Thermaltake TH120 ARGB Sync AIO Liquid Cooler Review

We have a lot of love here for Thermaltake and, it should be noted, with good reason. Being one of the few brands that are making more than a little effort to be innovative, be it their memory, power supplies, pc cases, or cooling solutions, we have never failed to be impressed with what they release! Put simply, they may not be the biggest name, but they’re determined to be one of the best!

Speaking of cooling solutions though, with the launch of the TH120, Thermaltake has a brand new AIO liquid cooler on the market, and, as such, you can rest assured we were more than anxious to check this one out!

Thermaltake TH120 ARGB Sync AIO Liquid Cooler

The TH120 has been released within a new range that also includes a 240mm and 360mm cooling option. For this review, however, we’ll be looking specifically at the 120mm design (maybe we’ll revisit those larger designs for another review at a later date). Packing loads of excellent features as well as full ARGB sync compatibility, this certainly looks to be ticking all the right boxes in terms of aesthetics and presentation. Let us, therefore, take a look at some of the key features this AIO cooler provides.

Features

• Supports MB RGB LED 5V Sync – ASUS, Gigabyte, MSI, ASRock, Biostar
• 16.8 million color RGB spectrum
• High-performance copper base plate accelerates the head conductivity
• Special LED Water Block design
• High reliability low profile pump provides quick liquid circulation
• Low evaporation tube decreases the loss of coolant effectivity
• 120mm powerful fan offers the best cooling performance
• Universal socket compatibility

Technical Information

For more in-depth specifications, please visit the official product page via the link here!

Socket Compatibility

What Does Thermaltake Have To Say?

“Thermaltake TH120 ARGB Sync is an all-in-one liquid cooler which includes a 120mm powerful high static pressure fans, and a high performance radiator along with a water block, 16.8M RGB color lumination with pre-set lighting modes via the smart fan controller, or synchronize with motherboard RGB software for stunning RGB colors.”

Exterior Packaging

The front of the packaging is easily recognizable as Thermaltake with the predominantly black coloring highlighted by the rainbow pattern used for the product name. In addition, Thermaltake goes big and bold with a nice clear image of the AIO cooler front and center.

The rear of the packaging lists all of this cooler’s key features including a number of images of the main components and a performance chart. While the information provided is good (and practically everything you could want to know), there is a significant portion of void space that could’ve potentially allowed for all of these details to be a little larger. It’s a very minor grumble though.

Accessories!

As an AIO cooler, it is primarily important that you first ensure that this is suitable for your processor/motherboard socket type. Given that the Thermaltake TH120 supports practically all major types, however, you shouldn’t have too many difficulties here regardless of what platform you have. Well, with the exception of AMD’s TR4 (Threadripper) and a few older Intel designs.

In terms of accessories, while we will go into these specifically in more detail later in the review (Installation), you have absolutely everything you need here to fit this cooler sans a screwdriver.

Additionally, while the manual you are provided with does feel a little cheap, it hasn’t skimped on the diagrams and information which is both easy to read and, perhaps more importantly, easy to understand.

A Closer Look

Having recently predominantly checked out larger 240-360mm coolers, it was a pleasure to finally have something a little more compact in my hands. While size is, of course, relative, the Thermaltake TH120 is surprisingly compact and, in addition, feels much lighter than you might expect for an AIO. In fact, this feels lighter in the hand than many air coolers.

As with any AIO liquid cooler, however, there are a lot of individual components that make up the overall design. Let us, therefore, take a closer look at some of them and see what makes this thing tick!

Pump Head

A closer look at the pump head shows the Thermaltake logo to the center with more than a few hints as to what might happen when you turn on the RGB lighting. The design is a fairly straight forward square which is pretty standard for most pump heads. However, this one does have a pretty sleek aesthetic with the slightly angled corners.

In a more practical sense, the length of the hose from the pump head to the radiator is decent, but not exactly generous. As such, depending on how you install this (and given that the logo can not be rotated) this would make the radiator best suited to being mounted on the exhaust area (rear) of the chassis.

Contact Plate

In terms of size, the contact plate is pretty much the exact same size as the pump head itself which should give you a solid indication that, regardless of the processor, this should provide more than enough coverage. In addition, and although this will be covered at greater length during the installation portion of this review, the simplistic design easily allows you to quickly swap out of the mounting bracket without the need for any screws.

Radiator

Of all the aspects of this AIO cooler, the radiator represents probably the most bland aspect. It’s a design set to hold a 120mm fan, it’s black, and it’s a rectangle. At the risk of that sounding glib, that does pretty much cover it.

While you do have ‘top-up’ access at the top (not that it should really be needed), there is no branding, no logos, and, as such, it’s pretty hard to distinguish this from any other standard 120mm AIO cooler radiator.

Fan

As you might have guessed by this point, the fan provided with this AIO cooler is a Thermaltake 120mm design. Coming with RGB lighting effects, while it isn’t particularly remarkable in terms of its aesthetics, things get taken to a whole new level when the light show begins!

In terms of specifics, the fan used is a Thermaltake TT-1225. A design we have seen them use on many of their cooling products and that is no criticism either as we’ve always found this to be a very strong and surprisingly quiet performer.

RGB in Action – Video

In terms of RGB lighting effects, while we can attempt to describe them, we always like to try and give you a video of them in ‘real-world’ action. You know that expression about a picture painting a thousand words right?…

As you can clearly see below, the lighting effects to both the radiator/fan and pump head are nice, bright, vivid, and come with a wide enough color pallet to suit any needs or wishes a user might have.

Overall

So, in terms of the design and our overall thoughts on it, we are more than impressed with the Thermaltake TH120. Yes, things are taken to a new level when the lights are turned on, but even with them off, it still carries a strong sleek aesthetic that we doubt many would take offence at.

The overall look and individual components, however, are only one part of this review. There is still the matter of how easy this is to work with, and, of course, how it performs in our tests. So, let’s start by fitting this to our test bench and telling you our thoughts on that process!

Installation

One of the usual starting points of installing an AIO is getting the correct mounting bracket fitted to the pump head. While on many occasions this can be quite a fiddly affair, the Thermaltake TH120 is remarkably straight forward. Offering various brackets, depending on your socket type, these simply slide over the base section of the pump head (via a recess), and literally within seconds, you can be switching from AMD to Intel. No screws require and it works perfectly!

Mounting

In terms of mounting, the system used is fairly standard and I take no issue with that at all. Why some cooler brands are seemingly hell-bent on attempting to re-invent the wheel I’ll never know! Thermaltake has a nice straight forward approach that, with the help of its excellent manual, should provide no difficulties for users of any level. I wouldn’t go as far to say that it’s foolproof, but as long as you read the manual and take your time, you shouldn’t go wrong here!

The only mild downside for beginners is that the pump head does not come with thermal paste pre-applied. While Thermaltake does give you some in a separate tube, this is the only tricky moment I could see a beginner facing!

Additionally, if your motherboard is not ARGB sync compatible, Thermaltake provides you with a manual controller that can be simply hooked up to any available SATA power port.

Overall Thoughts

From out of the box and onto our test bench, the Thermaltake TH120 took us roughly 5-10 minutes to install. Admittedly, the fact that this only has one fan played a significant roll in that (less cumbersome and fewer screws to fit), and again, it should be noted that the pump head mounting system is simplicity itself! On the whole, the installation process for the TH120 is very straight forward and for those experienced in AIO coolers, practically intuitive.

In terms of difficulty, I would happily recommend this cooler to either experienced hands or those brand new (and probably nervous) to the world of AIO cooling. Through the simple installation method and easy to understand manual, the Thermaltake TH120 is a doddle to fit!

Test System & Methodology

As you may appreciate, we review a lot of coolers here at eTeknix. As such, our prior results sheet was getting more than a little crowded. We have, therefore, applied a new system in which we have picked those coolers we consider most popular or most relevant to this design. Please note that we re-tested the Noctua NH-D15S as our base benchmark for cooling results.

Test system:

• Gigabyte Aorus Gaming 9 Z270
• Intel Core i7-7700K Delidded w/ NT-H1 under IHS
• Radeon R7 Passive GPU with 2GB VRAM
• 16GB Crucial DDR4 2400 MHz (only swapped to 8GB in the unlikely event of RAM compatibility issues)
• 512GB OCZ SSD
• be quiet! Dark Power Pro 800W
• Lian Li T80 Test Bench
• All testing conducted using NT-H1 thermal paste

We’d like to say a big thank you to Gigabyte, Noctua, Crucial, Intel, OCZ, be quiet!, and Lian Li for providing us with the above testing equipment and their on-going support.

Testing Methodology

• We always use Noctua Noctua NT-H1 thermal paste to make sure testing reveals the efficiency of the tested coolers not the efficiency of the bundled thermal paste
• Prime 95 is run for 10 minutes to calculate “load” results
• Unigine Superposition is run for 10 minutes to calculate “gaming” results
• The average temperature across all cores is taken
• Fans are left to operate at default PWM profile speeds unless otherwise stated
• For water cooling tests, all pumps have been operated at 12 volts unless otherwise stated
• Ambient temperatures should be between 21-23 degrees in all our tests unless otherwise stated
• Acoustic measurements are taken 10cm horizontally and 10cm vertically away from the CPU cooler with the VGA fan disabled
• Stock tests are performed using “out of the box” settings for the CPU
• Overclocking tests are performed with the CPU set to 5 GHz and 1.345v
• All coolers were tested under identical settings unless otherwise stated.
• There is approximately a 1-degree Celsius margin of error in our temperature recording software CPUID HW Monitor
• There is approximately a 1.5dBA margin of error with our Benetech GM1351 decibel meter
• In all these graphs we may have a few “reference” results of particular products that do not fit within that category for comparative purposes.

Software Used

• CPUID HWMonitor
• Prime 95
• Unigine Superposition (1080 Extreme)

Performance

Based on that fact that this is only a 120 AIO liquid cooler, in truth while I thought the results would be decent, I had a pretty strong inkling that based on the strong competition used in our comparative testing it would sit somewhere around the bottom third (or top third depending on how you look at it). Following our testing, however, the Thermaltake TH120 provided both temperature and acoustic performances well beyond my expectations.

As you can see in our charts below, while not topping the lists, the Thermaltake TH120 manages very excellent temperature control results even when compared to much larger AIO systems. More than that, however, the acoustic performance is one of the best we have ever seen.

Sometimes with smaller AIO coolers, the fans can get a little vocal in attempting to keep those temperatures under control. As you can see here, however, the Thermaltake TH120 was one of the quietest coolers we have ever tested and this even included when we ran our system with its overclocked settings. Put simply, I can’t remember ever seeing a 120 AIO liquid cooler performing this well in our tests and, trust me, I test a lot of coolers!

Stock Temperatures

Stock Acoustics

Overclocked Temperatures

Overclocked Acoustics

How Much Does it Cost?

The Thermaltake TH120 retails for a price in the region of £69.95. A price that is very competitive (and in many cases slightly cheaper) when you consider alternative 120 AIO liquid coolers out there from similar or more high-profile brands.

So, in other words, it’s (generally) less expensive, (arguably) looks better, and most importantly the chances are that in terms of temperature and noise control, this is almost certainly better than the vast majority of its competition. For £69.95, this is a genuine bargain!

Overview

Our test results pretty much speak for themselves. Despite the Thermaltake TH120 being comparatively much smaller than the other larger AIO’s we’ve tested, it was either as good or nearly as good in terms of temperature control and in terms of acoustic performance, it was amazingly quiet throughout our test process.

Aesthetically, it’s very nice on the eye whether the RGB is on or off and, as such, while I always suspected this was going to be good, I can genuinely say, hand on heart, Thermaltake has a truly great product on its hands here!

Should I Buy One?

If you are currently on the hunt for a new cooler and are erring towards AIO designs, there are no two ways about it, the Thermaltake TH120 is absolutely fantastic and practically flawless in any applicable remit I can think of. I know that with such a statement I invite comments suggesting I’m waxing lyrical or are ‘shilling’ for Thermaltake, but that is, hand on heart, my honest opinion.

I review a lot of coolers over the course of the year and I’m willing to state that for a 120mm design, the Thermaltake TH120 is one of the best (if not, the best) I’ve encountered so far in 2020. And quite possibly the best I have ever encountered in terms of its size, performance, price, and aesthetics. I am, of course, at this point more than a little curious to see what their larger designs from this series can do, but if you’re after a small, inexpensive, and really bloody good AIO cooler, the Thermaltake TH120 is one of the best I’ve ever seen!

Pros

• Strong aesthetics with the lights on or off
• Easy to install
• Ideal for those without ARGB sync compatible motherboards
• Excellent price
• Amazing performance in both temperatures and acoustics for a comparatively small AIO

Cons

• None

Neutral

• I really hope Thermaltake pushes the boat out with the marketing on this cooler design, because I’d hate to see this slip under consumers’ radar!