Box, Contents, Bundle
The box looks cheap, but what matters most is that it offers good protection to the product. It’s amazing that for $40, you also get a color box, in addition to the product!
The bundle includes the following:
- Intel bracket
- AMD bracket
- Intel backplate
- 2x Fans
- 4x Fan clips
- Mounting hardware
- Thermal grease
- PWM Splitter
- Installation guide
The bundle is rich enough, including a thermal grease tube and PWM splitter, among others.
The cooler follows a dual-tower design, which is the most effective for air coolers but also has the largest footprint. The fins are not that dense, so Thermalright didn’t use high static pressure fans but ones with increased airflow at low speeds.
The cooler’s base is large enough to cover the heatspreader of the normal processors, but it cannot meet the demands of server CPUs with huge heatspreaders. Moreover, make sure to peel off the plastic label before you install the cooler. Otherwise, you will put the CPU’s overtemperature protections to the test.
Some close photos of the cooler showing the top shroud and the six heat pipes.
I know I ask a lot from a $40 cooler, but it would be great if these were Torx screws instead of Philips ones.
The pair of fans is of good quality, especially considering the cooler’s price. I have evaluated the 120mm fan, and you can check its results in the Cybenetics fan database.
I think the low cost is because of the location of the company and of their manufacturing site. They can afford to undercut the competition (as any company based in most parts of E/SE Asia should be able to do), especially with China keeping the value of their currency artificially low to keep companies there.
It’s great to have your review since so many people blindly point to the PA120 nowadays for Intel, instead of remembering that it’s not the top Intel air cooler.
Honestly, after so many decades of heatsinks, I think the science is already out there as to optimal fin density, materials, etc. Asking for a ton of money, like Noctua always does after ripping off TR designs all those years ago, is a combination of the high cost of having a German-based company, and greed. It’s like when Linus justified the cost of his screwdriver with 2 years of research when there are better products out there are a fraction of the cost.
I think the only thing that is missing is results from overclocking and/or very hot CPUs. I suspect that the PA120 will not handle the hottest CPUs as well as they did in this test.