 Gaming X AX V2/G.Skill flare x5 DDR5-6000 cl32 and i accidentally installed both fans in the exhaust position where its pulling air from the heatsink and i was getting better thermals, 78c at load vs 80c, and 41c at idle instead of 43c, im not sure what that means, or if i should go back to the incorrect exhaust position for the fans?

I bought the same case as @drjohnnyfever
MUSETEX Y6

 

[35below0]

Looks like you installed it exactly as the instructions say you should?
I would trust instructions more than amazon pics.

 

[Eximo]

I might be mistaken, but why does the orientation of the heatsink not match the sample image of the phantom spirit evo on the amazon page, does it not matter?

The thermalright logo of the sample image and in the instructions of the heatsink is facing the opposite direction.

I bought this cooler a week ago for the microcenter deal for 7800X3D/Gigabyte B650 Gaming X AX V2/G.Skill flare x5 DDR5-6000 cl32 and i accidentally installed both fans in the exhaust position where its pulling air from the heatsink and i was getting better thermals, 78c at load vs 80c, and 41c at idle instead of 43c, im not sure what that means, or if i should go back to the incorrect exhaust position for the fans?

I bought the same case as @drjohnnyfever
MUSETEX Y6

No, in both images and instructions the fans are pointed away from the memory towards the rear of the case. Just the marketing image is rotated 90 degrees to show the front from an angle you pretty much can't see when installed except in a bench or desktop style chassis. You would have to be looking down through the top of the case on a normal mid tower to see it that way.

You have the fans pointed towards the memory, which is directly opposing your rear fan.

Most fans blow towards their hub. Though someone does sell reversed fans so you can have the RGB facing the opposite of normal, but that is not normal.

You also have your side fans as exhaust rather than intakes, which probably isn't ideal.

 

[drjohnnyfever]

I might be mistaken, but why does the orientation of the heatsink not match the sample image of the phantom spirit evo on the amazon page, does it not matter?

The thermalright logo of the sample image and in the instructions of the heatsink is facing the opposite direction.

I bought this cooler a week ago for the microcenter deal for 7800X3D/Gigabyte B650 Gaming X AX V2/G.Skill flare x5 DDR5-6000 cl32 and i accidentally installed both fans in the exhaust position where its pulling air from the heatsink and i was getting better thermals, 78c at load vs 80c, and 41c at idle instead of 43c, im not sure what that means, or if i should go back to the incorrect exhaust position for the fans?

I bought the same case as @drjohnnyfever
MUSETEX Y6

I think your front case fans are backwards... The grill side is the exhaust. So your back fan is exhausting and your front ones are too. Also, your cooler fans are backwards too. The grill sides should be touching the cooler, not away from the cooler. If you reverse the two front case fans and the cooler fans, but leave the rear case fan as is, you've then created a wind tunnel pulling air from the front, thru the cooler, and out the rear of the case. One direction flow... 😉

The way you have it set up is the cooler fans are pulling against the rear exhaust fan and into the intake of the front fans. Effectively, your main exhaust are the front two fans with your rear fan opposing them.

https://imgur.com/1abjlrJ

View: https://imgur.com/1abjlrJ

 

[RolandOlifant]

The Hyper 212 is an overpriced, OLD, entry level piece of CM junk. End of story. It's only relevant in regions where better models are not available. It hasn't been relevant as a competitive product in any of the major markets for MANY years. Not when you can get an 18 dollar Thermalright cooler that will grossly outperform it. Or even a similarly priced Deepcool Gammax 400 v2 cooler that IS available in a lot of markets that don't have a lot of great choices, that whups it's buttocks.

Believe me, I've written guides on the Hyper 212, and that was like 9 years ago. It was already rather old then.

You are categorically wrong; the cooling performance belies your statement. I use them quite frequently as I said for initial builds and the performance is still fantastic. And no version of the hyper 212 cost me over $30; so I'd hardly call it overpriced. You may write guides; but I actually use the products.

 

[wafavex204]

Might have to use this instead of the Scythe Fuma 3

 

[edlivian]

I think your front case fans are backwards... The grill side is the exhaust. So your back fan is exhausting and your front ones are too. Also, your cooler fans are backwards too. The grill sides should be touching the cooler, not away from the cooler. If you reverse the two front case fans and the cooler fans, but leave the rear case fan as is, you've then created a wind tunnel pulling air from the front, thru the cooler, and out the rear of the case. One direction flow... 😉

The way you have it set up is the cooler fans are pulling against the rear exhaust fan and into the intake of the front fans. Effectively, your main exhaust are the front two fans with your rear fan opposing them.

https://imgur.com/1abjlrJ

View: https://imgur.com/1abjlrJ

Thanks, i flipped the included fans on the case to be intake, and i flipped the fans on the cpu cooler so the airflow will face the direction of the heatsink. Next I will probably just a few additional exhaust fans to put on top of the case

Attached are idle thermals with this setup, but i think if i add additional exhaust fans on top, it will lower idle and load temps on the cpu and vrms further.

7800x3d -30 CO

 

[nogaard777]

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

2C cooler but only 43% the price, not to mention isn't fugly brown and includes a tasteful amount of RGB? That's not hyperbole. That's absolutely a massacre.

 

[Order 66]

From what I’m hearing, it sounds like noctua needs to step up their game. Unless they have a better cooler than the NH D-15. Also how do noise levels compare between the two. Sure the phantom spirit 120 is 2C cooler, but if it sounds like a jet engine, it doesn’t really matter. I haven’t really seen any discussion around noise levels.

 

[Eximo]

Noctua has more than the consumer retail market, they offer cooling solutions to a lot of non-PC electronics. Servers and network gear, medical equipment, high end cameras, just to name a few.

But there is also the premium support and warranty you get from Noctua. Someone that bought an NH-D15 12 or more years ago can still get new mounting hardware for free. The fans are probably still working. 6 year warranty on the fans. Thermalright is sticking with 3 years for now.

You are right if they want to keep a hand in the PC market they are going to have to do something.

 

[bit_user]

how do noise levels compare between the two.

Albert tested this three different ways.

First, he measured the maximum noise levels with the coolers & fans in their default configuration, up to whatever power they could run a i7-13700K at.

​

For this test to be considered complete, you'd also have to look at the chart right above it, which rated how much power each cooler was able to dissipate (all but two of them fell in the range 210 - 240 W).

Then, he figured out which RPMs of each cooler/fan combination yielded a noise level of 38.5 dB (A-weighted) and compared their cooling performance at that speed.

​

Finally, he measured noise levels when dissipating 125 W and 175 W of power, again using the cooler/fans' default configurations.

​

 

[Rosso87]

$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!

It's on UK Amazon at £41.90 now! Just picked one up for my new build.

 

[drjohnnyfever]

I had put off changing the stock cooler on my 3 year old AMD build, but with the effectiveness , the cost, and how easy it was to install - as seen on the build above, I decided to finally install the TPS 120 EVO. Easy once again to install, but an absolutely stupid user error cost me a couple days use of the PC until I figured it out. The CPU would touch 90C every so often with games and generally ran at 48-50C with the stock AMD cooler when not gaming or using intensively.

I never really understood why it ran hot, all the other components were running at cooler temps, but based on general use there was no real reason for a hurried change. I finally did it and it's now running at 37C. Even when I stressed it, the highest temp was 75C. Pretty remarkable. $34.59 on Amazon US.

 

[jinkazama99]

Those review photos are kinda insult to the brand, how unprofessional of the writer to submit 90s mobile phone quality photos as official product review photos, one look at it i barely interested in his articles.

 

[bit_user]

Those review photos are kinda insult to the brand, how unprofessional of the writer to submit 90s mobile phone quality photos as official product review photos, one look at it i barely interested in his articles.

The pics are absolutely fine, as far as I'm concerned.

Make sure to click the 4-way arrow thing in the corner, in order to zoom the image and see the hi-res version. Because many of the images are dark, this icon doesn't show up very well.
: (

 

[Albert.Thomas]

Those review photos are kinda insult to the brand, how unprofessional of the writer to submit 90s mobile phone quality photos as official product review photos, one look at it i barely interested in his articles.

I'll concede that some of these photos aren't quite as good as I'd like them to be.

The S24 Ultra's first release had a few quirks with the camera which have since been resolved, but I'm also learning how to use this phone's camera most effectively.

That said - this is a CPU Cooler review. Good looking pictures are nice to have, but the benchmarks are the only thing you should really care about. If the quality of my photos are of extreme concern to you, I am willing to accept donations of a Nikon D780.