Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 SE CPU Cooler

The Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 SE is a dual-tower air cooler for desktop processors, built for anyone who wants serious cooling headroom on a high-end CPU without putting liquid inside the case. Two aluminium fin stacks sit either side of a pair of 120 mm PWM fans, spreading heat across a far larger surface than a single-tower cooler manages and letting both fans turn more slowly for the same result. It is rated to handle up to 245 W, which covers current desktop chips comfortably, and it stands 157 mm tall — measure that against your case's stated CPU cooler clearance before ordering. Mounting hardware covers LGA1700, AM5 and AM4, so it fits current Intel and AMD platforms, and the cooler is backed by a 6 year warranty. This is the cooler to fit when a stock heatsink is throttling under sustained load: long renders, compiles, video exports or a full evening of gaming. Air cooling also suits a desk in this climate better than many people expect, because there is no pump to fail, nothing to leak over a motherboard, and nothing to worry about when the power cuts out mid-session. In a warm room the extra fin area is what keeps fan noise down, since the cooler does not need to spin up to full speed to hold temperatures steady.