ThermalrightPeerless Assassin 120 SE CPU Air Cooler, 6 Heat Pipes with AGHP Technology, Dual 120mm TL-C12C PWM Fan, for Intel LGA1700/1200/1150/1151/1851; AMD AM4/AM5

The pump on my Corsair Hydro Series H100i GTX was failing so I replaced it with this. On a Ryzen 5 5600X, the temps are about the same both idle and under load. Without the risk of pump failure, and at this price point, I'd say it out-performs my previous AIO, easily. The fans are significantly quieter than the stock radiator fans on the H100i under full load.It's a *very* large cooler, well built. I don't have the ARGB hooked up yet but I'm sure it looks great. Installation was simple, just make sure you actually secure the two appropriate brackets *before* setting the heatsink onto the thermal compound - oops lol.It's very compatible with "tall" RAM as well. I have 4 sticks of HP V10 RGB RAM which are extremely tall, I was able to easily nudge the fan closest to the RAM up (towards the outside of the case) about 1/4".Speaking of case, make sure yours is wide enough to install this. The Corsair Carbide Series 175R is just wide enough, around 6.25" - 6.5" from processor to panel, with about 1/8" to spare (keeping in mind I had to raise the fan, so that would normally be 1/4"-ish more).

I love the PA 120. I ended up replacing an AIO with this thing. The AIO was a couple years old and wasn't cooling like it did when new. Even applying fresh paste didn't help. There weren't a lot of PU 120's available when I bought (no choices of color and LEDs) but this one does a great job keeping the CPU cool. Peerless assassin is the best value out there and one of the best performers too. The only pain was the installation-- I think they might have changed the screws from prior versions where I was watching on YT-- but that meant it just took 5-10 extra minutes.

This cooler is an absolute marvel. Best temps I have ever seen. The fans that are included are awesome. I read several reddit threads that argued the SE version was "lower quality" and "more noisy" than the non-SE version because there were no dampeners (rubber feet at the corners) present on the fans and no fin stack covers. But this is only partly true. There ARE dampeners on the side of the fans that mounts to the fin stacks. And the lack of fin stack covers does not take away from the appealing look of this cooler in the slightest. After installing this magnificent beast, I could not get my temps to go above 62c. And I really tried. Plus, my case has mid airflow. I am now idling at 26-29c.Backstory. Built my PC in late 2015 with a 6700k, an R9 390x, and 16gb of 3000hz ddr4. First cooler was a Corsair H55 with the rad sandwiched between two Fractal fans in push/pull. Best stable 24/7 overclock I could achieve was 4.6ghz using 1.305v. The absolute max temps after long stress tests or hours long gaming sessions was 78-80c. Pretty toasty, but I could live with it. My idle temps were great, 28-32c. Having several apps open and a browser with a few tabs temps were always around 45-58.Fast forward all the way to 2022. Same cpu. Now my idle temps were up to 33-36c and my highs were routinely 79-83c. I realized that my cpu was getting a bit long in the tooth and I wanted to extend its life the best I could. By this time I had already upgraded my gpu to a Gaming X 6700XT and my RAM was now 32gb of Corsair 3800hz CL16. I shopped around and found a 240mm AIO that would fit my case, top-mounted. To my surprise, the 240 AIO only lowered my temps by an avg. of 3-5 degrees celcius. Certainly not $130 better than my nearly 7yr old H55. Disappointing.After only 1yr, the pump failed on the 240. I won't trash the manufacturer here. Being under warranty, I let [them] replace it with a brand new one. One year later, same thing happened, pump failed again. I will say this here, imo Corsair may be the only AIO worth spending your money on. I have also heard good things about the Lian li Galahad. The 240 I bought after the H55 was not made by Corsair and I regret it.Decided to give air cooling a shot. After extensive research, I had it down to the Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 SE and the Scythe Mugen 5 rev. c - Black Edition. I actually ordered the Scythe but it got "lost" in transit and Amazon had to refund me. Immediately ordered the Thermalright and received it in under 48hrs. Taking off the 240 and installing this cooler took just 45min. I am floored by this cooler's performance. Ice cold temps and whisper quiet. I left HWInfo64 running in the background while I opened and ran benchmarks for Cyberpunk, CoD, and GTAV never checking the temps in between. I was shocked when I saw that the highest temp recorded was 60c. Ran AIDA64 for half an hour, highest temp recorded was 62c. If you are on the fence, buy this cooler. IMO, it is hands-down the best air cooler, and maybe the best cooler overall, available on the market. Thermalright ftw.

Looks great, easy to install and comes with a small tube of thermal paste enough for the initial install. RGB is visible after connecting to motherboard and the fans are easily mountable. Comes with Amd and Intel variants for the backplate and front mounts. Fan sizes are true to size and performance is smooth and amazing