Thermalright TRUE Spirit 140 Direct CPU Cooler Review

Chad's CPU Cooler Test System Specifications

• Motherboard: ASUS ROG Maximus VIII HERO (Intel Z170) - Buy from Amazon / Read our review
• CPU: Intel Core i7 6700K - Buy from Amazon / Read our review
• Memory: Patriot Viper 4 3000MHz 4X4GB - Buy from Amazon / Read our review
• Graphics Card: MSI GeForce GTX 1060 6GB OC - Buy from Amazon / Read our review
• Storage: Corsair Neutron XTi 480GB - Buy from Amazon / Read our review
• Case: INWIN D-Frame - Read our review
• Power Supply: Thermaltake Toughpower DPS 1050W - Buy from Amazon / Read our review
• OS: Microsoft Windows 10 Home 64-bit - Buy from Amazon
• Software: RealTemp 3.70, AIDA64 Engineer 5.75.3900, and CPU-z 1.77.0 x64

To see our testing methodology and to find out what goes into making our charts, please refer to our CPU Cooler Testing and Methodology article (October 2016) for more information.

Thermal Results

With our stock settings at play for this round of testing, we see that the True Spirit 140 Direct is a strong contender. Only three degrees behind a fat AIO, and within a range of many popular and more expensive CPU cooling solutions. The 56.25-degree result in this test does not make them the champion, but the result is awfully good considering size and that it is not a water cooler.

Still using PWM to control the fan, we applied our overclocked profile to the motherboard and ran another test. The True Spirit 140 Direct held its ground and produced a 72-degree result at this time. Just two degrees behind a cooler twice its size, and more efficient than many more expensive coolers below it, we feel Thermalright has made their point well.

We were able to gain another 3.25 degrees in performance by forcing the fan to run at full speed. At this time, the 68.75-degree result put this cooler right on the heels of a dual tower cooler design, and only two degrees out of first place.

Noise Level Results

You have to nearly climb on top of the TY-140 fan during the stock testing to even hear a slight hum. The fan topped out at 660 RPM in this run of the test, and at that time there was only 25 dB of noise coming from it. If you are more than a foot away from the chassis, it is likely you will never hear it under normal conditions.

Still, under control of PWM voltage to the fan, our first run with overclocked settings still leaves the True Spirit 140 Direct quite quiet. Moving into the audible scale at 30 dB, with the fan turning at a speed of 965 RPM, we still feel the claim to silent cooling on the box to be valid.

Even as we changed the BIOS to push the fan to one hundred percent of power, we only got 35 dB of noise to register on the meter. At this time our fan was spinning at 1400 RPM, which is over the rated speed, but still within plus or minus ten percent. To get the best from the cooler and leave it running full speed all of the time is tolerable, and for the extra boost in performance, we think it is worth it.