I’ve been running AMD’s AM5 platform for almost a year, but due to the budget constrains, I’ve reused some parts from the previous builds. One of them was an inadequate 120mm radiator AIO from Corsair and it was about time to replace it.
It’s been for far to long, as with the modern games, the temperatures on the processor have been rising like with a global warming. I’ve been under a spell of water cooling and I’ve been eyeballing some fancy 360mm radiators from Lian Li, Corsair and other pricey brands.
But when I’ve really started putting things in motion I quickly realized that such a big item will not fit on my somewhat outdated case. It would be difficult to even put a 240mm radiator in there, as it would collide with the RAM modules. I’d have either redo the entire layout, putting CPU AIO on the front of the case, possibly hampering the cooling on the graphics card, or come up with entirely different plan.
Ditch the water cooling!
I went online and quickly found out you don’t really need expensive AIO water cooling solutions. Apparently, there are plenty of big-ass air cooling towers with performance on par with most of the top shelf products. So this is exactly what I’ve done.
After watching reviews, I ordered Thermalright’s Peerless Assassin 120 cooler and installed in in my computer. I knew it’s going to be performing much better, but I didn’t expect this.
For under €50, idle temperatures went down from 55°C to a surprising 42°C, but what’s more amazing is the temperatures under load. Previously, when in the game it might get up to 95°C. Now it doesn’t go beyond 75°C in torture tests. As a bonus, it doesn’t look half bad.
It’s a no nonsense product. Simple two tower cooler with six heat pipes and two fans. The most complicated thing about it is the addressable RGB on the fans, which by the way – can be daisy chained to just one aRGB and fan port.
Would I buy it again?
Look, my 6-core Ryzen 5 7500F with it’s humble 65W TDP might not be the best benchmark, but looking at reviews it is still performing admirably with more powerful, warmer processors. It would be difficult for me to even consider buying into any water cooling for practical purposes and aesthetically I kind of dig the big tower with glowing fans – it looks like it means business.
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