Phanteks PH-TC14PE CPU Cooler Review

[Apoptosis]

Phanteks PH-TC14PE CPU Cooler Review

Today we are looking at a new offering from a company you might not have heard of before, Phanteks. There has been some buzz about their first HSF offering, the PH-TC14PE. It is a twin tower twin 140mm fan CPU air cooler. Join us as we see how well the Phanteks PH-TC14PE CPU cooler handles our Intel Core i7-930 test system and if its worth of the buzz that brought it to our attention.

In all of our testing the Phanteks PH-TC14PE did very well. Leaving all air coolers behind and giving the Corsair H100 a run for the best performing cooler in our charts. I don't have anything truly bad to say about the Phanteks PH-TC14PE other than its not on sale state side yet, only in Europe.

Article Title: Phanteks PH-TC14PE CPU Cooler Review
Article URL: http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1759/1/
Pricing At time of Print: 79.90 EUR

[Kaos Kid]

That's $114 US...Sorta cool but for that kind of money I'd probably still go with the Corsair H100. Of course by the time they get US distributors the price could drop considerably too, just depends on how well it is received in Europe.

[bubba]

I wouldn't look at conversion rates to figure the price. You can pick up a Noctua NH-D14 on the egg for $86 shipped. Overseas looking at around 73 EURO ($103) less shipping.

Will be interesting to see where the price does end up, but I would figure around the $80 mark like the Noctua.

[sbohdan]

That's $114 US...Sorta cool but for that kind of money I'd probably still go with the Corsair H100. Of course by the time they get US distributors the price could drop considerably too, just depends on how well it is received in Europe.

As Bubba said: Don't worry about conversion - in $US it will likely to be about the same in numbers as the euros (ex. EU89=$89).

It would of been nice to see some more coolers in the charts (noctua, corsairA70 or A50 etc.)and see the temps with the cooler faced upwards (there is usually some diference). Otherwise, I do like the review and the cooler looks awesome. I wonder what difference would be from a little lapping of the base?

[Tator Tot]

Lapping the base usually helps a good bit; but you need to lap the CPU too. And that becomes time consuming and annoying sometimes.

It can also cause unlapped coolers to perform poorly at times.

[Apoptosis]

Not sure if you saw what I added on page 2:

The Phanteks CPU coolers and fans will be available at Newegg, Tigerdirect, and Amazon here in North America sometime around the middle of November. The pricing on these coolers will be as follows:

standard color (white) at $89.99 MSRP
color editions (orange/red/blue) at $99.99 MSRP
all color fans at $24.99 MSRP

[Athlonite]

Just WOW I love the color scheme now if only the fans were just white with different colored LEDs instead
great performance but hows it stack up against the D14 which is what I take this to be aiming at competing with

and nice to finally see a shot showing dimms of the tall variety and dimm slot overhang THANKYOU

[bubba]

Just WOW I love the color scheme now if only the fans were just white with different colored LEDs instead
great performance but hows it stack up against the D14 which is what I take this to be aiming at competing with

I had misplace my D14 (or I thought) but I put it in system and forgot about it. I have since swapped it for something else. Not sure when I can squeeze it in to redo the D14 on the current system.

and nice to finally see a shot showing dimms of the tall variety and dimm slot overhang THANKYOU

Got Nate to get me some of the RAM for images just like that. You would be amazed how many times I get "can X ram fit with Y cooler"

[Athlonite]

Thanks Bubba seeing as most third party coolers these days are aimed at the enthusiast as is most high end ram which generally doesn't come on stock green PCB's and have some rather large heat spreaders attached it's nice to see how it affects the use of these non standard dimms

although I do wish the cooler makers would take into account the height of some high end dimms before designing their HSF's and either increase the height between the lowest fins and base it's not a hard thing to do Tuniq did it with the tower 120 I had no problems with my Corsair DHX heat spreaders same with my current Baram the front fan is 1mm higher than the top of the HS