Thermalright Frost Commander 140 review, cools better than any other air cooler for 13700k cpu's

[Space Lynx]

Thermalright Frost Commander 140 Review: Strong Performance, Incredible Value

A whole lot of cooling for $50. But fan noise will be an issue for some.

www.tomshardware.com

Sauce above:

@freeagent time to run a bubble bath, put all your thermalright heatsinks in the bath with you, and read this new review nice and slow. no one would judge you
@Gmr_Chick cover your eyes cause free agent just turned on the water

in regards to this new review, just my own personal experience with the FC140: my 5600x3d doesn't break 52 celsius in most games, even at 100% fan speed honestly its not that loud imo. also I paid $43 for mine on a sale, best deal ever, was packaged better than even the Noctua coolers I have seen, lots of foam. foam slots I should, but top tier packaging for the price.

 

[freeagent]

I have been telling the world for 2 years that it is the best air cooler that I have used..

Looks like people are starting to listen

I bought mine on the day it was released lol..

 

[FoulOnWhite]

Pretty good

 

[fevgatos]

Problem is, other reviews have it losing to the frost spirit on a 13900k, so I'm kinda confused between the two.

Also 240w is very low, it shows that the ihs is a huge issue. My u12a can do 280w with liquid metal. Better than any cooler upgrade.

 

[tabascosauz]

Problem is, other reviews have it losing to the frost spirit on a 13900k, so I'm kinda confused between the two.

Also 240w is very low, it shows that the ihs is a huge issue. My u12a can do 280w with liquid metal. Better than any cooler upgrade.

Cooler reviews in general I just take with a grain of salt, including Tom's. None of them are standardized on just about anything despite what they claim. Any day of the week one reviewer will have x beat y and another reviewer will have y absolutely steamroll x despite both being competitive with one another.

Thermalright in particular has a bit of a spotty quality control record, but frankly all of the cooler makers do (even Noctua, personal experience x3). Helps magnify the uncertainty and variance of different cooler reviewers.

What they all basically agree on is that FC140/PS120/PA120 all offer high end performance for an outrageous price tag, and that's more important than strictly getting to first place.

I have been telling the world for 2 years that it is the best air cooler that I have used..

Looks like people are starting to listen

I bought mine on the day it was released lol..

the original, inimitable FC140 x T30-120 bros

 

[fevgatos]

Cooler reviews in general I just take with a grain of salt, including Tom's. None of them are standardized on just about anything despite what they claim. Any day of the week one reviewer will have x beat y and the other will have y absolutely steamroll x despite both being competitive with one another.

Thermalright in particular has a bit of a spotty quality control record, but frankly all of the cooler makers do (even Noctua, personal experience x3). Helps magnify the uncertainty and variance of different cooler reviewers.

What they all basically agree on is that FC140/PS120/PA120 all offer high end performance for an outrageous price tag, and that's more important than strictly getting to first place.





the original, inimitable FC140 x T30-120 bros

Well when it comes to temperature values I agree, they don't have to match. But the hierarchy of the cooler chart should be similar across the board. Especially between the spirit and the commander, since the latter is basically a straight upgrade over the former in everything?

Might get one or the two and test them against my u12a and see what's what.

 

[tabascosauz]

Thermalright Frost Commander 140 Review: Strong Performance, Incredible Value

A whole lot of cooling for $50. But fan noise will be an issue for some.

www.tomshardware.com

Sauce above:

@freeagent time to run a bubble bath, put all your thermalright heatsinks in the bath with you, and read this new review nice and slow. no one would judge you
@Gmr_Chick cover your eyes cause free agent just turned on the water

in regards to this new review, just my own personal experience with the FC140: my 5600x3d doesn't break 52 celsius in most games, even at 100% fan speed honestly its not that loud imo. also I paid $43 for mine on a sale, best deal ever, was packaged better than even the Noctua coolers I have seen, lots of foam. foam slots I should, but top tier packaging for the price.

In the interest of fairness to Noctua, their accessory pack puts Thermalright to shame any day of the week, and their cardboard packaging has long since proven its worth. I would rather not have a whole bunch of recyclable materials over a box full of foam, considering it's not like it makes for better quality control (ahem Thermalright hitting that 0/3).

But then again, for that price, Noctua packaging better be superior!!!

Well when it comes to temperature values I agree, they don't have to match. But the hierarchy of the cooler chart should be similar across the board. Especially between the spirit and the commander, since the latter is basically a straight upgrade over the former in everything?

Might get one or the two and test them against my u12a and see what's what.

Not necessarily, I can think of instances where 7 small pipes (PS) vs 5 large pipes (FC) can go either way. That's without mentioning AM4/AM5 chiplets vs Intel north-south monolithic die, where there definitely will be a difference.

I tested U12A Chromax against FC140 and the FC140 trashed the U12A with less noise, with stock fans and both T30 swapped. Which isn't too surprising and I don't think it should be held against the U12A, it's smaller and lighter and better clearance. But on Intel results for U12A seem to be generally very strong, on LGA1700 I would probably lean towards U12A.

Unfortunately for the U12A Chromax in Canada, it is also more than triple the price of the FC140 (~$50 vs $167). Even with a *triple* pack of T30s to swap, the FC140 is still about $15 cheaper.

 

[Selaya]

wait CAD $170 for an u12a??????
holy shit.

 

[chrcoluk]

I think the fans might be the difference.

On my rig, when I upgraded my platform because my exhaust fan was super dirty and I blasted it with my shower, I couldnt be bothered to wait for it to dry so installed a spare noctua in its place, and was then surprised to notice the amount of airflow was tiny compared to the old fan with similar RPM. I then ordered a new fractal fan that allows really high RPM, and I feel at the max RPM, its not terrible, but needing much higher RPM vs the original case fan.

So whats going on?

Well I obviously checked the fans were installed right, arrow was pointing outwards.

The original case fan has large gaps between the blades and also smaller blades, whilst the noctua fan and the newer fractal fan I purchased use a different blade design where the blades are bigger and have less visible gap. I did take pictures at the time when comparing them so if people are curious I will look for them on my phone. I observed my CPU cooler has the same fan design with little space between the blades. That design seems to push much less air.

Fractal do sell new versions of the large gap fan, but its only DC which put me off buying it. So I think I am going to buy that one, hesitant to put my original one back in as it was a bit noisy prior to removal even though its clean now. (seems the R3 is now out of stock so maybe the original will go back in, depends when I can be bothered to do it though, so will check stock again when that time comes)

The superior design (imo)

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Fractal-Design-Silent-Case-Cooling/dp/B00TYN3HGI

The one that pushes less air.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07H6RLYDP

The thermalright cooler seems to have the superior design fan.

 

[Space Lynx]

Problem is, other reviews have it losing to the frost spirit on a 13900k, so I'm kinda confused between the two.

Also 240w is very low, it shows that the ihs is a huge issue. My u12a can do 280w with liquid metal. Better than any cooler upgrade.

in this review he is using the thermalright lga 1700 plate fix, so i imagine that is helping the temps some too. but i think its good idea to use this fix, as it does seem to help.

 

[jayjr1105]

Peerless Assassin is currently $32. How much better is the FC?

 

[Space Lynx]

Peerless Assassin is currently $32. How much better is the FC?

you already are rocking a scythe fuma 2, so you don't really need to upgrade to be honest. that's a great cooler

 

[freeagent]

Well..

From what I have seen in my travels is that most people running the same hardware as me, but cooled with AIO have worse temps both idle and load. That review where FS did better than FC is kinda sus.. but whatever I guess.

 

[jayjr1105]

you already are rocking a scythe fuma 2, so you don't really need to upgrade to be honest. that's a great cooler

You'd have to pry my fuma out of my cold dead hands. I was just curious about getting this cooler vs the $32 peerless assassin

 

[tabascosauz]

wait CAD $170 for an u12a??????
holy shit.

I bought my FC140 at $88cad in the early days before it existed in Canada. At that price the quality control issues of Thermalright are not acceptable (SS135 with cheeselike coldplate that scratched my 5900X, PA120 with finstacks bent towards each other, FC140 finstacks offset from one another sideways and required some manual bending to straighten out).

But at $40-50cad there is just about no place for anyone else's coolers anymore except maybe IDcooling. Against PA120 and PS120 they have DIMM clearance advantage, but Noctua runs out of excuses when the FC140 comes in. Deepcool AK620 is on sale for $68 but is usually $85, a price that's double the PA120 and more expensive than FC140 that has zero RAM clearance issues.

Not kidding:

contrast

 

[Space Lynx]

I bought my FC140 at $88cad in the early days before it existed in Canada. At that price the quality control issues of Thermalright are not acceptable (SS135 with cheeselike coldplate that scratched my 5900X, PA120 with finstacks bent towards each other, FC140 finstacks offset from one another sideways and required some manual bending to straighten out).

But at $40-50cad there is just about no place for anyone else's coolers anymore except maybe IDcooling. Against PA120 and PS120 they have DIMM clearance advantage, but Noctua runs out of excuses when the FC140 comes in. Deepcool AK620 is on sale for $68 but is usually $85, a price that's double the PA120 and more expensive than FC140 that has zero RAM clearance issues.

Not kidding:

View attachment 312270View attachment 312271

contrast

View attachment 312272 View attachment 312273

yeah I must have got lucky with my FC140, had 0 issues with it. still can't believe I only paid $43 for it lol

 

[Remeca]

I bought my FC140 at $88cad in the early days before it existed in Canada. At that price the quality control issues of Thermalright are not acceptable (SS135 with cheeselike coldplate that scratched my 5900X, PA120 with finstacks bent towards each other, FC140 finstacks offset from one another sideways and required some manual bending to straighten out).

But at $40-50cad there is just about no place for anyone else's coolers anymore except maybe IDcooling. Against PA120 and PS120 they have DIMM clearance advantage, but Noctua runs out of excuses when the FC140 comes in. Deepcool AK620 is on sale for $68 but is usually $85, a price that's double the PA120 and more expensive than FC140 that has zero RAM clearance issues.

Not kidding:

View attachment 312270View attachment 312271

contrast

View attachment 312272 View attachment 312273

That picture right there is why I have a Peerless Assassin 120.

 

[tabascosauz]

yeah I must have got lucky with my FC140, had 0 issues with it. still can't believe I only paid $43 for it lol

It's just something to keep an eye out for, not really something I hold against Thermalright. I know I raged a bit at the time but with the prices now it would be fine. $50cad is about $36usd. Plus, it's Amazon prime, fast and free shipping. I could get the white one tomorrow.

The bar for air cooler quality is just generally very very low regardless of brand. I had two U12A Chromax, fins on both were battered and required straightening. Few years ago I got 3 back to back bent NH-L12S and NH-L12 Ghost S1. They were from Amazon but getting so many in a row I decided to reach out, didn't want to get a 4th fucked up one. Noctua quickly sent flawless replacements directly all the way from Austria arriving in about a day or two, and took the faulty ones back directly via the same service.

Others like Scythe don't get off scot-free either. Entire Big Shuriken 3 arrived basically trashed and fins wave-shaped, I use it because I have no other choice until I can get the new ID-cooling 70mm. At this point I have seen everything.

On the other hand, Thermalright customer service basically doesn't exist........but then again their product also only costs 17-35% as much...

 

[freeagent]

I think I paid like 150CAD for my first one, maybe a bit more.. probably a bit more lol.. so it was more like 175 shipped from China to my door in like 8 days. Pretty sure I was the first, if not one of the first in North America with one. I bought my White FC 140 for like 40 bucks I think.. pretty sure it was cheaper than my PA120SE ARGB.. I dont know.. it could have been the same price as my PS120SE ARGB.. getting hard to keep track.. it was cheap anyways lol.. The IHS on my CPUs are a bit marred. The TIM I use is pretty thick when it dries.. or the nickel coating could have been a tad thin. But I am not gonna lie, I have at least a couple of hundred mounts so if you just leave it alone, I am sure it would be fine

Edit:

Judging by the shock, you guys didn't believe me when I said I was a Thermalright fanboy lol..

 

[maxfly]

I've gone through a slew of pa120 and SEs over the last year or so. The one bad one I received was a shipping problem. Something or someone crushed the box but the HS is fine, one of the fans got mushed a bit. That one was relegated to my test bench so no biggie. Tbh, I no longer bother doing any price to performance shopping for heatsinks. It's pointless. Thermalright has the price to performance market wrapped up tight. The only relevant questions now are what is my case clearance and is it an AM4 or 1700 build.

 

[Daniel_H212]

These results are contradicted by the results from this video:

and this video:

These videos show the FC140 to be quite strong but not quite top tier, and paradoxically worse than the FS140 which has one less heatpipe and slower fans.

I contacted thermalright and they said the results are explained by the fact that Hardware Canucks did not use a LGA1700 contact frame whereas Tom's Hardware did for all their cooling. I'm not sure whether I can trust this, because this doesn't really explain how the FS140 performed so well when tested by Hardware Canucks (perhaps this is because of tooling differences between the two coolers for their contact plates?). Additionally, even Tom's Hardware shows the FC140 performing slightly worse relatively speaking (compared to other coolers) on AM5 than LGA1700, and I personally believe this is due to the FC140's thick heatpipes and the fact that their heatpipes don't quite align very well with the hotspots on an AM5 CPU IHS, while the FS140's heatpipes seem to make more well-aligned contact. Perhaps an offset mount could fix this in a future revision of the cooler. While Tom's Hardware didn't test the FS140, taking both their results and the results from Hardware Canucks into account, I think the FS140 is probably better than the FC140 for AM5.

In any case, the FS140/FC140 are top tier coolers but I'm going to recommend that anyone on LGA1700 with an i7/i9 K series use a LGA1700 contact frame (whether using a thermalright cooler or any other cooler, but apparently especially if you are using an FC140). Thermalright sells them for quite cheap and so do some other companies.

 

[TPCEA]

Tests will never fully align with each other because different testers have different mobos and CPUs, not to mention all the other relevant differences. A lot of testers stick with the same rig for a long time in order to be able to rank coolers. As time passes, the results become less and less useful because of technological changes, not least of which is a centered die vs offset chiplets.

This doesn't even account for poor testing procedures, malfeasance, variance in which tests are performed, the tools used and how they are performed, and so on. And, of course, if test results don't match the claims of manufacturers, there are multiple reasons why (including lying). So, we can even compare results.

I've seen tests where the deck was stacked, so to speak, in favor of one and/or against another cooler. One reviewer at TH does that. There are a few YT reviewers that sell test results, although it's hard to confirm, and there are certainly some that are blatantly fanboy (e.g. Linus and Noctua). I'm personally against the use of test benches for testing as the results are not representative of what over 90% of users can expect - sometimes egregiously so.

 

[nomdeplume]

Got distracted looking at newer models enough to forget about this and thread I started on PS120 Evo. Where the quote below was mined from.

U12A wasn't competitive the first time I had it go up against the FC140 on 5800X3D, but now it matches the FC140's performance with the new offset kit, on 7800X3D. Of course, if you have Intel, FC140 all the way.

Passed over FC140 a few times after coming across reviews that didn't paint a very good picture of it against something like Mugen BE the only place it actually matters, high heat and fan speeds. Hard to imagine not getting the best possible heatsink and fan setup for AMD or Intel. Adding 30mm fans does bring final cost up near same level as the more expensive options. Given their strength I have a concern about the less than dense fin stack on FC140 mirroring reviews when the issue is forced with more extreme pressure and airflow.

Have opinions on TR as top tier coolers changed in the last year or so?

 

[Space Lynx]

Got distracted looking at newer models enough to forget about this and thread I started on PS120 Evo. Where the quote below was mined from.



Passed over FC140 a few times after coming across reviews that didn't paint a very good picture of it against something like Mugen BE the only place it actually matters, high heat and fan speeds. Hard to imagine not getting the best possible heatsink and fan setup for AMD or Intel. Adding 30mm fans does bring final cost up near same level as the more expensive options. Given their strength I have a concern about the less than dense fin stack on FC140 mirroring reviews when the issue is forced with more extreme pressure and airflow.

Have opinions on TT as top tier coolers changed in the last year or so?

As far as I am aware the FC140 even beats the newest Noctua double tower cooler too. I am curious now though, @freeagent does the FC140 have an offset mounting kit for the 7800x3d that you know of? Or would it matter?

I uninstalled my MSI 360mm AIO before I left to visit my friends and family abroad, didn't want to risk any leaks with the cold dry winter air. I did a bunch of tests before I left though, I plan to install my FC140 when I return home, do the same tests and compare temps. If water is the winner by 5 or more celsius across the board, I will go back to my AIO. If it's like only 3 celsius, I am sticking with my FC140 though.

 

[eidairaman1]

Thermalright not Thermaltake. Using a ARO-M14G Single fan on a 5800, keeping that bugger cool.