Bigger, Better - Peerless Assassin 140 (PA140) Review

**The Thrill of Thermal R: A Review of Air Coolers**

When it comes to air coolers, one name stands out among the rest: Thermal R. Known for their wide range of cooling solutions, Thermal R has been a go-to choice for PC enthusiasts and gamers alike. However, with so many options available in the market, it can be difficult to choose the right one. In this article, we'll delve into the world of air coolers and explore what makes Thermal R's offerings tick.

**A Closer Look at Cooling Performance**

When it comes to cooling performance, most thermal R coolers fall into the same category. With advancements in technology, they have managed to squeeze out marginal improvements in temperatures, but the gap between them is often minuscule. For instance, when comparing the PA40 to its little brother, the Peerless Assassin, we find that the latter has a slight edge in terms of noise levels, but only marginally. This raises an important question: what's the point of having multiple coolers that are almost identical? As Mike from Har Canuck puts it, "we're splitting hairs here guys, it's essentially the same thing."

**Gaming on an AMD System**

When it comes to gaming on an AMD system, thermal R coolers don't quite live up to their promise. In fact, they often find themselves trading blows with other comparable air coolers. The PA40, for example, is beaten by the Frostbeard in temperature tests, and its noise levels are comparable to those of other air coolers. This lack of variance from one cooler to another is largely due to the integrated heat spreader on AMD CPUs, as well as a lack of mounting updates from thermal R.

**The Importance of Mounting Options**

Mounting options are crucial when it comes to air cooling. A good mount can make all the difference in terms of performance and noise levels. However, thermal R's current lineup lacks this option, instead relying on a single mounting style that doesn't quite live up to expectations. This is particularly evident in tests where other coolers with offset mounts perform better.

**The Need for Unique Solutions**

As we move forward into the world of air cooling, it's essential that manufacturers find unique ways to differentiate themselves from the competition. Noctua's use of different base convexities and mounting types has been a game-changer, but what about thermal R? The answer lies in incorporating more exotic and expensive technologies like 3D Vapor Chambers. This is the only way to truly set oneself apart from the crowd.

**The Peerless Assassin: A Closer Look**

When it comes to the Peerless Assassin series, we find that the bigger cooler has a slight advantage in terms of noise levels, but only marginally. In fact, on Intel systems, the smaller cooler is often just as quiet, if not quieter. This raises an important question: is the increased price and potential compatibility issues with the PA40 really worth it? The answer is a resounding no.

**A Cleaner Lineup for Thermal R**

As we look to the future of air cooling, there's one thing that's certain: thermal R needs to clean up their lineup. By segmenting their offerings into specific performance categories, they can provide users with more options and better value for their money. This is the only way to truly compete in a crowded market.

**Conclusion**

In conclusion, Thermal R's air coolers may not be the most exciting or innovative solutions out there, but they do offer something unique. With their wide range of cooling solutions, they cater to different needs and budgets. However, with so many options available, it can be difficult to choose the right one. As we move forward into the world of air cooling, it's essential that manufacturers find unique ways to differentiate themselves from the competition. Only then will we see real innovation and progress in this industry.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enwell everyone the Peerless assassin 140 what you saw at computex this year is finally here and and look this is a cooler that has huge shoes to fill because the original Peerless assassin you all know it it's an absolute Legend right now and look while the Peerless assassin family now encompasses something like like five different subcategories this 140 mm version it's actually something unique first of all there's the obvious addition of a single 140 mm Fen which I know does it technically make this a 140 mm cooler since there's a single 120 mm fan on the front in order to maximize memory compatibility but this is still a pretty chunky boy that's wider and deeper than the original but it's officially only about a millimeter taller than the pa220 the biggest departure between the two though is actually the depth between both of the heat sink arrays and that's an interesting move since it technically increases the static pressure required to move air from one end of the cooler to the other meanwhile while thermal rates made some minor changes to the TL C12 W fans to create the PA 140s V2 version its specs and output numbers haven't changed whatsoever so it could be that thermal rate is simply counting on that 140 mm fans sheer size to increase overall air flow but we're just going to have to see if that sort of pans out in the performance results but you know what else could give you a lot of performance if you're looking for an aiio check out this one from montech montech with another insane value product that the hyperflow argb aios available in black or white 240 or 360 sizes with full platform compatibility and friendly tools along the way that not only look gorgeous with pump lighting and matching blade illumination but also performance that should satisfy with any hot silicon thanks to high-speed fans high density fins on the rod a good pump and daisy chain fans for easy Cable Management all backed by the 6-year warranty so you don't have to worry Check It Out Below anyways jumping right back into the PA 140 I want to talk about the finay because you might not be able to see it right now on camera but they are very very unique to this cooler and they are completely different from anything that thermal R has done before from the side they look like an expanded version of the ones from the frost Commander while from face on there's a distinct similarity between this cooler and the upcoming Royal prer so look I wouldn't be surprised if there was some sort of like Hallelujah moment within thermal rights engineering team when it came to designing one of these heat sinks and they said look this SP is going to be going to all of our high-end cooler so we should actually see it potentially permeate upwards and downwards within their entire line up very very soon and while those towers do have cutouts to improve memory compatibility the fact of the matter is some modules will still need some upwards fan movement and that will increase the pa140 overall height but other than the towers the rest of the cooler is pure Peerless assassin with six 6 mm heat pipes that angle down into a nickel plated copper base one other thing that's changed and I know this this is minor but on the last assassin I commented that the cooler and fans were two different shades of white while this one they're almost identical thank you so much thermalite and yet I also feel like there's a bit of a missed opportunity here while other manufacturers like noctua have started curving their heat pipes away from the GPU for more clearance I mean even the original pa120 did it this one doesn't so this looks like thermalite just slapped some bigger updated cooling towers onto six heat pipes and all it a day so while we didn't encounter any issues whatsoever installing this into the systems that we're testing in even with some gpus with a thicker back plate there still could be some installation issues in certain cases so I can't take that out of the way completely simply because this is a wider cooler now speaking of installation that's one area that thermal R has made some really minor changes with the AGP Gen 4 system there's now native support for lga8 1700 I know the first Peri assassin didn't actually come with that and there's also some colorcoded standoffs for both Intel and AMD systems so the installation process is a bit more straightforward than the original they've also eliminated a lot of the additional washers from the previous kits so there's just less stuff to search out for in the installation kit so I guess the million-dollar question in all of this is what is the PA 140s price well thermal R has sort of planned their lineup around it first of all the original Peerless assassin is starting to make its way below the $30 Mark and look that is an insane value and after you see the rest of the results here you might want to actually jump on that one meanwhile the 140 mm version in white and black will set you back about $40 meanwhile there is going to be an upcoming version that's a little bit cut down to $35 and the only difference for that one will be you don't get a solid color on the heat sinks it's going back to those aluminum heat spreaders other than that it's basically going to be the same cooler with the same performance so very much like those SE versions that we've seen from other heat sinks from thermal R and look if you peer a bit deeper into the thermal right lineup this causes an even bigger Log Jam with just an endless number of air coolers all clustered within $20 of one another but supposedly this is going to be getting cleared up with the Royal pror series potentially replacing the frost spirit and frost Commander lineups while there's still going to be some overlap in the Assassin and Phantom Spirit lineups but in my conversations with thermal r one thing is completely clear the pa40 isn't meant to be a D15 G2 killer that'll be the job of the royal Prader series supposedly it won't even beat the pa120 by all that much when both are running Full Tilt or under pwm conditions what this larger assassin is meant to do is dominate its smaller sibling in decel normalized conditions that means it will offer better cooling at a given noise level so ironically or maybe not ironically it almost seems like thermal W has designed this cooler for us because our tests tend to favor coolers that do better under noise normalized conditions we don't care what they do at full Cho factor and we really even less care about how they operate under pwm conditions so with that in mind let's sort of Step Back From actual performance testing first and talk about Acoustics because what we're going to do now is listen to what this thing actually sounds like and also compare its fan curve to the original Peerless assassin so if we look at these two fan curves over here it's pretty evident that thermal R did exactly what they set out to accomplish and that is to deliver better overall noise results than the pa120 while both coolers are operating at identical RPM levels for example the original assassin runs at 39.6 DB at 1100 RPM while the PA 140 runs at 38 DB you'll also see the real strength of the the new cooler lies within a very narrow 1100 to 1300 RPM sweet spot so it'll be really interesting to see how the original Peerless assassin Stacks up against the pa40 because there really isn't all that much difference between these two coolers other than raw cooling Mass so the first step in the performance journey is going to be Intel gaming testing so let's add all the other coolers we're comparing this thing to and then plot where the original Peerless assassin sits which is right here and it looks like that extra mass is really being put to good use here since there's a clear reduction in overall temperatures across every single decel level which makes this the best thermalite air cooler we've tested so far there's a few other things too like how there are five different thermal R heat sinks here all of which are within four degrees of one another so while the pa140 is technically the best it isn't all that much better than the ps120 Evo Frost Spirit or the original Peerless assassin moving on to full core workloads things switch around a bit with the peerless assass class 140 still getting better results than the pa10 and two Phantom spirits but the difference is next to nothing at best it wins by about 2° and at other points it's a virtual tie meanwhile it's narrowly beaten by the frost Spirit V3 I guess I should also mention that under heavy allcore workloads nothing and I mean nothing comes close to the D15 G2 with its HBC option moving up to a 153 watt load and the results are pretty much identical as the last test basically the pa40 joint joins a log Jam of other thermal R coolers right around the same temperatures and across every single decel level The Only Exception is the older Peerless assassin that's a bit further behind at lower noise but then catches up to everything else so at this point it's looking like there's almost nothing to differentiate between the Phantom Spirits Peerless assassins and the frost spirit and as usual there's really nothing to see temperature- wise when we unleash the power levels since every air cooler gets trashed and badly too and moving deeper into things by focusing on clock speeds shows most of the thermal R coolers are again right around the same area and that's both good news and bad news on one hand you can buy any of these things and be guaranteed good performance especially for the price but it also poses a serious question why even bother with all of these if they can't distinguish themselves in any unique way so I guess let's move on to gaming on an am5 system to see if this new cooler can distinguish itself in any way shape or form from the competition or even from other thermal right coolers for that matter and starting with gaming it looks like the answer to that is no absolutely not I mean sure statistically it's marginally better than the Peerless assassin we've all come to love but we're splitting hairs here guys it's essentially the same thing and it even gets ever so narrowly beaten by the original Phantom Spirit 2 and moving towards full core workloads really doesn't change that situation either with the pa40 once again trading blows with literally every other comparable thermal right cooler that's out there meanwhile in this test it's beaten by the frostbeard and yet I also have to draw your attention to the temperature axis here basically every one of these coolers other than the liquid freezer 3 and dark Rock Elite is within just 3° of one another a lot of this lack of variance from one cooler to another is simply due to how much thermal resistance gets introduced by the integrated heat spreader on am5 CPUs along with a lack of mounting updates from thermal rate they are not using an offset option here but as heat loads increase with the 7700 X coolers with more heat pipes like the Phantom spirit and Phantom Spirit Evo seem to have a small Edge at lower noise levels while the pa140 picks up steam at 40 DB and above likely due to its raw size advantage over some of the 120 mm coolers here the ironic thing is that even as we move higher on the heat front into dual CCD designs like the 7950 X the pa40 doesn't do any better as a matter of fact pretty much every thermalite cooler is right on the bleeding edge of thermal throttling while the only air cooler to step a bit beyond that point is the D15 G2 LBC with its offset Mount and I think all this backs up what I said in the D15 G2 review launching and relaunching a bunch of coolers that are essentially the same thing is not going to lead to a drastic jump in performance it it it just can't happen in the air cooling field right now what we need to be looking at right now is simply that thermal R adding more coolers to their current lineup is leading to nothing nothing but confusion in my eyes there's two options going forward manufacturers either need to start finding unique paths to give them an advantage like noctua did with different base convexities and mounting types or they need to incorporate more exotic and unfortunately expensive Technologies like 3D Vapor Chambers so is the Peerless assassin better than its little brother well on Intel systems the bigger cooler has a small sometimes infantes advantage in noise normalized scenarios but it does still technically win on AMD though it's a statistical tie basically a big nothing burger and that leads to a very serious question for the PA 140 is it's basically at most 2° temperature Advantage versus the original Peerless assassin really worth its increased price and not only that potential compatibility issues because of its increased width in my opinion absolutely not as a matter of fact unless you absolutely need to have a solid black or white cooler the standard Phantom spirit will give you identical cooling performance in a smaller form factor and it'll probably cost you a few bucks less too and it might sound like I'm being very critical of this cooler but I also love the fact that it gives users simply more options to choose from when it comes to air cooling at least options that don't cost a bloody Fortune because cuz if anything we still have to celebrate the fact that this is a $40 air cooler that that's that's just such still a breath of fresh air for everyone but ultimately what I'm hoping this leads to is the path forward for thermal R to Simply clean up their lineup a little bit I'm hoping that this the Peis Assassin series as a whole as well as the upcoming Royal prayr series allows them to sort of like pair down the amount of offerings that they have and really segment them into certain performance categories rather than all of this crazy overlapping but we're just going to see how that plays out in the rest of the year so anyways I'm Mike with har Canuck I hope you enjoyed this video and I'm going to see you in the next one have a great day guyswell everyone the Peerless assassin 140 what you saw at computex this year is finally here and and look this is a cooler that has huge shoes to fill because the original Peerless assassin you all know it it's an absolute Legend right now and look while the Peerless assassin family now encompasses something like like five different subcategories this 140 mm version it's actually something unique first of all there's the obvious addition of a single 140 mm Fen which I know does it technically make this a 140 mm cooler since there's a single 120 mm fan on the front in order to maximize memory compatibility but this is still a pretty chunky boy that's wider and deeper than the original but it's officially only about a millimeter taller than the pa220 the biggest departure between the two though is actually the depth between both of the heat sink arrays and that's an interesting move since it technically increases the static pressure required to move air from one end of the cooler to the other meanwhile while thermal rates made some minor changes to the TL C12 W fans to create the PA 140s V2 version its specs and output numbers haven't changed whatsoever so it could be that thermal rate is simply counting on that 140 mm fans sheer size to increase overall air flow but we're just going to have to see if that sort of pans out in the performance results but you know what else could give you a lot of performance if you're looking for an aiio check out this one from montech montech with another insane value product that the hyperflow argb aios available in black or white 240 or 360 sizes with full platform compatibility and friendly tools along the way that not only look gorgeous with pump lighting and matching blade illumination but also performance that should satisfy with any hot silicon thanks to high-speed fans high density fins on the rod a good pump and daisy chain fans for easy Cable Management all backed by the 6-year warranty so you don't have to worry Check It Out Below anyways jumping right back into the PA 140 I want to talk about the finay because you might not be able to see it right now on camera but they are very very unique to this cooler and they are completely different from anything that thermal R has done before from the side they look like an expanded version of the ones from the frost Commander while from face on there's a distinct similarity between this cooler and the upcoming Royal prer so look I wouldn't be surprised if there was some sort of like Hallelujah moment within thermal rights engineering team when it came to designing one of these heat sinks and they said look this SP is going to be going to all of our high-end cooler so we should actually see it potentially permeate upwards and downwards within their entire line up very very soon and while those towers do have cutouts to improve memory compatibility the fact of the matter is some modules will still need some upwards fan movement and that will increase the pa140 overall height but other than the towers the rest of the cooler is pure Peerless assassin with six 6 mm heat pipes that angle down into a nickel plated copper base one other thing that's changed and I know this this is minor but on the last assassin I commented that the cooler and fans were two different shades of white while this one they're almost identical thank you so much thermalite and yet I also feel like there's a bit of a missed opportunity here while other manufacturers like noctua have started curving their heat pipes away from the GPU for more clearance I mean even the original pa120 did it this one doesn't so this looks like thermalite just slapped some bigger updated cooling towers onto six heat pipes and all it a day so while we didn't encounter any issues whatsoever installing this into the systems that we're testing in even with some gpus with a thicker back plate there still could be some installation issues in certain cases so I can't take that out of the way completely simply because this is a wider cooler now speaking of installation that's one area that thermal R has made some really minor changes with the AGP Gen 4 system there's now native support for lga8 1700 I know the first Peri assassin didn't actually come with that and there's also some colorcoded standoffs for both Intel and AMD systems so the installation process is a bit more straightforward than the original they've also eliminated a lot of the additional washers from the previous kits so there's just less stuff to search out for in the installation kit so I guess the million-dollar question in all of this is what is the PA 140s price well thermal R has sort of planned their lineup around it first of all the original Peerless assassin is starting to make its way below the $30 Mark and look that is an insane value and after you see the rest of the results here you might want to actually jump on that one meanwhile the 140 mm version in white and black will set you back about $40 meanwhile there is going to be an upcoming version that's a little bit cut down to $35 and the only difference for that one will be you don't get a solid color on the heat sinks it's going back to those aluminum heat spreaders other than that it's basically going to be the same cooler with the same performance so very much like those SE versions that we've seen from other heat sinks from thermal R and look if you peer a bit deeper into the thermal right lineup this causes an even bigger Log Jam with just an endless number of air coolers all clustered within $20 of one another but supposedly this is going to be getting cleared up with the Royal pror series potentially replacing the frost spirit and frost Commander lineups while there's still going to be some overlap in the Assassin and Phantom Spirit lineups but in my conversations with thermal r one thing is completely clear the pa40 isn't meant to be a D15 G2 killer that'll be the job of the royal Prader series supposedly it won't even beat the pa120 by all that much when both are running Full Tilt or under pwm conditions what this larger assassin is meant to do is dominate its smaller sibling in decel normalized conditions that means it will offer better cooling at a given noise level so ironically or maybe not ironically it almost seems like thermal W has designed this cooler for us because our tests tend to favor coolers that do better under noise normalized conditions we don't care what they do at full Cho factor and we really even less care about how they operate under pwm conditions so with that in mind let's sort of Step Back From actual performance testing first and talk about Acoustics because what we're going to do now is listen to what this thing actually sounds like and also compare its fan curve to the original Peerless assassin so if we look at these two fan curves over here it's pretty evident that thermal R did exactly what they set out to accomplish and that is to deliver better overall noise results than the pa120 while both coolers are operating at identical RPM levels for example the original assassin runs at 39.6 DB at 1100 RPM while the PA 140 runs at 38 DB you'll also see the real strength of the the new cooler lies within a very narrow 1100 to 1300 RPM sweet spot so it'll be really interesting to see how the original Peerless assassin Stacks up against the pa40 because there really isn't all that much difference between these two coolers other than raw cooling Mass so the first step in the performance journey is going to be Intel gaming testing so let's add all the other coolers we're comparing this thing to and then plot where the original Peerless assassin sits which is right here and it looks like that extra mass is really being put to good use here since there's a clear reduction in overall temperatures across every single decel level which makes this the best thermalite air cooler we've tested so far there's a few other things too like how there are five different thermal R heat sinks here all of which are within four degrees of one another so while the pa140 is technically the best it isn't all that much better than the ps120 Evo Frost Spirit or the original Peerless assassin moving on to full core workloads things switch around a bit with the peerless assass class 140 still getting better results than the pa10 and two Phantom spirits but the difference is next to nothing at best it wins by about 2° and at other points it's a virtual tie meanwhile it's narrowly beaten by the frost Spirit V3 I guess I should also mention that under heavy allcore workloads nothing and I mean nothing comes close to the D15 G2 with its HBC option moving up to a 153 watt load and the results are pretty much identical as the last test basically the pa40 joint joins a log Jam of other thermal R coolers right around the same temperatures and across every single decel level The Only Exception is the older Peerless assassin that's a bit further behind at lower noise but then catches up to everything else so at this point it's looking like there's almost nothing to differentiate between the Phantom Spirits Peerless assassins and the frost spirit and as usual there's really nothing to see temperature- wise when we unleash the power levels since every air cooler gets trashed and badly too and moving deeper into things by focusing on clock speeds shows most of the thermal R coolers are again right around the same area and that's both good news and bad news on one hand you can buy any of these things and be guaranteed good performance especially for the price but it also poses a serious question why even bother with all of these if they can't distinguish themselves in any unique way so I guess let's move on to gaming on an am5 system to see if this new cooler can distinguish itself in any way shape or form from the competition or even from other thermal right coolers for that matter and starting with gaming it looks like the answer to that is no absolutely not I mean sure statistically it's marginally better than the Peerless assassin we've all come to love but we're splitting hairs here guys it's essentially the same thing and it even gets ever so narrowly beaten by the original Phantom Spirit 2 and moving towards full core workloads really doesn't change that situation either with the pa40 once again trading blows with literally every other comparable thermal right cooler that's out there meanwhile in this test it's beaten by the frostbeard and yet I also have to draw your attention to the temperature axis here basically every one of these coolers other than the liquid freezer 3 and dark Rock Elite is within just 3° of one another a lot of this lack of variance from one cooler to another is simply due to how much thermal resistance gets introduced by the integrated heat spreader on am5 CPUs along with a lack of mounting updates from thermal rate they are not using an offset option here but as heat loads increase with the 7700 X coolers with more heat pipes like the Phantom spirit and Phantom Spirit Evo seem to have a small Edge at lower noise levels while the pa140 picks up steam at 40 DB and above likely due to its raw size advantage over some of the 120 mm coolers here the ironic thing is that even as we move higher on the heat front into dual CCD designs like the 7950 X the pa40 doesn't do any better as a matter of fact pretty much every thermalite cooler is right on the bleeding edge of thermal throttling while the only air cooler to step a bit beyond that point is the D15 G2 LBC with its offset Mount and I think all this backs up what I said in the D15 G2 review launching and relaunching a bunch of coolers that are essentially the same thing is not going to lead to a drastic jump in performance it it it just can't happen in the air cooling field right now what we need to be looking at right now is simply that thermal R adding more coolers to their current lineup is leading to nothing nothing but confusion in my eyes there's two options going forward manufacturers either need to start finding unique paths to give them an advantage like noctua did with different base convexities and mounting types or they need to incorporate more exotic and unfortunately expensive Technologies like 3D Vapor Chambers so is the Peerless assassin better than its little brother well on Intel systems the bigger cooler has a small sometimes infantes advantage in noise normalized scenarios but it does still technically win on AMD though it's a statistical tie basically a big nothing burger and that leads to a very serious question for the PA 140 is it's basically at most 2° temperature Advantage versus the original Peerless assassin really worth its increased price and not only that potential compatibility issues because of its increased width in my opinion absolutely not as a matter of fact unless you absolutely need to have a solid black or white cooler the standard Phantom spirit will give you identical cooling performance in a smaller form factor and it'll probably cost you a few bucks less too and it might sound like I'm being very critical of this cooler but I also love the fact that it gives users simply more options to choose from when it comes to air cooling at least options that don't cost a bloody Fortune because cuz if anything we still have to celebrate the fact that this is a $40 air cooler that that's that's just such still a breath of fresh air for everyone but ultimately what I'm hoping this leads to is the path forward for thermal R to Simply clean up their lineup a little bit I'm hoping that this the Peis Assassin series as a whole as well as the upcoming Royal prayr series allows them to sort of like pair down the amount of offerings that they have and really segment them into certain performance categories rather than all of this crazy overlapping but we're just going to see how that plays out in the rest of the year so anyways I'm Mike with har Canuck I hope you enjoyed this video and I'm going to see you in the next one have a great day guys\n"