The Champ: $41 Thermalright Peerless Assassin CPU Cooler Review & Benchmarks

Sponsor: Thermaltake Ceres 500 TG on Amazon - The Peerless Assassin 120 CPU tower cooler ranges from $35 to $55, depending on which model you get, although it occasionally gets scalped for insane prices that you shouldn’t pay. The Assassin 120 at its normal price of $40-$45 establishes itself as one of the best tower coolers on our test bench when compared at noise-normalized thermals and at 100% fan speeds alike. This testing and benchmarking looks at the best CPU coolers in early 2023 for noise, thermals, mounting hardware, and more. Watch our other CPU cooler reviews in our playlist! The best way to support our work is through our store: Like our content? Please consider becoming our Patron to support us: RELATED PRODUCTS Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 on Amazon: Cooler Master Hyper 212 RGB Black Edition on Amazon - DeepCool AK400 on Amazon: Arctic Freezer 34 Esports Duo on Amazon: Scythe Fuma 2 on Amazon: Vetroo V5 on Amazon: Noctua NH-U12S Redux on Amazon: Or if you want some liquid cooling there’s the Arctic Liquid Freezer II 280 on Amazon: TIMESTAMPS 00:00 - The Cooler Market is Hot 01:02 - Peerless Assassin Overview 02:47 - Physical Features, Hardware, Sizing 05:30 - Heatpipe Biasing Design 08:00 - Fan Spec, Cabling, & Packaging 10:06 - Mike talks Cooler Installation (AMD & Intel) 13:15 - Mounting Criticisms & Feedback 13:57 - Pressure Testing & Distribution 15:55 - Flatness Testing of Coldplate 16:48 - 198W Noise-Normalized Benchmark (R9 / i9 Equivalent) 17:52 - 198W 100% Fan CPU Cooler Benchmark (& Noise) 19:00 - 123W Noise-Normalized CPU Cooler Benchmark 19:49 - 123W 100% Fan Cooler Benchmarks (& Noise) 20:09 - Extremely Compelling Value ** Please like, comment, and subscribe for more! ** Links to Amazon and Newegg are typically monetized on our channel (affiliate links) and may return a commission of sales to us from the retailer. This is unrelated to the product manufacturer. Any advertisements or sponsorships are disclosed within the video (“this video is brought to you by“) and above the fold in the description. We do not ever produce paid content or “sponsored content“ (meaning that the content is our idea and is not funded externally aside from whatever ad placement is in the beginning) and we do not ever charge manufacturers for coverage. Follow us in these locations for more gaming and hardware updates: t: f: w: Host, Writing, Test Lead: Steve Burke Testing, Host: Mike Gaglione Wriitng: Jeremy Clayton Video: Andrew Coleman Video: Vitalii Makhnovets