Phanteks CPU Cooler with 5 x 8mm Dual Heat-pipes, 140mm Premium Fans and PWM Adaptor, Patented P.A.T.S Coating, PH-TC14PE_BK (Black)

UPS had just left and I unboxed my Phanteks PH TC14PE. I must have sat there 10 minutes just looking it over. This thing is a work of art. Beautiful.It is very well made. Tight manufacturing tolerances and an unblemished Blue finish. Packed like it was glass, in it's factory box. You hardly know where to grab it to get it out.I had watched the youtube videos on installation and was pretty sure of my actions, but you always come across a part or piece that stumps you. So I grab the instructions from the box, Looked over both sides , It slowly dawned on me ..I don't speak either of these languages.(?) My wife seeing my puzzled look reached into the box and handed me another one and said " Here try this one it's in "English and British" Again I get the puzzled look (?) I thought they were the same? She just laughed and walked away. Duh! She got me.But, the Phanteks comes with 2 boxes full of hardware. Everything you could ever possibly need, except a long screw driver.. One is marked AMD the other Intel. And some generic parts for both.As for the Intel stuff, (?) I know nothing. My last Intel was a 100mhz Pentium..a looong time ago. But, the AMD stuff was simple. It uses the standard AMD back plate. Watch the youtube video, it's great...and one is on the AM3+ motherboard.I have yet to punish my new FX-8350 to see what she will do. But I can tell you the temps look really good and it is silent. Unlike the Corsair A-70 it replaced. I only had a chance to run "Heaven" Bench mark at max everything before I went to work,I did run Prime 95 for the 32M setting but it was so quick there wasn't any temp rise.Watching "hardware Monitor" I saw that it did spin up for startup, but it is so quiet I never heard it. I opened the case door..Nope, still can't hear it.I used all the cables, the 2 to 1 splitter and the very long cables that come on the fans. Some have said the long cables are a problem, but I found I could lay the fans on the HDD cage and plug the 4 pin into the CPU header then as I mounted them on the cooler push the extra cable into the slot at the top of my case and into the cable management area behind the motherboard, so..I like the long cables.Mounting was easy. remove the AMD clips, put 4 screws to the old back plate (with spacers and bracket)plug in cpu fan, put cooler in place /with paste, 2 screw nuts to mount cooler. Put the fans on and DONE! I did use the diamond based Thermal Paste that came with the cooler. My FIRST time away from AS-5. We will see.I'll be back to update as soon as I get a day off to test better.So far...I really like it. It is LARGE, no doubt. It fit over my Corsair Low Profile ram no problem. Inside my Corsair 600t Case..plenty of room. Even enough to leave the Bitfenix 230mm Pro on the side case door.I did read reviews for about 3 weeks, before I chose this cooler. It is either 1st 2nd or 3rd (back and forth) But very close both ways with the Noctua, and Silver Arrow Extreme. I think variance in installations perhaps. That was good enough for me to pick on æsthetics. This cooler is beautiful! The "other" selling point is "It's one of the Top Three" CPU Air coolers in the world. I was sold..and still am.Very happy with this cooler.I will post photos.Note: Installed, Measuring from the face of the motherboard, to the top of the fins is 6 3/4 ".Upgraded case to Corsair Obsidian 900D in Oct. 2013Update: Oct. 26th 2013, Optimized air flow and put Phanteks 140mm's as case fans.FX-8350 on AMD "STRESS Test", Temps 51C all 8 cores at 4.5ghz, after 20 minutes.With room temp of 23C.Great CPU cooler, Highly recommended!Update2: OC'd FX-8350 to 4.7ghz with CPU temp at 53C during 8 core stress test after 25 minutes.

This product cools adequately...for the most part. When at 100% use I need to direct my floor fan at the computer in an attempt to cool it down. But that's not too out of the ordinary. However as compared to a similar product which I will not mention because I am not a shill for them, it cools MAYBE 1-2 degrees Celsius. Which is a fairly significant improvement for a power user such as myself, however for an average user a cheaper alternative of relatively similar strength will probably work just as well.One REALLY BIG PROBLEM with this heatsink is the fact it juts DIRECTLY TOWARD the RAM. You may be wondering why I care. Well, for some models of motherboard (and, frankly, I'd argue the good majority of motherboards, though I've used few motherboards in my time building/tinkering with computers) the RAM is REAAAALY close to the CPU seat, which makes installing this thing REALLY, REALLY, RE. EALLY HARD. I'm not sure I can stress that enough. My main problem was getting it screwed to the back. Trying to fit my big sausage mitts down there with it so close to everything was a challenge to say the least. I also scratched up my hands pretty bad. Not hospital worthy, but worthy enough to note.Otherwise, again, it's alright.

I chose the Phanteks due to smaller overall size than some competitors and the robust 8mm heatpipes. I chose high end air cooling over water primarily for the simplicity and safety but also because my case only has 1 140mm top exhaust, and I didn't want to be limited to a 240 rad with the front mounts. I also chose the Phanteks over a Noctua because of my ancient LGA1366 platform, I didn't want to wait for Noctua to ship me a mounting kit.Definitely a huge upgrade over my Evo212. I saw the load temps of my Xeon X5650 at my old 24/7 OC settings drop 10C. This cooler lets me run 4.6Ghz with 5C lower temp than the 212 let me push 4.4Ghz. I can now push a 4.85Ghz suicide run where before, with the Evo212, 4.4Ghz was basically the chip limit and 4.6Ghz was dangerous. I now run a modified BIOS with unrestricted TDP at 190Mhz base clock and the CPU is always at 22-23x multiplier, at 1.305-1.312 volts, for a speed of 4.18-4.37Ghz. Previously I was only comfortable running 178 base, unmodified BIOS, for a typical loaded speed of 3.74Ghz at 1.265 volts.My system now runs faster, quieter, at about 5C less (46C average compared to 51). Totally worth it.I had a huge pain of a time mounting this cooler. Apparently so does almost everyone else. Getting both screws on requires near godlike patience and a ton of luck. I also think mounting pressure is a little low but since I haven't used other 2-screw mounted heatsinks like Noctua's I can't compare. Keep in mind this heatsink design is from 2011.The first fan will interfere with tall RAM heatsinks, even with my basic RAM covers the fan sits right on top of the first channel. While you can obviously move the fan higher, you would theoretically want the first fan to be as low as possible so it can blow more air across the exposed heatpipes coming from the heatsink base, the hottest part of the heat pipes.Huge pro for me:The cooler is so close to my rear exhaust (something like a 1cm gap) that the 2nd fan's output can spin up my rear exhaust fan. Wow! I put a Corsair 120mm HP on the rear exhaust and it basically acts like a third heatsink fan.The only downside is the Phanteks fan brackets are actually sized for 120mm fans, their 140mm fans have a custom screw placement. This means you can't swap in other 140mm fans. But the stock fans are great enough as it is, quiet at normal RPMs and as loud as any other high quality fan I've bought when spun up (Yes, even Noctuas, because air noise can't be silenced). No real problem there.Would I buy it again? Eh, maybe. I think I'd try a Dark Rock or the NH-D15 just to see if mounting is easier.