Phanteks Slim Low-Profile Heatsinks, 120mm PWM CPU Cooling PH-TC12LS

Looks great in my black Phanteks case. It blows air down and cools the surounding motherboard components. It keeps up and doesn't get hot and is pretty quiet. My opinion, overclocking is stupid it's not worth overheating and life shortening. Some of the air from the fan makes it to the RAM and the air goes through the fins and makes it to the processor plate directly below. I think it looks a lot better than some of the bulky heatsinks out there. Only problem is the installation. It's pretty frustrating lining up the LOOSE bar that goes over the processor without being able to touch it. But it's a good cooler and would recommend it.

I'm only giving this four stars because the initial unit that I bought came with a defective mount (the threads were too small on one of the four Intel 115x mounting screws). This made it impossible to install the heat sink. Thankfully with Amazon's great return service I was able to get a replacement shipped out very quickly. The replacement unit's hardware was all good so I was able to install without any further issues. The actual installation was somewhat challenging due to the design of the heat sink. I've been building computers for a couple of years now and this was by far the most difficult component I've had to install. You will definitely want a screwdriver with a magnetic head or some needle nose pliers for getting the mounting nuts in place once the heatsink is in place. Once installed however, the heatsink looks and functions exceptionally well. I have it on an mATX motherboard in a pretty cramped case (Silverstone U3S) and had to orient it with the heatsink overhanging my RAM slots. The design provides just enough clearance for this as long as you don't have any heat spreaders on your RAM (the RAM I have installed is Crucial Ballistix Sport). The fan is super quiet (near silent) and this does an excellent job keeping my i5 4590S cool. Running Prime95 it kept things under 60C and it idles around 29C. Bear in mind my CPU is the lower wattage version so it's designed to run cool as is, so I'm not sure how well this cooler would do in an overclocking situation (although I don't think this is really intended for that). Overall I'm very happy with the function and aesthetics of this cooler, even if it was a little difficult to install.

I don't want to sound like a salesman here but, I would have gladly paid a whole lot more for this CPU cooler. It looks beautiful, doesn't interfere with any of my other components, (even my reasonably high RAM sticks.) Did I mention it looks great? Plus it keeps my processor cool, and at the end of the day isn't that all that really matters?I setup a custom fan curve in my motherboards UEFI, so my idling temps are kind of high. but that's the price you pay for silence and wow this thing is quiet! According to MSI Command Center while I was writing this review my CPU temperature was at 40 degrees Celsius, While the fan was BARELY spinning at 292 rpm!

Product states that there is no RAM interference. Well, it does. I tried it in all 4 directions, one of them was almost ok, but it pushed the ram way too much, not acceptable. Besides, without minor modifications it wouldn't even fit (I had to remove the mounts on one side to fit it).My motherboard: Asus Z170i Pro Gaming. Ram: Corsair LED.However, if ram interference is not an issue for you, it cools decently well for its size.

There is only two reason why I knocked off two stars, and they are big flaws for an otherwise perfrect cooler which are:1. Fitment. It's advertised to fit mITX motherboards. This, however, has a problem with the MSI A88XI-AC. The cooler clears the RAM, but doesn't clear the PCIE slot. So because of this, my PNY 750ti went bad because once the cooler was fully seated, it was pressing against the GPU's spring loaded retention bolts, causing the heatsing to come off the GPU die and damaging it. I had to replace it with an EVGA 750Ti ACX FTW just because I thought that maybe it was the PNY card. Nope, same issue with this one. I had to put a piece of Teflon between the GPU and heatsink where they make contact.2. The mounting hardware. It's difficult to get the cooler mounted in a mITX case with the type of mounting hardware provided. If you don't have hands as steady as a robot, the mounting bracket will fall off with even the slightest force of gravity with any angle. The instructions tell you to mount the heatsink before you mount the fan. That helps a lot, but the fin stack is too big to keep a finger on the bracket before it falls off.Other than that, this cooler keeps my 860k way cooler than my 4690k with an H100i at almost a quarter of the price. The appearance is very sleek. All black (hardware is nickel plated but not visible once installed) with white fanblades. The fan cable has a nice black braided sleeve, making it look so much better. It's also extremely quite and perfect for a silent game streamer or HTPC

I'm not sure what they use but the screws, "stand offs" and brackets sure are made of garbage pot metal. I had a screw break on me and install is an incredible pain in the rear.

Great little cooler looks nice and performs for what I need. I put this on an Asus Impact VI in and NCase M1 but it would only fit in one direction. It didn't block anything for me. The fan that it comes with has decent performance and looks nice. I ended up replacing it with an EK Vardar FF5, and used Asus fan Xpert to control it. With an i5 it can manage a little overclock now. No matter what low profile coolers are limited for oc potential. With this setup with either fan, it was, and is silent no matter what I do.