Cooling Thermalright's TRUE Spirit 140 "Power" - New Air Cooling King? Mini Review

@doyll, when I modded my TY-140s I had to cut away some plastic to access the back of the bearing. The fans are definitely not mod or maintenance friendly, and it's a simple cheap-as-chips sleeve with oil in it, nothing "enhanced" or "hyper-flow" about it.

I put a couple of drops of sewing machine oil on the shaft and in the sleeve (the easy part) and after putting the sealing cap on I packed the gap with milliput and covered it with a thin square of plastic. I'll know tomorrow whether or not it worked.

@Maki role, I didn't notice any difference at all, primarily because the TY-140/147 is so quiet up to about 1100rpm. If there was a difference you'd need super hearing to perceive it. And I'd say that a pair of 1000rpm 140mm fans would be adequate for the TS140P, so now I have to start testing those as well!

 

Thanks Lenny

Maki, I can attest to how quiet the TY fans are. I'm running TY-140/147 as case and TY-143 on my cooler and can't hear system fans at all under normal use The HDDs make more noise by far. I have a hard time hearing them at 1000-1100rpm when system is rendering graphics. Room is very quiet. I can hear leaves rustling out side with a light breeze.

When setting at my bench I have to look at fans to know is open test system 70cm away to tell if it is on or off.

 

+1 to this. If ever there was a reason for me to get SSDs, this is it.

 

Great minds think alike. SSD is next on my list for test system.

 

Very detailed review mate! Nice work!

 

Thanks TG

The NH-D15 will be available within the next week (so I hear) and I might be reviewing it. It would be nice to see a head-to-head comparison between it and the D14, and having done this review I can see that happening.

 

NH-D15 would be a good one to review. And NH-U14S.

 

NH-D15 will be shipping by the end of this week from Quiet PC. Sadly, price is bloated at £77.95 plus delivery. OCUK have it on pre-order for £77.99.

 

Well Chiploco in their NH-D15 review seem to like Noctua's newest flagship quite a lot. Looking forward to seeing how it fairs in your testing when it arrives.

 

It's just silly that even with my Fractal XL this cooler is too tall.

Sent from my Transformer Prime TF201 using Tapatalk

 

TRUE Spirit 140 Power should fit in Define XL no problem.

Fractal Design Define XL spec is 180mm CPU clearance. And Define
http://www.fractal-design.com/home/product/cases/discontinued-products/define-xl-black-pearl

XL R2 spec is 170mm.
http://www.fractal-design.com/home/product/cases/define-series/define-xl-r2-black-pearl

Define R2 spec is 165mm and PH-TC14PE fit.. but just.
http://www.fractal-design.com/home/product/cases/discontinued-products/define-r2-black-pearl

 

This is a prize example of how not to review a CPU cooler. They are testing all these coolers with different fans, which means it's really a test of fans, not coolers. So the NH-D15 with one or two 1500rpm fans beats the PH-TC14PE with one or two 1200rpm fans... groundbreaking! At least another reviewer had the presence of mind to highlight this crucial difference between the coolers. It would be really interesting to see how the PH-TC14PE performs with NF-A15 fans.

I think I'm going to get increasingly irked as reviews of this new cooler crop up, and frankly I'm already a bit irked that Noctua -- somewhat disingenuously -- have "improved" the fans rather than the actual heatsink itself. I had to do my own tests to verify unambiguously that the TS140P trashes the NH-D14, and I suspect it will deal the NH-D15 the same card as well. It'll have to wait though as I don't have £80 spare for the D15 at the moment!

 

Take a deep breath Lenny. Now slowly let it out.

I like seeing results of coolers with included fan / fans. But like you say, a reference fan / fans need to be used to test the cooling ability.

 

Heh

I agree that it can be nice to see how well a cooler performs with included fans, but it is very misleading if a company releases a "new" cooler with fans that are faster. 200rpm might not seem like much but it can really boost performance, especially when it's 200rpm on a 140mm fan, from 1300rpm to 1500rpm. It's a big jump, and it makes me facepalm seeing so many people (from other forums) say "Wow, the D15 is way better than the D14." Is it? I don't think so...perhaps 2C tops, which is about what the TS140P achieves.

 

Yeah I had to check the Fractal site just to make sure. I have the R2 (which is what I was referring to) for the main rig and the original for my server. Sorry to have not been clearer. Shame that I've got it that way around, the cooler would have fit in the original you're right!

 

It will fit in the Define XL R2. Worst case is you will have to push the top and bottom of sidecover to get them to catch the latching mechanism and pipes will just rub little groves in the sound mat on inside of side cover when you slide it shut.

 

Would that not bend the motherboard downwards?

 

I've never had a problem doing this. It's not like you are exerting a lot of pressure. The sidepanel flexes and the sound matt compresses.

If you think you are pushing too hard look at the marks the pipes make on sound matt and cut groves for them. You can mount sidecover in bottom track and slide it to front and back a few time so the heatpipes can mark the matting.

 

Surprised not to see many reviews of the TS140P and similarly the NH-D15. I would like to see an OC3D review of the NH-D15 because I like TTL's unabashed and unbiased review style - eg, if the NH-D15 is sh!t, he'll say it.

 

For all you Yanks:

TRUE Spirit 140 Power delivered for $45.53

https://www.superbiiz.com/detail....FAN-TS140P
Apply coupon code SBZTECH15 for 15% off your order.

$42.99 - $6.45 coupon savings + $6.99 S&H = $45.53