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 Methodology
Although the testing of a cooler appears to be a simple task, that could not be much further from the truth. Proper thermal testing cannot be performed with a cooler mounted on a single chip, and this is for multiple reasons. This includes the instability of the thermal load and the inability to fully control and or monitor it, as well as the inaccuracy of the chip-integrated sensors. It is also impossible to compare results taken on different chips, let alone entirely different systems, which is a great problem when testing computer coolers, as the hardware changes every several months. Finally, testing a cooler on a typical system prevents the tester from assessing the most vital characteristic of a cooler, its absolute thermal resistance.
The absolute thermal resistance defines the absolute performance of a heatsink by indicating the temperature rise per unit of power, in our case in degrees Celsius per Watt (°C/W). In layman's terms, if the thermal resistance of a heatsink is known, the user can assess the highest possible temperature rise of a chip over ambient by simply multiplying the maximum thermal design power (TDP) rating of the chip with it. Extracting the absolute thermal resistance of a cooler however is no simple task, as the load has to be perfectly even, steady and variable, as the thermal resistance also varies depending on the magnitude of the thermal load. Therefore, even if it would be possible to assess the thermal resistance of a cooler while it is mounted on a working chip, it would not suffice, as a large change of the thermal load can yield much different results.
Appropriate thermal testing requires the creation of a proper testing station and the use of laboratory-grade equipment. Therefore, we created a thermal testing platform with a fully controllable thermal energy source that may be used to test any kind of cooler, regardless of its design and or compatibility. The thermal cartridge inside the core of our testing station can have its power adjusted between 60 W and 340 W, in 2 W increments (and it never throttles). Furthermore, monitoring and logging of the testing process via software minimizes the possibility of human errors during testing. A multifunction data acquisition module (DAQ) is responsible for the automatic or the manual control of the testing equipment, the acquisition of the ambient and the in-core temperatures via PT100 sensors, the logging of the test results and the mathematical extraction of performance figures.
Finally, as noise measurements are a bit tricky, their measurement is being performed manually. Fans can have significant variations in speed from their rated values, thus their actual speed during the thermal testing is being acquired via a laser tachometer. The fans (and pumps, when applicable) are being powered via an adjustable, fanless desktop DC power supply and noise measurements are being taken 1 meter away from the cooler, in a straight line ahead from its fan engine. At this point we should also note that the Decibel scale is logarithmic, which means that roughly every 3 dB(A) the sound pressure doubles. Therefore, the difference of sound pressure between 30 dB(A) and 60 dB(A) is not "twice as much" but nearly a thousand times greater. The table below should help you cross-reference our test results with real-life situations.
The noise floor of our recording equipment is 30.2-30.4 dB(A), which represents a medium-sized room without any active noise sources. All of our acoustic testing takes place during night hours, minimizing the possibility of external disruptions.
| <35dB(A) | Virtually inaudible |
| 35-38dB(A) | Very quiet (whisper-slight humming) |
| 38-40dB(A) | Quiet (relatively comfortable - humming) |
| 40-44dB(A) | Normal (humming noise, above comfortable for a large % of users) |
| 44-47dB(A)* | Loud* (strong aerodynamic noise) |
| 47-50dB(A) | Very loud (strong whining noise) |
| 50-54dB(A) | Extremely loud (painfully distracting for the vast majority of users) |
| >54dB(A) | Intolerable for home/office use, special applications only. |
*noise levels above this are not suggested for daily use
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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.