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
Be Quiet! Shadow Rock Slim
Be Quiet supplies their tower cooler in a black, sturdy cardboard box, with minimal artwork but plenty of information about the cooler printed on all sides of the box. The company straightforwardly advertises that this cooler is capable of handling CPUs with thermal design power (TDP) up to 160 Watts, but this figure alone does not tell much about the overall performance of a cooler.
Inside the box we found a frugal bundle, consisting of a one-fits-all backplate, mounting hardware, a syringe with thermal compound, and a leaflet with very basic installation instructions.
The Shadow Rock Slim initially appears to be a very simple tower cooler that has been designed for 140 mm cooling fans. A closer inspection however reveals a very complex fin cutout that has been developed so as to minimize aerodynamic drag and, in extend, the noise that is being created by the moving airflow. A thicker, decorative metallic plate with the company logo etched on it can be seen at the top of the fin array. Rounded metallic caps cover the heatpipe end points.
Despite its “slim” identification, the Shadow Rock Slim is not really a slim CPU cooler. It certainly is much smaller than the monstrous Dark Rock Pro 3 that we reviewed a couple of years back, but still the body of the cooler alone is 52 mm wide. It comes with one of the company’s better fans, a special 135 mm variation of their “SilentWings” series. These fans feature a rifle bearing engine, which greatly improves the lifetime of the fan relative to the typical sleeve bearings, all the while retaining similar low-noise operation characteristics.
The Shadow Rock Slim is designed with only four heatpipes and a slightly smaller base than that of the other coolers in this review. Its design is sound, with the two middle heatpipes that will be facing the bulk of the thermal energy flow expanding into the edges of the fin array, where the airflow is going to be greater. This is the only cooler of this review that does not have nickel-plated heatpipes, so we can expect that their vibrant polish will soon disappear due to oxidation. (Oxidation doesn't cause any real damage, but it does eventually affect the cooler’s aesthetics)
The lower half of the cooler’s base is also made out of copper but, unlike the heatpipes, it is nickel plated. It has also been polished down to an immaculate mirror finish. The top half of the base is solid aluminum and does look like a small heatsink, yet its contribution to the overall performance of the cooler will be negligible, it is only meant to provide mechanical cohesion and support for the mounting hardware.
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CheapSushi - Thursday, May 25, 2017 - link
I wish there was also a passive test. So we can actually see how that heatsinks on their own performance to gauge the efficiency and quality of the designs themselves. The fans add another variable. Maybe even have a case fan for some airflow. I'd like to see how the heatsink itself does because there can be situations where maybe there is a superior heatsink design here but the company has a poor fan compared to another competitor. The competitors fan could just be superior, thus brute forcing the better temps. How would you really tell? There's no passive test.bug77 - Thursday, May 25, 2017 - link
Hm, why doesn't the article list the weight of these coolers? When they're so large they tend to add quite some torque to the motherboard, so weight should be an important criterion when choosing between these.doyll - Thursday, May 25, 2017 - link
Great testing! TRUE Spirit 140 Direct did exceptionally well for an economy cooler. Would be interesting to see how the TRUE Spirit 140 Power, Archon IB-E X2 and some of the other Thermalright coolers. The PH-TC14S definitely is not a great cooler.fanofanand - Thursday, May 25, 2017 - link
The fact you threw in the Wraith cooler makes me sooooo happy! I was hemming and hawing between 1600 and 1600x with the free cooler thrown in being a nice boost for the 1600. Seeing that the better coolers show a pronounced improvement in most cases tells me that free cooler shouldn't be the decider.Peichen - Thursday, May 25, 2017 - link
Thermalright is like Cooler Master, simple design that reduce cost but performs well. People that have been OCing for the last 20 years know Thermalright's design is usually test provenLeyawiin - Thursday, May 25, 2017 - link
I own two of the original (smooth surface) Thermalright True Spirit 140. Its a very good cooler in many respects save for the fan mounting system. They have the most weak, fiddly wire fan mounts I've ever seen. Plus the rubber anti-vibration pads they were using back then simply won't stay on. I decided with later builds to use Noctua in subsequent builds and even though they're about a quarter to a third more expensive its worth it just for their great mounting system. Plus they regularly send me emails to remind me that all my coolers from them are eligible for free mounting hardware for new sockets. No other company that I know of does that.azrael- - Monday, May 29, 2017 - link
I think that one important aspect of any cooler review should be the *weight* of the cooler.Considering that in most system configurations the motherboard is mounted vertically and coolers are hanging off the motherboard, you really don't want them to be too heavy. Even though the cooler may be securely attached to the motherboard the heavier it is the more stress it exerts on the motherboard. Preferably, I don't want mine to weigh much in excess of 500g.
azrael- - Monday, May 29, 2017 - link
I think that one important aspect of any cooler review should be the *weight* of the cooler.Considering that in most system configurations the motherboard is mounted vertically and coolers are hanging off the motherboard, you really don't want them to be too heavy. Even though the cooler may be securely attached to the motherboard the heavier it is the more stress it exerts on the motherboard. Preferably, I don't want mine to weigh much in excess of 500g.
darkbreeze - Friday, February 21, 2020 - link
Quote - Nevertheless, the thermal performance of the NH-U14S is significantly superior as well, especially when the cooler needs to handle a high thermal load.Yes, I realize this thread is three years old, however, having come across it I couldn't let that blatantly wrong observation from the review go uncontested when the reviews own results CLEARLY show the Thermalright True Spirit Direct 140 having a lower overall rise over ambient than any of the other three coolers.
How do you figure the Noctua has better performance if your own results show that the Thermalright does? Why did NOBODY notice that, and comment on it?
If Crashman or Garrett over at TH had done that, they'd have been ripped to pieces.
Oxford Guy - Tuesday, January 4, 2022 - link
I just read TH’s Best Coolers for 2022 article and the first one in the list is a Cooler Master that fails against the competition in every metric, according to the data in the site’s own reviews.