The 140mm Slim Tower CPU Cooler Roundup: Thin & Light Done Just Right
by E. Fylladitakis on May 24, 2017 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
- be quiet!
- Noctua
- Phanteks
- Cooler
- Thermalright
Testing Results: Maximum Fan Speed
To start things off, let's take a look at the peak cooling performance of our four tower coolers. We should note that the Phanteks PH-TC14S is once again the oddity of this review, with its fan reaching 1520 RPM. The specifications of the PH-F140HP fan state a very broad maximum speed range of 1300 ± 250 RPM, so our reading is within the fan’s specifications, yet this is the first time that we have encountered a fan spinning that much faster than its rated speed.
With their fans running at their maximum speed, the best overall thermal performance comes from Thermalright’s True Spirit 140 Direct. Noctua’s NH-U14S handles high loads a little better, but Thermalright’s offering has a very strong advantage at lower loads, suggesting more efficient heat transfer due to its direct contact design.
The Be Quiet! Shadow Rock Slim falls a little behind in terms of thermal performance but only by a couple of degrees, which is acceptable considering that it had the lowest noise reading of this review. Considering the overall design of the cooler and that it has a smaller number of heatpipes in comparison to every other cooler in this review, its top speed performance is surprisingly good.
| Core Temperature, Constant Thermal Load (Max Fan Speed) |
Although its thermal performance is satisfactory, the Phanteks PH-TC14S falls behind the other three coolers of this review. It is both slightly louder and less efficient, especially when it has to deal with very high thermal loads. The difference however is small and a more carefully designed revision can easily turn the tables.
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Samus - Wednesday, May 24, 2017 - link
I think the thermalright cooler is pretty hard to ignore unless you are running a high-wattage CPU. Mild overclocks of a typical 80w CPU will make the thermalright the ideal solution at ~100w load, and also the quietest.Communism - Wednesday, May 24, 2017 - link
The problem with E. Fylladitakis 's style of testing is that they miss major factors in how the things tested actually function in relation to what they are made for.The reason why Noctua always does "better" in these synthetic tests is that they generally have a 100% flat contact surface.
The problem with 100% flat contact surfaces is that CPU IHS aren't anywhere close to 100% flat surfaces.
Most CPU IHS are concave, which is why Thermalright HSF always have convex contact surfaces.
Clamping pressure is also highly important, especially for Intel's non-soldered IHS CPUs.
Higher Clamping pressure both reduces the distance between the silicon and the IHS as well as forms a better mating between the IHS and the convex Thermalright contact surfaces.
These, and many other major factors that crop up in the real world make the 100% artificial testing like E. Fylladitakis conducts in actually have an extremely large margin of error, making them far less useful than the testing "scienciness" would lead you to believe.
fanofanand - Thursday, May 25, 2017 - link
If what you are suggesting is true, we should see Thermalright outperforming Noctua in every other publication's testing, correct? Most review sites (I believe all other sites actually) test CPU cooler performance on an actual CPU running tests, and more often than not inside of an actual computer case. Yet those same tests bring very similar results to what Anandtech has shown, which would appear to invalidate your entire postulation. How do you explain the lack of disparity between these other journalists' "real world" cases, and what Anandtech has done?Communism - Thursday, May 25, 2017 - link
Keep up your rhetorical questions.I don't know why I bother posting on this shill infested site anyways, waste of my time.
I'm not going to spoon-feed you for 20 posts like the forums.
I've spoonfed you for literally 100 posts before on the forums and your shill self has never acknowledged anything, making this a pointless conversation by any metric.
Have fun shilling with the other shills, adequate journalism in technology died quite a long time ago, and it shows.
Zetbo - Friday, May 26, 2017 - link
What a loser you are. When the data does not backup your point of view...you call everyone a shill! Thats the way to go! :DCommunism - Friday, May 26, 2017 - link
Took you a whole day to make another account?You really should get your pay docked.
Keep going and you're getting doxed.
fanofanand - Friday, May 26, 2017 - link
Doxx me big boy :)fanofanand - Friday, May 26, 2017 - link
Uh, I'm not on the forums, have you been taking mushrooms? I did read that they are the "least dangerous" psychadelics, but you seem to have overindulged. Apparently my point was irrefutable as you chose not to refute anything I wrote.BrokenCrayons - Friday, May 26, 2017 - link
The testing methods used in these HSF reviews are perfectly adequate because they remove a number of uncontrollable variables that would result from testing with PC hardware. The simulator equipment can produce repetable results with little to no variance between tests within AT's limited budget. I much prefer artifical tests as the basis for relative comparisons since the tests performed by other review sites won't accurately emulate my specific computing environment anyway and are therefore only useful as similarly relative comparisons. The science of these results appear trustworthy.WinterCharm - Thursday, May 25, 2017 - link
Funny how Thermalright performed better than Noctua at low and high fan speeds, then!