Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 SE ARGB review – budget CPU cooler brilliance

The Thermalright Peerless Murderer 120 SE ARGB may need a moderately overblown and incomprehensible identify, however do not let that put you off. This sub-$40 CPU cooler is {powerful} sufficient to chill high-end CPUs whereas remaining moderately quiet, and supplying you with an RGB lightshow as well.

It is a mixture that drives this Thermalright design straight onto our greatest CPU cooler information, as the highest choice for most individuals. It isn’t going to be for everybody, although, so learn on to search out out what it may possibly and might’t do.

Specs

Design and dimensions

The Thermalright Peerless Murderer 120 SE ARGB has a design that is about as normal because it will get for the sort of cooler. It makes use of two 120mm followers mounted through spring clips to 2 stacks of heatsinks, every of which receives warmth from six heatpipes that run all the way down to the CPU mounting plate on the backside.

Whereas easy sufficient, this fashion of cooler does inherently take up various area. At 155mm tall, it ought to nonetheless slot in most traditional PC circumstances fairly simply – in contrast to the even taller Noctua NH-D15, as an illustration – however it should take up many of the area above the CPU socket. Likewise, its footprint of 110 x 125mm means it stretches pretty far and extensive into the confines of your case.

Specifically, the entrance fan will sit over the RAM modules in most setups, so in case your reminiscence has tall heatsinks, you will both must swap it for shorter RAM or mount the fan larger up on the heatsink. You possibly can try our information to the very best gaming RAM to search out our favourite choices for low-profile reminiscence.

Avoiding this general bulk is likely one of the foremost advantages of AIO CPU coolers and water cooling, as these setups hold the realm above your CPU comparatively clear. This not solely makes for a a lot tidier-looking system, but in addition makes a number of upgrades and different PC tinkering duties simpler.

Nonetheless, the Thermalright Peerless Murderer 120 SE ARGB is actually no worse than another dual-fan air cooler of this fashion.

As for styling, this is not what you’d name a flowery or high-end cooler, nevertheless it has a couple of touches that barely elevate its look. The primary one is that the highest plates of every heatsink stack are coloured black, which matches the followers and makes for a barely extra cohesive look than you’d get with plain aluminum plates, when considered from the highest/by a case glass panel. The heatpipes and copper base have additionally been nickel-plated, giving a extra uniform silvery look to the remainder of the cooler.

Then, after all, there’s the RGB lighting. The 4 lights are mounted within the central hub of every fan, with the lighting dispersing fairly successfully all through the translucent fan fins, although it is undoubtedly most concentrated within the heart of every fan.

To energy and management the lighting, there is a second cable for every fan together with the primary fan management cable, making for a barely cumbersome four-cable setup. Nonetheless, you may no less than mix the 2 fan cables into one connector through an included dongle, leaving solely the lighting cables needing to discover a separate dwelling every.

The lighting will be managed through normal ARGB headers in your motherboard, which, relying in your board, might in flip imply you may management the lighting through software program resembling Corsair iCUE, to be able to sync your fan lighting with the remainder of your system.

General construct high quality is first rate, with no apparent sharp, unfinished elements, whereas touches such because the nickel plating elevate this cooler over the very least expensive choices. Its base plate is not polished to a shine however it’s clean and flat.

Set up

The Thermalright Peerless Murderer 120 SE ARGB is designed to work with each AMD and Intel CPUs and is suitable with AM4 and AM5 sockets in addition to Intel LGA115X, LGA1200, LGA1700, and LGA1851 sockets. Successfully, meaning it should work with any normal desktop CPU from the previous few years, with the primary exception being assist for both AMD or Intel’s high-end desktop PC (HEDT) CPUs, resembling AMD’s Threadripper and Intel’s LGA 2011 and 2066 chips.

In any other case, whichever socket you are utilizing, set up of the Peerless Murderer 120 SE ARGB is easy, although as ever with these tall, dual-fan coolers, it may be just a little fiddly and you will want an extended skinny screwdriver, resembling this one.

The method is less complicated for each AMD sockets than for Intel ones, because the cooler simply makes use of the usual AMD backplate, so that you needn’t entry the again of your motherboard.

You simply take away the usual AMD cooler plastic brackets from the entrance, then “match” the pink plastic standoffs over the screw holes earlier than putting the the AM4 steel brackets over these and screwing them down. I say “match” as that is the primary fiddly a part of this course of, because the plastic standoffs solely sit loosely, in order that they’re straightforward to dislodge – it is not a cooler you will need to try to mount together with your PC sat vertically or in another orientation apart from laid fully flat.

The second considerably difficult bit is then screwing the cooler to the bottom steel plates. The cooler has built-in fittings, nevertheless it takes a little bit of power to get them to start out gripping onto the brackets, and once more, you want an extended screwdriver to suit between the 2 heatsink stacks. Nonetheless, it is nonetheless a comparatively straightforward course of.

As soon as the cooler is absolutely screwed down into place, the followers simply clip onto the heatsink. There is a knack to hooking these spring clips onto the followers in the suitable orientation and getting them to clip onto the heatsink, however as soon as you have discovered it to put in one cooler, they mainly all work the identical means.

As for Intel sockets, these require the elimination of any current backplate on the motherboard and becoming one of many provided plates. The latter simply slot into place, with the screw holes poking by the holes within the board, prepared so that you can match the remainder of the {hardware} in the identical method because the AMD sockets.

Cooling efficiency

To check the Peerless Murderer 120 SE ARGB’s cooling efficiency, I put in it atop an AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D mounted in an Asus ROG Crosshair X670E Hero motherboard, utilizing the board’s fan and RGB headers. I then ran a number of checks utilizing Cinebench’s multi-threaded ten-minute stress take a look at to load all cores, testing for CPU temperature and noise stage. I additionally examined the CPU temperature and noise stage of the cooler utilizing totally different motherboard fan profiles, to see how the fan’s noise ramps up at numerous load ranges below 100%.

Beginning with the CPU absolutely loaded and the followers at 100%, this cooler managed to maintain the eight cores of this 120W TDP CPU at 79°C, exhibiting that it may possibly cope fairly comfortably with the warmth output of this chip.

When it comes to utilizing much more {powerful} CPUs, the Peerless Murderer 120 SE ARGB is rated to deal with as much as 265W of warmth output, which places the likes of the Intel Core i9-14900K exterior the scope of this cooler however technically means it ought to deal with an AMD Ryzen 9 9750X, although it could be at its restrict with such a robust CPU. We would recommend this cooler is as a substitute greatest used to chill CPUs with as much as 12 cores.

Noise stage

At full pace in our 100% CPU load take a look at, this cooler hit 46dB of noise, measured from a distance of 20cm from the highest of the cooler in an open case. That is removed from a horrible quantity of noise, nevertheless it’s additionally removed from the quietest cooler round. This cooler additionally stayed at this noise stage throughout gaming periods.

When it comes to how this pertains to a traditional setup, this resulted in a noise stage of 35dB at ear stage when sat at a desk with the cooler in a closed case sat below a desk. This was with an ambient noise stage of 32dB, so it is noticeable however not terrible. In the meantime, as you’d anticipate, at idle the cooler is successfully silent from this distance.

Normally use, the default motherboard fan profile has the cooler hitting 100% pace at round 70°C, and at 50% pace at 50°C, which ends up in the cooler often ramping as much as fairly noticeable and barely irritating noise ranges simply from small spikes in CPU utilization. Nonetheless, switching to the motherboard’s silent profile units the 100% pace at round 75°C and 50% pace at round 55°C, which significantly reduces the noise, and you’ll simply dial in a guide profile that reduces the severity of those noise spikes even additional.

Finally, this is not absolutely the quietest cooler round proper out of the field, however with the suitable fan profiles, it may be tuned to be largely undisruptive whereas nonetheless coping nicely with CPU warmth output.

Value

The Peerless Murderer 120 SE ARGB worth is simply $39.99, so it is not absolutely the least expensive cooler accessible, nevertheless it’s very moderately priced for what it affords. Its dimension and cooling capability, together with the inclusion of RGB, nickel plating, and a usually sensible (if unflashy) design, simply justify its worth.

Alternate options

Noctua NH-D15

In the event you actually need to step as much as a very {powerful} air cooler that can deal with essentially the most {powerful} desktop CPUs whereas remaining impressively quiet, the Noctua NH-D15 is it. Nonetheless, it prices thrice as a lot because the Peerless Murderer 120 SE ARGB and is significantly bigger too. Take a look at our Noctua NH-D15 overview for extra info.

Cooler Grasp Hyper 212 Halo White

In case your CPU has six cores or fewer, you may seemingly get away with an excellent cheaper and smaller cooler than the Peerless Murderer 120 SE ARGB. The Cooler Grasp Hyper 212 Halo White is our decide of the very best single-fan 120mm air coolers, because it’s low cost, appears nice, and performs nicely. Take a look at our Cooler Grasp Hyper 212 Halo White overview for extra info.

Verdict

The Thermalright Peerless Murderer 120 SE ARGB is not the final phrase in ultra-powerful, ultra-quiet, or ultra-compact CPU coolers. Nonetheless, for those who’re after a cooler that may cope simply with the types of wise CPU choices we suggest for many avid gamers, it is an excellent alternative. Rocking an AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D or Intel Core i5 14600K? This cooler will tame it with ease.

Crucially, it does this whereas being extremely low cost but providing stable construct high quality, moderately quiet operation, and together with RGB lighting. Spend extra and you will get better-built and quieter coolers, whereas even cheaper coolers will be had that lower a couple of extra corners. Nonetheless, for the best steadiness, the Peerless Murderer 120 SE ARGB is difficult to beat and turns into our new go-to choice as the very best CPU cooler for many avid gamers.

To search out out which CPUs we suggest for many PC avid gamers, learn our checklist of the very best gaming CPUs, which incorporates choices for a variety of budgets all examined to see how they really carry out within the newest video games.