Thermalright 240MM AIO Help

deviation

deviation

deviation

Associate
Joined
20 Jun 2025
Posts
2,123
Location
Drake Hotel, Chicago
Hi, a friend has a case that won't take an Arctic, so he wants to go Thermalright...
He can only use a 240MM or 280MM, but after a brief look, the Thermalrights are 240MM in the dual fan models.

He currently has a Thermalright Phantom Spirit 120SE, Is it worth it to use a 240MM on a 5800X? He's already done the usual -25 PBO2 and IIRC an undervolt - it behaves mostly around 48-52C IIRC in Windows/browsing/YT etc, and in games sits around low to mid 60's, sometimes low 70's, but when it has a spike, it'll ramp up to low to mid 80's with UE5 games and I believe in a couple places, which audibly is annoying, and it will thus sometimes hit 89-90 and then thermal throttle the clocks.

He's torn between either the Aqua Elite, or the Frozen Notte, we were wondering whether the additional £20 is worth the money, in a real world sense, be it quieter/lower temps, he doesn't care about the RGB, and has some quiet enough decent CFM 120MM's spare that he can always swap out if either is loud - so that just leaves the pump's capability and the rad?
I noticed that the Notte has a 5 year warranty versus 3 on the Elite, and the Notte's pump is 28DB max and the Elite is 23DB, the Elite's pump is 3300RPM max, and the Notte 5300RPM.

'Real world' which is better, excluding the warranty - although personally, I'd spend the extra £20 if it was my money, and the Elite is currently out of stock in black (which he wants) - at a push I suppose he could pay another £3.99 and get the white one and deal with it, as he's not got the case on display, and even if he did, 'if' he decides to use his spare quieter fans (if needed) they're black so won't be 'too bad' of an eyesore :P

If there's no gains or silence to be had over the Phantom Spirit 120SE, then he probably wont bother, as this isn't for looks.

Am I right to assume that this will still have 2 4PIN plugs, 1 for the pump and 1 for the fans? Or do they daisy chain together?
Should he run the pump at full speed, or is that likely to kill it quickly?

Thanks for any input :)
 
Last edited:
There's no point to that switch, it sounds like there's something wrong with his setup.

What case/fan setup does he have exactly? What are his ambient temps? Has he tried remounting his HSF and reapplying the thermal paste?

I have a single tower Thermalright Assassin King cooling a 5800X3D with a -30 offset without a problem.
 
Last edited:
Gray2233 said:
There's no point to that switch, it sounds like there's something wrong with his setup.

What case/fan setup does he have exactly? What are his ambient temps? Has he tried remounting his HSF and reapplying the thermal paste?

I have a single tower Thermalright Assassin King cooling a 5800X3D with a -30 offset without a problem.
Click to expand...
As I thought :cry:

I forget now, it's pretty meshy, a mid tower, something a bit chinesium'ish. But it's pretty decent airflow wise.
3 140MM fronts, 2 in the roof.

Yeah, the paste has been redone a few times, as that was the first thing that I asked/insisted on :P
Put it this way, he didn't do a @mattyfez ;) :D

I've just edited my OP to add better context, as I've spoken to him since posting it - It runs cool enough when not gaming, like 48-52C, and around mid 60's to 72C but when it wants to spike in UE5, it will hit the low to mid 80's. TBF I may have got it a bit wrong originally, I think it now stays under 90, but to me that's still hot despite the 5800X being known to be a bit of a furnace :P

Do you think he just got unlucky with the silicone lottery?

Would either of those AIO's keep it atleast at the same temp range, but quieter fan/pump wise than the Phantom Spirit? Or shall I just say not to bother and take the **** out of him for not being able to fit a 360/420MM Arctic Liquid Freezer III Pro ;) :D - Hmm, I might do that anyway :P :cry:
 
If he's got everything properly mounted his current HSF is more than ample for even a higher end/hotter running CPU, at least assuming the HSF doesn't have some sort of fault. If his current is having problems the AiO's he's considering will have problems too.

Tell him to update to the most recent bios and make sure his chipset drivers and o/s are fully up to date.

That said, modern CPU's when under heavy use will boost to their thermal limits, so it's not unheard of, albeit surprising that UE5 is doing it. Try the above suggestions, if that doesn't help have a look in the bios for a setting along the lines of "max boost override" and try disabling it.
 
Could also be case fans, the CPU fans could be going like the clappers but if the case fans are at 400rpm won't exhaust as fast as it should (also I guess could cause turbulence if the CPU is pushing air to the rear exhaust case fan but that fan is at low rpm)
 
Gray2233 said:
If he's got everything properly mounted his current HSF is more than ample for even a higher end/hotter running CPU, at least assuming the HSF doesn't have some sort of fault. If his current is having problems the AiO's he's considering will have problems too.

Tell him to update to the most recent bios and make sure his chipset drivers and o/s are fully up to date.

That said, modern CPU's when under heavy use will boost to their thermal limits, so it's not unheard of, albeit surprising that UE5 is doing it. Try the above suggestions, if that doesn't help have a look in the bios for a setting along the lines of "max boost override" and try disabling it.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately mate, he has done that, and has cleaned out the heatsink and fans.

Ah really? I thought UE5 did love to do things like that? My assumption would have been when it randomly stutters or FPS spikes? I remember 2 sections of TLOU PT1 when it ramped up when I was watching him play it, I eventually experienced the same FPS spike in that area upon replaying it a year later. So that's 2 different engines.

FWIW, it was the bit where Joel has dropped down and hiding for cover when Ellie has the rifle for the first time (Joel gives it to her and she snipes from above when he drops down) and the bit where Ellie is on her own in the snow hunting the deer, once it starts, you run out of where it starts, and it does get a bit excited, and again when you get further up the hill of the mountain - to this day the deer part since occurs FPS spike wise, as I've replayed the game recently and it's been patched multiple times since when it first occured on release.
 
hornetstinger said:
Could also be case fans, the CPU fans could be going like the clappers but if the case fans are at 400rpm won't exhaust as fast as it should (also I guess could cause turbulence if the CPU is pushing air to the rear exhaust case fan but that fan is at low rpm)
Click to expand...
He has tried having them maxed out, fixed RPM, and with a ramping up profile. If you leave them maxed out it keeps it under 90 on one particular section on a UE5 game in particular that we kept retesting - so might be an issue in the game, like the above aforementioned 2 areas in TLOU PT1 that I referenced.
 
deviation said:
He has tried having them maxed out, fixed RPM, and with a ramping up profile. If you leave them maxed out it keeps it under 90 on one particular section on a UE5 game in particular that we kept retesting - so might be an issue in the game, like the above aforementioned 2 areas in TLOU PT1 that I referenced.
Click to expand...

Shouldn't be running that hot, I'd try repasting . Maybe it's not flat or not enough or too much paste
 
hornetstinger said:
Shouldn't be running that hot, I'd try repasting . Maybe it's not flat or not enough or too much paste
Click to expand...
He hasn't done a @mattyfez but he has tried less is more and normal approach, granted one time he did use a bit too much and that was very obvious temps wise.

Do you think he's used too little now? I got him to repaste it recently with a credit card, and personally that's always worked best for me coverage and thickness wise?

Is there no way that it might simply just be silicone lottery, as I say most of the time it's behaving in the low 60's or low 70's. It's only now and again it'll get excited - whenever a shader cache is going it's in the low to mid 80's sometimes 89-90C thermal throttling.

Doing the -25 PBO2 along with whatever the TDC etc manual settings were (I forget, but you know the ones that are proven to work on the 5800X) along with a little undervolt, did help massively compared to stock, I'm pretty sure.
 
Last edited:
hornetstinger said:
credit card method is good, a very thin layer, thin as possible, but even as possible, coating all the head spreader.

Imagine spreading butter...but you're on a diet.
Click to expand...
Yeah, that was how he tried it at first but there was a few bits showing through, so wiped it off and did it again and it was as thin as you could get without having patches missing. But he has tried before this doing it with it slightly thicker, this second attempt worked better though.
 
Last edited:
@hornetstinger @Gray2233 @tamzzy I did just speak to him, he said he could front mount a 360MM, (before was top mount in question) So would a Thermalright Frozen Notte 360 ARGB V2 or Frozen Warframe 360, be worth going for?
Or again is there not much in it over the Phantom Spirit 120SE?

The Frozen Notte is on offer currently, and is usually £80 and doesn't have a screen, yet the Warframe has a screen but is £20 cheaper than when the Notte isn't on offer?

How would either compare versus ponying up the extra £15 for the Arctic Liquid Freezer III Pro 360MM that he probably cant fit?
 
hornetstinger said:
front mounting a rad means the heat is chucked into the system, heating the GPU, memory and VRMs. Best to have it on the top out of the way.
Click to expand...
Yeah, I personally wouldn't do it myself, despite whatever Jay'z Two Cents seems to think :cry:

Out of interest though, are those 2 Thermalrights pretty closely matched to the Phantom Spirit, or dare I say it, the Arctic? I know Arctic are killing it with the AIO's, but Thermalright have been amazing with the air coolers and I do hear some good things about the AIO's, but I do wonder how far apart they must be from the Arctic, as the Arctic was what swayed me from the Kraken, I was gobsmacked when I watched countless videos showing it destroying pretty much everything, whilst near silent!
 
Last edited:
i wouldn't front mount a cooler as you'd run into problems later down the line due to coolant evaporation and potentially a dry pump
honestly with a PS120SE i'd be tempted to leave it well alone

if the main issue is the fan speeds due to spiky temps, then you'd have the same issue with an aio, as the cpu will have the same temp spikes regardless of what cooler is mounted
the answer is to play with the ramp timings of the fan in bios, not a cooler swap
 
Last edited:
tamzzy said:
i wouldn't front mount a cooler as you'd run into problems later down the line due to coolant evaporation and potentially a dry pump
honestly with a PS120SE i'd be tempted to leave it well alone

if the main issue is the fan speeds due to spiky temps, then you'd have the same issue with an aio, as the cpu will have the same temp spikes regardless of what cooler is mounted
the answer is to play with the ramp timings of the fan in bios, not a cooler swap
Click to expand...
Yeah, it's not something I would do personally. Roof or just use an air cooler IMHO. Don't tell Jay'z Two Cents that though! :P

Hmm, we have played around with them, IIRC they're around 40-60% to start with, so it's not like it's being starved, and IIRC the PS120SE has 'better' fans than the PA120SE doesn't it? Quieter and better CFM? I could be wrong lol.

hornetstinger said:
Another solution is just have the fans on higher, and have some speakers.

I certainly can't hear my fans playing war thunder with my 2.1 system :D
Click to expand...
I did mention before that he had the case fans on full whack and it helped, I forgot to say he did bump the PS120SE fans up even higher, but it didn't take more than 2-3C off of it :(

I reckon it's just the silicone lottery, as 90% of the time it's behaving at low 60's and 70's :)
 
deviation said:
IIRC the PS120SE has 'better' fans than the PA120SE doesn't it? Quieter and better CFM? I could be wrong lol.
Click to expand...
same fans, PS has 7 heatpipes vs PA 6
but temp differential is minimal (1-1.5c iirc)

deviation said:
Hmm, we have played around with them, IIRC they're around 40-60% to start with, so it's not like it's being starved,
Click to expand...
delay the ramp set it at 0.5-0.7s vs the 0.1s which is the normal default
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom