How Much Does it Cost?
Thermaltake is winning all my praise for this cooler, as it’s launching with a very reasonable retail price of just £129.98. Considering the top coolers from ASUS, NZXT and more can easily cost double that, yet have the same features, and are smaller at 360mm in size. Seriously, you’re simply just getting a lot more for your money here, and I think the price is very reasonable for such incredible cooling performance.
Overview
There was no doubt in my mind that a massive 420mm AIO cooler from Thermaltake was going to deliver some pretty killer performance today. They’ve been making one right move after another in recent years, delivering award-winning cases, coolers, and fans, many of which are leaving the competition in the dust in regard to their innovative designs, build quality, performance and prices. That’s certainly holding true here, and while the TH420 doesn’t exactly innovate on features or design, it’s just big, powerful, and surprisingly affordable for what it is.
If you’re looking to tame some of the most demanding CPUs on the market, you’re going to need a massive cooler. Our i9-12900K is no joke when it comes to high-performance computing, and on standard coolers, it’ll easily top 100c in benchmarks. That’s a lot of heat, and if you don’t have a good CPU cooler, it’ll throttle its performance constantly to keep cool. That’s clearly not a problem for it with the TH420, as when I overclocked it, it delivered the lowest load temperature we’ve seen yet, while simultaneously delivering the highest Cinebench R23 score we’ve had to date.
The stock fan curve is a little on the aggressive side, but I like that it’s tuned for performance out of the box, that pretty much seems the right thing for this cooler. However, if you’re a fan of silent computers like I am, you’ll appreciate that these large 140mm fans can still move some serious airflow at lower RPM. Dial them down to around 30% and sacrifice slightly higher, but still exceptionally low temperatures, and you’ll be getting the benefits of both silence and high performance.
Should I Buy One?
If you had a case that can support a 420mm radiator, and you have a CPU that demands some serious cooling, it’s a no-brainer really. It’s got performance that beats basically everything, and a price that makes it seem like a total bargain, as it costs similar to most 240mm AIOs from other brands, and it’s only about £20 more than the best air coolers on the market. If it fits your case, you would be mad not to have one!
