ThermalrightPeerless Assassin 120 SE CPU Cooler, 6 Heat Pipes AGHP Technology, Dual 120mm PWM Fans, 1550RPM Speed, for AMD:AM4 AM5/Intel LGA 1700/1150/1151/1200/1851,PC Cooler

This air cooler was surprisingly good for the price. First of all, it was packaged very neatly and protected very well. It has a really nice, big heatsink and good fans with it. It's quiet, and comes with a lot of mounting hardware, so no matter what motherboard you have, you can use it. Although hard to get on first, it is a relatively simple set up process. Set the backplate for you motherboard under it. Put the spacers on the holes, place the retention brackets over the spacers, and then screw it in until the backplate and retention bracket are both snug against the motherboard. Take off the plastic piece from the heatsink, and then screw is onto the retention brackets. Take the fans, and position them with on ein the middle and the other on one side of the heatsink, both facing the same way and use the clips to keep them onto the heatsink. The fans also come with a splitter cable to minimize the total amount of fan headers needed. My one gripe is the fan clips. I just don't like them, they're somewhat hard to get on properly. If the fan clips were easier to get on, there would be no reason to get a different air cooler without rgb.

I've been building PCs for over a decade, and the Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 SE is hands down one of the best air coolers I've used—especially at this price point.Pros:Outstanding cooling performance: Easily keeps my Ryzen 7 5800X under 70°C under full load. It's right up there with much more expensive coolers like the Noctua NH-D15.Quiet operation: Even under load, the included fans are whisper quiet. Idle temps are practically silent.Easy installation: The mounting system is simple and solid. Thermalright includes all necessary hardware and clear instructions.Excellent build quality: The heatsink is hefty and well-made, and the fans feel durable with no rattling or vibrations.Great value: For around $35–$40, you're getting premium-tier performance without breaking the bank.Cons:Large size: Make sure to check your RAM clearance and case dimensions. It's a big cooler, so compact builds may have issues.Plain aesthetics: It's not flashy—no RGB or aggressive design—but if you care more about performance than looks, it’s perfect.Bottom line:If you're looking for top-tier air cooling without paying premium-brand prices, the Peerless Assassin 120 SE is a no-brainer. It punches way above its weight class and is one of the best deals in PC cooling right now.

I turned on PBO for my Ryzen 9 7900 to get closer to the performance of the R9 7900x. I did this to fix stuttering after upgrading my GPU. With PBO off, the CPU struggles to keep the GPU fed. Anyway, running at the normal 88 watt TDP, the AMD Wraith cooler that comes with the CPU was adequate. Not great, but it kept the CPU temperature in line. Really stressing the CPU with modern games and a modern GPU (upgraded from 3060 Ti to 9070 XT), the Wraith simply couldn't handle it. Temps were spiking and the CPU was thermal throttling. I bought this cooler and installed it. Immediately, it kept the average temperature while gaming to the mid-upper 60s C with the occasional spike into the 70s or 80s. Those spikes occur only under particularly heavy load such as loading a new area in a game. Overall, I've been very impressed with this cooler for my CPU. I just installed it today, so I haven't got any long term data yet, but if nothing changes, my review will stay at 5 stars.

This product is a life changer, I bought this because I was sick and tired of the old AMD stock cooler, before my cpu temperatures were 80F, and now it's as cold as my refrigerator. This CPU cooler is very easy to install, you will need one small screwdriver, and one long one. It makes almost little to no sound and it looks amazing in my build. The only downside is it's really big and if you have 4 ram sticks (I.E 4x16 DDR4 or DDR5) it's going to block one of them or more specifically lay above, but this shouldn't be a problem since you wont need to change your ram often.

Cooling system works very well, but there was one small problem on installation. If I install the fans the way they were supposed to be installed, they hit my memory chips (see photo). I had to flip them over to the other side of the CPU and draw air through the coolers versus pushing air through the coolers (see second image). I’m not sure if that’s as efficient but it seems to be working OK.