Phanteks PH-TC14CS CPU Cooler Review

Specifications, Availability and Pricing

With such a long list of specifications, I find it best to attack it from the top down and try to cover a few things as I go.

The PH-TC14CS, C-style CPU cooler is made mostly of aluminum fins that have the Physical Anti-Oxidant Thermal Shield (P.A.T.S.) and then are coated with Cold Plasma Spray Coating (C.P.S.C.) technology to enhance conductivity and give the fins their color. Delivering the heat to the fins from the copper base plate are five 8mm heat pipes, both of which are Nickel plated for looks and antioxidant reasons. The version of the PH-TC14CS I received was the white one and it's the fans that are white in this arrangement, the fins are more of a grey/silver with my version. If you don't like white, you can get the fins in red, blue or black with fans that match.

Cooling this C-style cooler is a pair of Phanteks' PH-F140 fans. In these fans you have nine blades inside of a white frame (blades are color matched to fin color) that incorporates a Maelstrӧm Vortex Booster (MVB) design. Each of the fans, one clipped above blowing down into the cooler and the other under it pulling air through the cooler and pushing it a the motherboard, will spin at around 1300 RPM delivering up to 88.6 CFM of airflow. These UFB bearing fans are rated to spin for 150,000 hours and have a PWM chip to control the fans speed.

With both fans and the body together, the PH-TC14CS is a big boy to install on your motherboard. Fans included it weighs in at 900 grams and takes up a lot of room over the socket and even over the memory. With outside dimensions of 160mm by 151mm you may need to spin this cooler around to get it to line up well with other components on the motherboard. The really nice thing about the PH-TC14CS is that even with the top fan on the cooler, it stands only 140.5mm tall and only 112mm with the top fan off the cooler. Unlike the 95W limit of the Noctua, the PH-TC14CS seems geared for battle with just about any processor an almost any situation as long as your motherboard and memory allow for it.

Along with the cooler and fans you get quite an extensive hardware package, a few extra goodies and a five year warranty, but at what cost; surprisingly not that much, especially considering the price of the Noctua we just looked at.

Going through the usual channels, I found that the PH-TC14CS, as I received it, is currently listed for $76.99 at Newegg. As for other colors, well they will cost you $4 more to own. Newegg shows the blue version, but if you want the black or red one, I suggest you look at Directron.com because they have all four colors in stock. As for how it compares to the Noctua we just looked at, you definitely get much more CPU cooler and fans for your dollar at the same price point, so let's get to it and let the results do the talking.