Phanteks opened their cooling account with a bang, watching as their dual tower PH-TC14PE beat the Noctua D14 and Thermalright Silver arrow test after test, especially with good a hefty overclock applied (big OC FTW
). The Phanteks lead extends when tested in a case as the designers have informed me that these conditions are where the P.A.T.S technology activates and shows its potential to add to the heatsink's cooling muscle. Phanteks PH-TC14PE Club
So here we have it, an early discussion thread as this is going to be a massive talking point for weeks to come with a scheduled release towards the end of September and RRP of £69.99 (MRSP $89.99) for the frosty white edition or £72.99 (MSRP $99.99) for the coloured editions.
After reading those review web sites which all reviews were published almost at the same date
, the difference vs D14 and SA is exactly like D14 vs SA at many review sites, imo within margin of error among top performers.
Maybe we should wait more reviews to get better conclusion.
About the fan, why the heck they still making 3 wires fan which is considered obsolete for today pc cooling fan instead of pwm 4 wires fan, a disadvantage score from me.
Originally Posted by Bing;14783503
Interesting new comer.
After reading those review web sites which all reviews were published almost at the same date
, the difference vs D14 and SA is exactly like D14 vs SA at many review sites, imo within margin of error among top performers.
Maybe we should wait more reviews to get better conclusion.
About the fan, why the heck they still making 3 wires fan which is considered obsolete for today pc cooling fan instead of pwm 4 wires fan, a disadvantage score from me.
yes, 4-pin PWM fans would have been a nice feature. The fans are quiet at full speed, but still, the ability to have the PWM controlled would be very useful. Hopefully Phanteks will rectify this 'mistake' in the future.
Both are very good coolers performance wise. It is clear to me which looks better tho
.
i like the way Phanteks make a big cooler (the D14 and SA are also big) but unlike the SA, it doesnt cause interference issues with the front fan and tall RAM. it was physically impossible to use my corsair dominator RAM with the SA because of the fan mounting method keeping the fan in a static position. With the Phanteks cooler, i was able to just place the fan clip higher up on the heatsink (same as the D14) for plenty of clearance.
price wise, the SA is cheaper, but i reckon that this Phanteks cooler will drop £5-10 within a few weeks of its launch
The Silver Arrow still represents the best value for money in my opinion, especially seeing this quote from Vortez:
Quote:
The Phanteks PH-TC14PE does not come cheap and this is perhaps its main downfall, albeit not a major one if supreme performance is what you are after. At 79.90Euros (£70) for the silver edition and 84.90Euros (£75) for the coloured variants, the Phanteks is one of the most expensive coolers currently on the market. Against the likes of Prolimatech's Genesis (60Euros/£60), it represents good value since two quality fans are already bundled and even against the Noctua NH-D14 (72.90Euros/£65), the price difference is small. Certainly the extra premium warrants the performance benefits and aesthetics. However, once again Thermalright proves to be a worthy challenger with its Silver Arrow. At 49.90Euros/£50, it is a mere fraction of the Phanteks' price whilst still delivering the majority of the performance. In terms of value for money, the Thermalright Silver Arrow remains untouched so it remains to be seen how Phanteks aim to tackle that. Nonetheless, the PH-TC14PE is still appropriately priced and with a 5 year warranty to back it up, you get what you pay for.
Originally Posted by kevindd992002;14784077
On the side note, I just bought a SA and haven't opened it yet! Would it be wise to just sell this brand new and buy this Phanteks?
Keep the SA if you change you might only get 1 degree C drop out of it. The release is around September I think.
I know (from the reviews I have read) the Phantek has beaten the two major coolers but not by a lot.
I think if you want cooler you will have to use other methods like water. It seems that heatsinks are at there best and can get any better with current technology, although I would like to be proved wrong.
Anyways, I would say this is equal to the NH-D14 based on the Vortez test. I don't like the top plate but that's not something to drive somebody away when it performs so well.
Originally Posted by HybridCore;14784374
Anyways, I would say this is equal to the NH-D14 based on the Vortez test. I don't like the top plate but that's not something to drive somebody away when it performs so well.
Another top cooler arrives. However, I do not see its 1C advantage is thermally significant enough. Other factors like price, mounting mechanism friendliness, aesthetics...etc will probably make the decision for a potential buyer.
One peculiar thing is that I am not able to find info about this company, Phanteks Thermal Solutions. The first 5 pages in a Google search of 'Phanteks' return nothing. I simply cannot believe this company does not have a website. This is not a good first impression nor a good start for this new comer.
Originally Posted by windfire;14784710
I simply cannot believe this company does not have a website. This is not a good first impression nor a good start for this new comer.
The white one and red one look boss. If I didn't already have a Silver Arrow I'd definitely grab one of these. Maybe I'll pick one up for my secondary rig.
OK, it's a fine cooler. It has four more fins than the D14 on each finstack, and since its fins are about the same size, it has greater surface area. And yet it barely beats the D14 and the SA when using the same fans. Perhaps the extra height of its finstack towers just go to waste because there isn't much fan up there.
It has five 8mm heatpipes. 5x8mm in addition to the additional surface area, and we get a marginal improvement. That said, the arrangement is aesthetically nice.
The mounting system looks like a combination of the best features of Noctua, Prolimatech and (like a cherry on top with that center screw) Thermalright. Nicely done.
The fans are held on by such a copy of the Noctua system that you have to wonder if Noctua wasn't involved here. And those "fan adaptors" (p6) - where do you get those? I've lost one of mine and I feel bad about contacting Noctua for such a small thing.
It's nice that they included three sets of clips.
So far, it seems to be an optimized D14. It barely beats the Silver Arrow and the D14 under fannage, but is quite impressive passively. But the ultimate disappointment:
WHY THE #%%#$&^^!!! DID THEY MAKE THEIR FANS VOLTAGE CONTROLLED???? Couldn't they learn from the mistake of Noctua and the success of Thermalright? What were they thinking? PWM is the only way to go. Even Gigabyte is abandoning Voltage control on at least some of its motherboards.
So, to make this heatsink worth getting you need to buy TY-140's to put in it. So close, and such a miss: this heatsink is not worth the extra money it costs. If you can get it for the price of a D14 it will be OK. But for the marginal improvement it gives with fans, not worth any extra price.
Worth the extra price only if you don't use fans in it.
But this: Sahil, thanks for the splendid review. As always, you do amazing work.
I'm waiting for Noctua to switch to PWM fans. That will change the landscape.
Great news , I'm currently looking for a good looking/performing and quiet cooler.
It looked like Noctua is my best choice , except it's not good looking
If this is as quiet as Noctua I'm sold , one last question is where to get it ?
Originally Posted by RobotDevil666;14792096
Great news , I'm currently looking for a good looking/performing and quiet cooler.
It looked like Noctua is my best choice , except it's not good looking
If this is as quiet as Noctua I'm sold , one last question is where to get it ?
atm it is available from caseking. i think it is being released for purchase at the end of September.
i found it very similar to the D14 in terms of noise
Just read some of the Vortez review. It's just really bothering me when they say it "easily pulls ahead of the competition" when it's up by .25C. That's close enough for margin of error.
All in all, looks like a very solid cooler, but it's just too expensive. I guess that extra 50% markup is for the colors.
Originally Posted by lucas4;14795532
atm it is available from caseking. i think it is being released for purchase at the end of September.
i found it very similar to the D14 in terms of noise
Originally Posted by RobotDevil666;14796590
Looks like they don't ship to England , at least there is no option in drop box to pick England when registering.
Originally Posted by RobotDevil666;14796590
Looks like they don't ship to England , at least there is no option in drop box to pick England when registering.
So in all reviews where they compared it to the D14 it was always (slightly) better (0.5K - 4.5K).
In four revies it was better than the Silver Arrow (1.2K at most) and in two reviews the Silver Arrow was better than the Phanteks (1.3K at most).
Obviously the Phanteks is an excellent cooler, slightly better than the D14 and at least on par with the SA, but considering the fact that the Phanteks cooler uses louder fans compared to the Silver Arrow, wich also do not support PWM, to me the Silver Arrow still seems to be the better choice overall especially if you look at the price wich is 80€ for the Phanteks compared to the 50€ for the Silver Arrow.
The Phanteks does seem to have superb build quality and a very good mounting system, though, and the price will go down a bit, too obviously.
With better fans this could've been probably the clear #1.
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