Review Thermalright Phantom Spirit 120 Review: Simply the Best

[Admin]

The budget-priced Phantom Spirit 120 punches well above its price class, outperforming most top-tier air coolers.

Thermalright Phantom Spirit 120 Review: Simply the Best : Read more

 

[gman68]

I have no personal experience with most of the coolers in the comparison list, except the Noctua. The Thermalright cooler you are testing is a dual tower, dual fan cooler. Why did you choose to use the nh-d15s Noctua, a dual tower SINGLE fan cooler for the comparison, when the dual fan original nh-d15 is a more direct comparison? I know it seems nit-picky, but it looks like cherry-picking a slightly lower performance cooler for the comparison to make the subject cooler look better.

 

[colossusrage]

I have no personal experience with most of the coolers in the comparison list, except the Noctua. The Thermalright cooler you are testing is a dual tower, dual fan cooler. Why did you choose to use the nh-d15s Noctua, a dual tower SINGLE fan cooler for the comparison, when the dual fan original nh-d15 is a more direct comparison? I know it seems nit-picky, but it looks like cherry-picking a slightly lower performance cooler for the comparison to make the subject cooler look better.

The NH-D15 is $100-120, so who cares, at best it's going to tie the Phantom Spirit. Noctua brought great performance at a big price. Now Thermalright is bringing the same performance at a good price. Noctua is old news.

 

[Amdlova]

Noctua D15S its price wise...

Performance Price ratio is amazing. These thermalright is too good to be true SPIRIT!

 

[Albert.Thomas]

I have no personal experience with most of the coolers in the comparison list, except the Noctua. The Thermalright cooler you are testing is a dual tower, dual fan cooler. Why did you choose to use the nh-d15s Noctua, a dual tower SINGLE fan cooler for the comparison, when the dual fan original nh-d15 is a more direct comparison? I know it seems nit-picky, but it looks like cherry-picking a slightly lower performance cooler for the comparison to make the subject cooler look better.

Honestly? When people asked me to include the NH-D15, I asked Noctua for a sample and they sent the NH-D15S. I don't expect that there would be a large difference between the NH-D15 and NH-D15S on Intel's i9-13700K, though you might see one on the i9-13900K.

 

[prolfe]

Honestly? When people asked me to include the NH-D15, I asked Noctua for a sample and they sent the NH-D15S. I don't expect that there would be a large difference between the NH-D15 and NH-D15S on Intel's i9-13700K, though you might see one on the i9-13900K.

@Albert.Thomas thanks for the great review and the honest answer on why you used the NH-D15S. I'm not personally in the market for a quiet cooler right now (my solution for quiet computing was to put the PC itself in the next room and put a hole in the wall, hidden by the TV, to pass the cables for headphones, mouse, keyboard, HDMI, etc to my desk) but if I were I'd definitely look into this Thermalright!

 

[BigZZmegabrains]

at that price, Thermalright are true Bros

 

[btmedic04]

I've been running this cooler on a 7700x in an nr200p since April and it's been phenomenal. Nobody can currently beat its price to performance

 

[HaninTH]

I'm running a DeepCool AK620 Zero Dark on my i5 13600k and the fan rarely spins up. It's mostly off, and thus, achieves my expected noise threshold. The new digital display panel DeepCool is using now would have been noice back when I thought having a Christmas tree for a PC was cool.

 

[Phaaze88]

I have no personal experience with most of the coolers in the comparison list, except the Noctua. The Thermalright cooler you are testing is a dual tower, dual fan cooler. Why did you choose to use the nh-d15s Noctua, a dual tower SINGLE fan cooler for the comparison, when the dual fan original nh-d15 is a more direct comparison? I know it seems nit-picky, but it looks like cherry-picking a slightly lower performance cooler for the comparison to make the subject cooler look better.

Just take off 2~3C, and you have the NH-D15. Having one less fan doesn't hurt the S model by much.
Meanwhile, it doesn't block the top x16 slot on any motherboards, fits more cases due to being shorter, and doesn't conflict with ram at all.
The tradeoff sounds well worth the benefits. It's been one of Noctua's best coolers for a while, but I guess folks still go by that more is always better metric, and keep picking up the original.

Thermalright has their own version of the S model with the Silver Soul 135.

 

[-Fran-]

Thanks for the review as always, Albert.

Do you know if Thermalright has the same "post-sale" service style as Noctua? This is to say, do you know if they'll carry over their socket adapters forward to new sockets? Considering Intel is about to swap the socket, I'd be interested in knowing this.

Regards.

 

[Eximo]

Thanks for the review as always, Albert.

Do you know if Thermalright has the same "post-sale" service style as Noctua? This is to say, do you know if they'll carry over their socket adapters forward to new sockets? Considering Intel is about to swap the socket, I'd be interested in knowing this.

Regards.

The socket, but not the form factor. LGA17xx/LGA18xx. So it will have the same hole pattern for the next few generations.

 

[-Fran-]

The socket, but not the form factor. LGA17xx/LGA18xx. So it will have the same hole pattern for the next few generations.

I used it as an example, but fair enough.

Question still stands.

Regards.

 

[Albert.Thomas]

Thanks for the review as always, Albert.

Do you know if Thermalright has the same "post-sale" service style as Noctua? This is to say, do you know if they'll carry over their socket adapters forward to new sockets? Considering Intel is about to swap the socket, I'd be interested in knowing this.

Regards.

I have no experience in this, but it looks like they offer an LGA 1700 adapter for their older coolers for $8

LGA1700 – Thermalright

www.thermalright.com

 

[-Fran-]

I have no experience in this, but it looks like they offer an LGA 1700 adapter for their older coolers for $8

LGA1700 – Thermalright

www.thermalright.com

Ah, ok; that's good at least. I hope they keep supporting the "metal" for as long as they possibly can.

Regards.

 

[hotaru251]

Noctua is old news.

more like just late with successor. (which is due next yr or so iirc)

NH-D15 being as good as it is all this time later is a badge of honor.


Also can I ask why were tested on upper mid tier cpu's & not the high end?

 

[Albert.Thomas]

Also can I ask why were tested on upper mid tier cpu's & not the high end?

Ryzen 7 7700X and i7-13700K are still very difficult to cool in maximum intensity workloads - only the strongest 360mm AIOs on the market are capable of keeping them under TJMax. The i9-13900K is a little bit more difficult to cool than the i7, but not by much.

Don't you worry though, there will be i9 results with the Phantom Spirit 120 - just not ones I can post yet

 

[kjfatl]

I considered buying something like this, but was concerned about what happens if the PC case is knocked over or falls on it's side. Will such an event crack traces on the motherboard, or crack components soldered to it?

What is coming to mind is running the 1 inch operational drop test on Point of Sale terminals, with the expectation that nothing would be damaged, or having one of my kids throw the PC in the trunk of his car and take it to school.

 

[AgentBirdnest]

Looks nice! I was just in the market for the quietest ≤$50 cooler about a week ago. Dunno why this one flew under my radar. I could have saved $10 if I noticed it (currently only $40 on Amazon!) Ah well, I'm sure I'll be plenty satisfied with the Scythe Fuma 3 I bought. I just built the PC today, but haven't had a chance to test out the temps and fiddle with the fan curve yet.

In any case, it's great to see the competition at ≤$50 heating up so much! Err... cooling down so much? ;-)
Thanks for the nice review!

 

[gman68]

The NH-D15 is $100-120, so who cares, at best it's going to tie the Phantom Spirit. Noctua brought great performance at a big price. Now Thermalright is bringing the same performance at a good price. Noctua is old news.

Anyone who wants to see continued innovation in the market cares. Nothing against the Thermalright. It appears to be a well executed product, but it is only cheaper because it is a copy-cat design. Nothing spent on R&D for a product 5 years later that only matches the performance of the originals from the likes of Noctua and BeQuiet. More choices is good, as are more affordable products, but I disagree with your characterization of Noctua as "old news" when they are actually bringing new designs to the market.

 

[dmoros78v]

I have no personal experience with most of the coolers in the comparison list, except the Noctua. The Thermalright cooler you are testing is a dual tower, dual fan cooler. Why did you choose to use the nh-d15s Noctua, a dual tower SINGLE fan cooler for the comparison, when the dual fan original nh-d15 is a more direct comparison? I know it seems nit-picky, but it looks like cherry-picking a slightly lower performance cooler for the comparison to make the subject cooler look better.

The answer is simple, price, the NH-D15 is in a totally different price bracket, the comparison is between similarly priced coolers, the article even states you can get same performance with other coolers but at double the price.

 

[dmoros78v]

Anyone who wants to see continued innovation in the market cares. Nothing against the Thermalright. It appears to be a well executed product, but it is only cheaper because it is a copy-cat design. Nothing spent on R&D for a product 5 years later that only matches the performance of the originals from the likes of Noctua and BeQuiet. More choices is good, as are more affordable products, but I disagree with your characterization of Noctua as "old news" when they are actually bringing new designs to the market.

The comparison is of similarly priced coolers, yes there are similar performance coolers but at double the price, as consumer, if you get the same quality at less money, which would you get? I think the answer is obvious isn't it. I don't care why is it cheaper I only care about performance and price not how their price structure is.

 

[systemBuilder_49]

I have no personal experience with most of the coolers in the comparison list, except the Noctua. The Thermalright cooler you are testing is a dual tower, dual fan cooler. Why did you choose to use the nh-d15s Noctua, a dual tower SINGLE fan cooler for the comparison, when the dual fan original nh-d15 is a more direct comparison? I know it seems nit-picky, but it looks like cherry-picking a slightly lower performance cooler for the comparison to make the subject cooler look better.

Checkout the videos on hatdwarecanucks on YouTube. The phantom spirit is within 1 degree of temperature at ALL power levels and equals the D15 in quietness and cooling at lower power levels. I got mine last week (rgb, Amazon, $40.90) after having bought 2x noctua u14s coolers in my life ...

 

[footman]

And here is the problem, your reviews are inconsistent Albert.

I read your Peerless Assassin 120 review and based on this review I made a purchase, however instantly regret it when the noise from the 2 fans overwhelms everything else in my office. Your review states that this cooler is quiet! You measure 34db at maximum RPM! To my ears the noise coming from the PA is not 34db. I send the cooler back disappointed.

Now fast forward to your latest review of the Phantom Spirit 120 where you compare to the PA120 amongst others and I take a look at the noise levels. Maximum noise levels for the PA were measured at 48.5db and not the 34db that was posted in the original review.

What gives? I have now just purchased the Phantom Spirit based on this review and I am expecting 41.9db maximum with this cooler.

Should I prepare to send this cooler back as well? Will I find out in a couple of months when you review a different cooler that this HSF was also pushing out close to 50db???

Oh, by the way, the PS 120 SE with ARGB fans is now $33 on Amazon.....

 

[footman]

Update. PS arrived and it looks very similar to the PA as do the fans. However, it is definitely quieter, although I have a problem with one of the fans which is making a clicking sound.

In my opinion, the fans are pretty much worthless, the heat sink is nice. I will swap out the fans for some decent Arctic P12 max fans and will run these at 2000rpm to keep noise down. While I don't really want to spend an additional $18 on 2xP12 max fans, the overall cost for this cooling solution is still around $50 with the 2 new fans and I really don't see any competition at this price....