Thermalright Outs TA120 EX Mini White Compact Tower-type CPU Cooler

[btarunr]

Thermalright today introduced the TA120 EX Mini White, one of the company's more compact tower-type CPU coolers. The cooler is designed with a height of 135 mm, even though it uses a 120 mm fan for ventilation. It features a conventional tower type design, in which five 6 mm-thick copper heat pipes make indirect contact with the CPU at the base (nickel-plated C1100-grade copper with mirror finish), pushing heat through the fin-stack, which is ventilated by a TL-D12 PRO-W fan. It features a fluid-dynamic bearing, and turns at speeds of up to 1,850 RPM, pushing up to 82 CFM of airflow, with 2.1 mm H₂O static pressure, and 29.6 dBA noise output. Among the CPU socket types supported include LGA1700, AM4, and LGA1200. The company didn't reveal pricing.



View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[cellar door]

What market is Thermalright active in these days, there aren't many reviews yet it seems they have actual products still. Asia?

 

[natr0n]

Thats a nice fan.

 

[Raendor]

What market is Thermalright active in these days, there aren't many reviews yet it seems they have actual products still. Asia?

I saw almost full product stack available in amazon US and ordered silver soul 135 couple months ago with shipping to EU for additional 10 bucks or so. Can be an option depending on where you’re located.

 

[Keullo-e]

What market is Thermalright active in these days, there aren't many reviews yet it seems they have actual products still. Asia?

I'd guess that there isn't that much innovation anymore for air cooling and Thermalright doesn't do any cheap crap coolers like many other manufacturer does. I guess that they still sell their older high end coolers.

 

[Chomiq]

This would play nice with a white mobo, too bad they aren't really made anymore.

 

[Keullo-e]

This would play nice with a white mobo, too bad they aren't really made anymore.

Here's few, though not with a white PCB: https://dotesports.com/hardware/news/best-white-motherboards

 

[watzupken]

Looks like TR is trying to one up their competitors by squeezing in 5 heat pipes as oppose to 4 for most coolers of this size. This might be good for mid to low range of CPUs as the size will certainly limit its cooling capability.

 

[tabascosauz]

What market is Thermalright active in these days, there aren't many reviews yet it seems they have actual products still. Asia?

Newer coolers have been showing up on Aliexpress, that's where I got my Silver Soul 135, sent with Fedex I think and arrived in a jiffy. Unfortunately it didn't seem like more specialty versions of the coolers can be found outside Taobao (inaccessible in West without proxy), like the matte black SS135 and matte black Silver Arrow 130.

Thermalright has been pushing out a ton of these new "Mini" versions of their 120mm towers. They are all 135mm tall basically 92mm towers with a 120mm fan strapped on.

The problem is that the SS135 is alright but not really much better than the beefier 92mm coolers like the U9S. These other single tower 135mm Mini coolers are even smaller, with less heatsink mass, and less heatpipes than the SS135. At the end of the day SS135 and SA130 still seem to be the only real performers, can comfortably handle a stock 5900X with good airflow.

I'm not sure about this white edition TA120 Mini, but quite sure I've seen its regular version floating around on the TR website since before the SS135 released.

 

[Raendor]

Newer coolers have been showing up on Aliexpress, that's where I got my Silver Soul 135, sent with Fedex I think and arrived in a jiffy. Unfortunately it didn't seem like more specialty versions of the coolers can be found outside Taobao (inaccessible in West without proxy), like the matte black SS135 and matte black Silver Arrow 130.

Thermalright has been pushing out a ton of these new "Mini" versions of their 120mm towers. They are all 135mm tall basically 92mm towers with a 120mm fan strapped on.

The problem is that the SS135 is alright but not really much better than the beefier 92mm coolers like the U9S. These other single tower 135mm Mini coolers are even smaller, with less heatsink mass, and less heatpipes than the SS135. At the end of the day SS135 and SA130 still seem to be the only real performers, can comfortably handle a stock 5900X with good airflow.

I'm not sure about this white edition TA120 Mini, but quite sure I've seen its regular version floating around on the TR website since before the SS135 released.

I disagree from personal experience regarding U9S. I use SS135 in NCase M1 with 11700 with unlocked tdp and before that used AK120 mini. Both (with stock fans) were performing far better than U9S. SS135 is simply amazing. My only complaint would be that Thermalright uses all kinds of own fans and doesn't sell the TL-D versions with those reduced corners separately. For what it's worth, I find Thermalright coolers better than Noctua. Just ordered lga 1700 bracket for my SS135 as well in case I jump to Raptor/Meteor this or next year.

 

[tabascosauz]

I disagree from personal experience regarding U9S. I use SS135 in NCase M1 with 11700 with unlocked tdp and before that used AK120 mini. Both (with stock fans) were performing far better than U9S. SS135 is simply amazing. My only complaint would be that Thermalright uses all kinds of own fans and doesn't sell the TL-D versions with those reduced corners separately. For what it's worth, I find Thermalright coolers better than Noctua. Just ordered lga 1700 bracket for my SS135 as well in case I jump to Raptor/Meteor this or next year.

Interesting perspective. Mine comes from Ryzen, so differences between coolers are shrunk considerably, so yours is probably a better comparison; also my U9S use is push-pull so that's probably why, and I mainly pitted my SS135 against my C14S and found it to come up short. I wouldn't trust the U9S with the 5900X anyway I barely would the SS135, but probably wouldn't trust any of these Mini coolers

Fully agree on the fans - the clips stretched to barely fit P12 redux but frustrating af, annoying that TR doesn't sell/include regular 120mm clips.

The SS135 had some minor cosmetic-looking scratches that turned out quite deep and pitted my CPU, so I can't really comment as to the quality

 

[Raendor]

Interesting perspective. Mine comes from Ryzen, so differences between coolers are shrunk considerably, so yours is probably a better comparison; also my U9S use is push-pull so that's probably why, and I mainly pitted my SS135 against my C14S and found it to come up short. I wouldn't trust the U9S with the 5900X anyway I barely would the SS135, but probably wouldn't trust any of these Mini coolers

Fully agree on the fans - the clips stretched to barely fit P12 redux but frustrating af, annoying that TR doesn't sell/include regular 120mm clips.

The SS135 had some minor cosmetic-looking scratches that turned out quite deep and pitted my CPU, so I can't really comment as to the quality

Yeah, minis are ok for mainstream i5/i7/r5/r7, but nothing more for sure. Well, but itx is not the best place to put 16 core cpus and 400w gpus to begin with

my undervolted 275-300w 3080 with replaced pads and 125/150w 11700 feeling comfortable though. But it’s all thanks to these sffpc tower coolers getting more spread in the last few years.

 

[jonup]

I disagree from personal experience regarding U9S. I use SS135 in NCase M1 with 11700 with unlocked tdp and before that used AK120 mini. Both (with stock fans) were performing far better than U9S. SS135 is simply amazing. My only complaint would be that Thermalright uses all kinds of own fans and doesn't sell the TL-D versions with those reduced corners separately. For what it's worth, I find Thermalright coolers better than Noctua. Just ordered lga 1700 bracket for my SS135 as well in case I jump to Raptor/Meteor this or next year.

Contact TR directly and asked them for the fans. I build almost exclusively with TR coolers (previous gens so far none of the newer stuff). I had a fan develop a ticking noise early in the pandemic and couldn't find any fans on amazon. So I contacted them and they sent me a replacement. The only asked me to pay for the shipping. It took like a week for it to be delivered in the US from Taiwan.

As far as TR availability goes, they have an extensive selection of products on amazon here in the US though their PR is not doing them any favors. Not a ton of reviews out there especially in the YouTube space.

 

[thebluebumblebee]

1,850 RPM
That's all you need to know about this cooler.

 

[bonehead123]

'bout friggin time....

a "WHITE" component that is actually, you know, "WHITE" instead of 90-95% white + 5-10% black/grey/silver etc.......