With the Macho 120, Thermalright has a cooler in its portfolio which features specially aligned heatpipes as well as a fan with 120 millimeter diameter. Furthermore this cooler comes with a very attractive price tag, which makes it interesting for customers who don't want to spend too much on a cooler but who still want to get decent performance. 
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On the following pages we will show you what the Thermalright Macho 120 tower cooler is capable of.
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Preview
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Specifications and included in delivery
Specifications
| Model | Thermalright Macho 120 |
| Material | Aluminium / Copper / Nickel |
| Dimension (D x W x H) | 120 mm x 102 mm x 150 mm |
| Weight | 730 g with fan |
| Fan | 1 x 120 mm x 120 mm x 25 mm PWM, 600 - 1500 rpm |
| On the manufacturer's website | Thermalright Macho 120 |
Included in delivery
- Cooling block
- 1 x 135mm Fan
- Mounting kit for Socket LGA 775 / LGA 1155 / LGA 1156 / LGA 1366 / LGA 2011 AMD: FM1, AM2 (+) / AM3 (+) / 754/ 939 / 940
- Thermalright Thermal compound
- Mounting components
- Manual
The Macho 120 comes well protected from outer influeces, that none of the parts included will be damaged during transportation. Thermalright includes not only an Intel but also an AMD mounting kit. Therefore the cooler is compatible to both worlds right out of the box. Thermalright also ships this cooler with one of their own fans in the delivery. The fan belongs to Thermalright's SilentWing PWM series and measures 120 millimeter in diameter.
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Construction and design
Construction
If we had to define the type of cooler the Macho 120 is, then we would say it is a single tower cooler. This type of cooler comes with the advantage that manufacturers can realise a huge cooling area. The disadvantage over down-draft coolers is that no air is directed towards the motherboard directly, therefore non of the onboard components receive direct cooling. Thermalright builds their Macho 120 from aluminium and copper. You can find a copper base plate which leads the dissipation power to five heatpipes which all have a diameter of six millimeters. Altogether there are 30 fins soldered to the heatpipes for perfect heat transfer.
Design
We did not see any manufacturing mistakes on our sample, and it seems that it has been very well made which means that build quality is on an good level. The heatpipes do have different bending radius, which results in additional vortex. Furhtermore this cooler comes with a total of 30 fins. Thermalright chose a to go for straight fins. There is no such thing as for example a saw tooth design on one side of the fins.
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Mounting
Thermalright ships their Macho 120 with mounting kits that are compatible to the most common Intel and AMD sockets. Basically mounting the cooler is simple but still we'd recommend to consult the manual since there are quite a few pieces which need to be put together before the cooler can actually be mounted. This sounds weird but in fact, the screws which tighten the cooler to the board are on the backside of the motherboard.
Thermalright's Macho 120 is a reasonably sized cooler which easily fits on todays ATX or mATX motherboards. Thanks to the heatpipes, which have been arranged in a special way the cooler finds plenty of space next to memory with huge heatspreaders.
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Testsystem and testroutine
Testsystem
| Mainboard | ASUS P6T Deluxe |
| Processor | Intel Core i7 920 2.66 GHz 4C / 8T |
| Memory | Kingston HyperX 3 x 1 GByte |
| Graphics card | Gigabyte GTX 285 |
| Hard disk | Samsung Spinpoint F1 640 GByte |
| Power supply | Enermax Revolution 85+ 1050 Watt |
| Thermal grease | CoolerMaster |
Testroutine
The CPU is being evaluated using Real Temp and with Prime95 we reach nearly 100% load on the CPU. For measuring the noise level we use a Voltcraft SL-200 decibel meter, which is positioned one meter from the CPU cooler with the fan mounted.
- 2.66 GHz 12 volts load
- 2.66 GHz 7 volts load
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Results 2.66 GHz 12 volts
| Cooler / fan | Temp. diff. load | Absolute temp. | RPM | Noise | Price | Review link |
| Phanteks PH-TC14PE - Triple Fan | 28 K | 57 °C | 1250 rpm | 41.3 dBA | CHF 124.- (EUR 103.-) | Phanteks PH-TC14PE |
| Phanteks PH-TC14PE - Dual Fan | 29 K | 58 °C | 1250 rpm | 41.1 dBA | CHF 99.- (EUR 83.-) | Phanteks PH-TC14PE |
| Thermalright Silver Arrow SB-E - Dual Fan | 30 K | 56 °C | 1100/1300 rpm | 41.8 dBA | CHF 70.- (EUR 58.-) | Thermalright Silver Arrow SB-E |
| Phanteks PH-TC14PE - Single Fan | 30 K | 59 °C | 1250 rpm | 40.7 dBA | CHF 99.- (EUR 83.-) | Phanteks PH-TC14PE |
| Prolimatech Megahalems Super Mega - Dual Fan | 30 K | 57 °C | 1400 rpm | 40.8 dBA | CHF 126.- (EUR 105.-) | Prolimatech Megahalems Super Mega Dual Fan |
| Noctua NH-D14 - Single Fan | 31 K | 56 °C | 1300/1200 rpm | 40.9 dBA | CHF 114.- (EUR 95.-) | Noctua NH-D14 |
| Cooler Master TPC 800 - Dual Fan | 32 K | 61 °C | 1400 rpm | 41.2 dBA | CHF 113.- (EUR 94.-) | Cooler Master TPC 800 |
| BeQuiet! Dark Rock Pro 2 | 33 K | 61 °C | 1400/1400 rpm | 42.0 dBA | CHF 96.- (EUR 80.-) | BeQuiet! Dark Rock Pro 2 |
| Alpenföhn Nordwand - Dual Fan | 33 K | 57 °C | 1500 rpm | 43.0 dBA | CHF 103.- (EUR 86.-) | Alpenföhn Nordwand |
| Gelid GX-7 - Dual-Fan | 33 K | 53 °C | 1800 rpm | 45.5 dBA | CHF 45.- (EUR 38.-) | Gelid GX-7 |
| Prolimatech Megahalems Megashadow - Dual Fan | 34 K | 58 °C | 1400 rpm | 40.5 dBA | CHF 79.- (EUR 66.-) | Prolimatech Megahalems Megashadow |
| Enermax ETS-T40-VD - Single Fan | 34 K | 57 °C | 1900 rpm | 42.4 dBA | CHF 43.- (EUR 36.-) | Enermax ETS-T40-VD |
| Noctua NH-C14 - Dual Fan | 35 K | 57 °C | 1250 rpm | 41.0 dBA | CHF 91.- (EUR 76.-) | Noctua NH-C14 |
| Alpenföhn Nordwand - Single Fan | 35 K | 59 °C | 1500 rpm | 42.4 dBA | CHF 79.- (EUR 66.-) | Alpenföhn Nordwand |
| Gelid GX-7 - Single Fan | 35 K | 55 °C | 1800 rpm | 45.0 dBA | CHF 45.- (EUR 38.-) | Gelid GX-7 |
| Coolink Corator DS - Single Fan | 35 K | 57 °C | 1900 rpm | 47.9 dBA | ||
| Prolimatech Megahalems Megashadow - Single Fan | 36 K | 59 °C | 1400 rpm | 37.0 dBA | CHF 79.- (EUR 65.-) | Prolimatech Megahalems Megashadow |
| BeQuiet! Shadow Rock - Single Fan | 37 K | 60 °C | 1500 rpm | 42.7 dBA | CHF 63.- (EUR 53.-) | BeQuiet Shadow Rock |
| Corsair H5O - Dual Fan | 37 K | 59 °C | 1600 rpm | 44.4 dBA | CHF 133.- (EUR 111.-) | Corsair H5O |
| Noctua NH-C14 - Single Fan | 38 K | 60 °C | 1250 rpm | 39.4 dBA | CHF 91.- (EUR 76.-) | Noctua NH-C14 |
| BeQuiet! Dark Rock 2 - Single Fan | 38 K | 65 °C | 1400 rpm | 42.0 dBA | CHF 77.- (EUR 64.-) | BeQuiet! Dark Rock 2 |
| Thermalright Macho 120 - Single Fan | 38 K | 64 °C | 1400 rpm | 40.8 dBA | CHF 38.- (EUR 32.-) | Thermalright Macho 120 |
| Noctua NH-U12P - Dual Fan | 38 K | 62 °C | 1400 rpm | 41.6 dBA | CHF 125.- (EUR 104.-) | Noctua NH-U12P |
| Corsair H5O - Single Fan | 38 K | 60 °C | 1600 rpm | 44.0 dBA | CHF 113.- (EUR 94.-) | Corsair H5O |
| Cooler Master Hyper 412S - Single-Fan | 39 K | 62 °C | 1200 rpm | 41.6 dBA | CHF 57.- (EUR 48.-) | Cooler Master Hyper 412S |
| Cooler Master Hyper 212Evo - Single-Fan | 39 K | 62 °C | 1500 rpm | 42.9 dBA | CHF 50.- (EUR 40.-) | Cooler Master Hyper 212S |
| Noctua NH-U12P - Single Fan | 40 K | 64 °C | 1400 rpm | 40.5 dBA | CHF 85.- (EUR 71.-) | Noctua NH-U12P |
| Prolimatech Samuel 17 - Single Fan | 56 K | 85 °C | 1400 rpm | 40.1 dBA | CHF 49.- (EUR 41.-) | Prolimatech Samuel 17 |
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Results 2.66 GHz 7 Volts
| Cooler / fan | Temp. diff. load | Absolute temp. | RPM | Price | Review link | |
| Thermalright Silver Arrow SB-E - Dual Fan | 34 K | 60 °C | 500/900 rpm | 35.0 dBA | CHF 70.- (EUR 58.-) | Thermalright Silver Arrow SB-E |
| Phanteks PH-TC14PE - Triple Fan | 34 K | 63 °C | 750 rpm | 35.1 dBA | CHF 124.- (EUR 103.-) | Phanteks PH-TC14PE |
| Phanteks PH-TC14PE - Dual Fan | 35 K | 64 °C | 750 rpm | 34.9 dBA | CHF 99.- (EUR 83.-) | Phanteks PH-TC14PE |
| Prolimatech Megahalems Super Mega - Dual Fan | 35 K | 62 °C | 800 rpm | 40.8 dBA | CHF 126.- (EUR 105.-) | Prolimatech Megahalems Super Mega Dual Fan |
| Noctua NH-D14 - Single Fan | 36 K | 61 °C | 1000/900 rpm | 37.2 dBA | CHF 114.- (EUR 95.-) | Noctua NH-D14 |
| Noctua NH-C14 - Dual Fan | 37 K | 59 °C | 800 rpm | 34.1 dBA | CHF 91.- (EUR 76.-) | Noctua NH-C14 |
| Cooler Master TPC 800 - Dual Fan | 37 K | 66 °C | 800 rpm | 34.2 dBA | CHF 113.- (EUR 94.-) | Cooler Master TPC 800 |
| Prolimatech Megahalems Megashadow - Dual Fan | 37 K | 61 °C | 1000 rpm | 38.9 dBA | CHF 79.- (EUR 66.-) | Prolimatech Megahalems Megashadow |
| Phanteks PH-TC14PE - Single Fan | 38 K | 67 °C | 750 rpm | 34.6 dBA | CHF 99.- (EUR 83.-) | Phanteks PH-TC14PE |
| Prolimatech Megahalems Megashadow - Single Fan | 39 K | 63 °C | 1000 rpm | 36.2 dBA | CHF 79.- (EUR 66.-) | Prolimatech Megahalems Megashadow |
| BeQuiet! Dark Rock Pro 2 | 40 K | 67 °C | 500/500 rpm | 33.3 dBA | CHF 96.- (EUR 80.-) | BeQuiet! Dark Rock Pro 2 |
| Gelid GX-7 - Dual Fan | 42 K | 62 °C | 700 rpm | 34 dBA | CHF 45.- (EUR 38.-) | Gelid GX-7 |
| Noctua NH-C14 - Single Fan | 42 K | 64 °C | 800 rpm | 33.5 dBA | CHF 91.- (EUR 76.-) | Noctua NH-C14 |
| Corsair H5O - Dual Fan | 42 K | 64 °C | 900 rpm | 37.5 dBA | CHF 133.- (EUR 111.-) | Corsair H5O |
| Alpenföhn Nordwand - Dual Fan | 43 K | 67 °C | 700 rpm | 37.0 dBA | CHF 103.- (EUR 86.-) | Alpenföhn Nordwand |
| BeQuiet! Shadow Rock - Single Fan | 43 K | 66 °C | 800 rpm | 36.7 dBA | CHF 63.- (EUR 53.-) | BeQuiet Shadow Rock |
| Cooler Master Hyper 412S - Single Fan | 43 K | 69 °C | 800 rpm | 35.8 dBA | CHF 57.- (EUR 48.-) | Cooler Master Hyper 412S |
| BeQuiet! Dark Rock 2 - Single Fan | 44 K | 70 °C | 500 rpm | 32.9 dBA | CHF 77.- (EUR 64.-) | BeQuiet! Dark Rock 2 |
| Thermalright Macho 120 - Single Fan | 44 K | 70 °C | 700 rpm | 34.2 dBA | CHF 38.- (EUR 32.-) | Thermalright Macho 120 |
| Noctua NH-U12P - Dual Fan | 44 K | 68 °C | 1000 rpm | 38.0 dBA | CHF 125.- (EUR 104.-) | Noctua NH-U12P |
| Enermax ETS-T40-VD - Single Fan | 45 K | 66 °C | 650 rpm | 32.7 dBA | CHF 43.- (EUR 36.-) | Enermax ETS-T40-VD |
| Gelid GX-7 - Single-Fan | 45 K | 65 °C | 700 rpm | 33.5 dBA | CHF 45.- (EUR 38.-) | Gelid GX-7 |
| Noctua NH-U12P - Single Fan | 45 K | 69 °C | 1000 rpm | 37.4 dBA | CHF 85.- (EUR 71.-) | Noctua NH-U12P |
| Coolink Corator DS - Single Fan | 46 K | 68 °C | 800 rpm | 35.0 dBA | Coolink Corator DS | |
| Corsair H5O - Single Fan | 46 K | 68 °C | 900 rpm | 35.4 dBA | CHF 113.- (EUR 94.-) | Corsair H5O |
| Alpenföhn Nordwand - Single Fan | 48 K | 72 °C | 700 rpm | 36.4 dBA | CHF 79.- (EUR 66.-) | Alpenföhn Nordwand |
| Cooler Master Hyper 212Evo - Single-Fan | 52 K | 75 °C | 750 rpm | 35.3 dBA | CHF 50.- (EUR 40.-) | Cooler Master Hyper 212S |
| Prolimatech Samuel 17 -Single Fan | 67 K | 96 °C | 800 rpm | 36.2 dBA | CHF 49.- (EUR 41.-) | Prolimatech Samuel 17 |
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Conclusion
| General | + | - | |
| With the Macho 120, Thermalright shows quite a good cooler. In terms of cooling capacity the Macho 120 is able to compete with a Noctua NH-U12P dual fan cooler. In this regard we have to say that the competition is very hard because we've tested only high-end coolers so far. But it's not only the performance that matters, the build quality for example is good and furthermoer, the price is excellent. These days you can get this cooler for as little as 32 Euros (est. CHF 38.-) for which this thing really is a bargain. | - Build quality - Price | ||
| Installation | + | - | |
| The installation process is easy and you can mount the cooler quickly. Nevertheless we didn't want to install it without consulting the manual. Another thing which is important to us is the fact that this cooler is compatible with all recent sockets from Intel and AMD. Furthermore we have to say that Thermalright ships this cooler with a very good mounting kit considering that this is a very aggressively priced product. There are plenty of other manufacturers in this price segment that ship their coolers with very bad mounting kits. | - Easy and robust - Compatible with Intel and AMD sockets | ||
| Performance | + | - | |
| During our tests we used the fan, which is included in delivery. What you get is a 120 millimeter fan which is PWM driven. If you drive the fan at 7 Volt you can barely hear it and at 12 Volt it can be described as well audible. In the end performance at higher rotation speeds was better then at lower rotation speed, when compared to the competition. We recommend a 120 millimeter fan with 1200 rpm or above to get the best mix of performance and noise level possible. | - Good cooling capacity | ||
| Recommendation | + | - | |
| If you're looking for a well built CPU cooler, with an exceptional price performance ratio, then you're doing everything right when you go for the Macho 120 from Thermalright. | - Gamer | - Enthusiast |
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Author: Marc Büchel m.buechel@ocaholic.ch