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: Low Fan Speed
As most users don't actually need the fans of a tower cooler running at peak performance (and peak noise), let's also take a look at what kind of performance these coolers provide at lower fan speeds.
Broadly speaking, all four of the coolers that we tested for this review were capable of sustaining reasonable operating temperatures with thermal loads above 200 Watts, even with the speed of their fans greatly reduced.
There are virtually no differences between these four coolers in relation to our previous test, with the Thermalright True Spirit 140 Direct again displaying the best overall thermal resistance and excellent efficiency with the handling of low thermal loads. However, the Noctua NH-U14S greatly outperforms all other coolers when it comes to the handling of very high thermal loads, suggesting that it can maintain reasonable operating temperatures on overclocked processors alongside with virtually inaudible noise levels.
Once again, the Be Quiet! Shadow Rock Slim falls slightly behind the Noctua NH-U14S and the Thermalright True Spirit 140 Direct. The thermal resistance is only slightly worse but this time the Shadow Rock Slim also has no real advantage in terms of acoustics, as the difference between all four of the coolers is practically indiscernible.
| Core Temperature, Constant Thermal Load (Low Fan Speed) |
Finally, the Phanteks PH-TC14S displayed the lowest overall performance figures, with slightly worse thermal resistance than all of the coolers in this roundup review. Although the Phanteks PH-TC14S displays thermal performance similar to that of the other coolers at lower loads, the difference widens greatly when the thermal load is very high, suggesting that the cooler is at its limit in handling the excessive thermal energy flow.
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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!