Home Reviews Coolers Thermaltake Riing Silent 12 Pro Review

Thermaltake Riing Silent 12 Pro Review

December 1, 2021

Thermaltake has sent me for Thermaltake Riing Silent 12 Pro Review. This is a slim profile, single tower cooler which comes with their ever-popular Riing 120mm fan. Our sample has red color LED fan. Another option comes with the blue color LED fan. This is a budget cooler that is capable of driving cooling needs without extreme overclocking.

Thermaltake Riing Silent 12 Pro Review

The heatsink is aluminum finished and has 4 copper heat pipes which are nickel plated. The cooler is using continuous CPU Direct Contact design. The cooler is compatible with major sockets including the AMD AM4. Cooler is rated to handle the thermal dissipation of 150W. The cooler was tested on our new coffee Lake based test bench.

Product: Thermaltake Riing Silent 12 Pro Review
Manufacturer: Thermaltake
Price: Check Price on Amazon

Thermaltake Riing Silent 12 Pro Specifications

Thermaltake Riing Pro Packaging and Unboxing

The cooler is shipped in black color packing made of the cardboard box. The front side has the Thermaltake brand name and logo printed on the top left side. The cooler’s picture is printed on the main section. Riing Silent 12 CPU Cooler is printed in large size font on the right side. The cooler has support for AM4 socket. Included fan is PWM and its size is 120x120x25mm. Low Noise Cable is included in the box should the user want to have a reduction in the speed of up to 50% and noise of up to 37%.

The left side of the box has the specifications of the cooler printed in a tabular manner. Riing Silent 12 CPU Cooler is printed in on the top right side. The number 12 is printed in the red color to signify the red color LED on the Riing fan. Thermaltake brand name and logo are printed at the bottom.

Riing Silent 12 Pro Accessories

1x Heatsink
1x Fan
1x Backplate for Intel/AMD
1x mounting clip
1x bracket/crossbar
2x Fan clips
4x 9.6mm screws
4x 13.6mm screws
4x 16.6mm screws
4x Metal Nuts
1x Thermal Paste

Thermaltake Riing Silent 12 Pro Closer Look

The Thermaltake Riing Silent 12 Pro Review is a slim profile CPU cooler that is compatible with most of the sockets including the AM4. The cooler comes equipped with the 120mm Riing Red/Blue LED PWM fan. The cooler has clearance for RAM of any height and the top PCIe slots thanks to its slim profile. Let’s take a closer look at the cooler.

The dimension of the cooler is 159x140x74mm [HxWxL]. The weight of the cooler is 825g. The heatsink packs 4 heat pipes with a less dense fin stack. The front side has the dimension of 140x108x48mm. Please note that this is strictly a dimension of the heatsink without taking into consideration the protruding heat pipes and the base.

There are total 58 aluminum fins which are placed wider to each other. They 0.4mm thick and have 2.4mm air gap in between. Because the fin stack is not dense the fans can be made to rotate at low speeds to still drive your cooling needs in an effective manner. The fins joint assembly point is in the middle of this side. Note the displacement of the heat pipes inside the heatsink. They are in U shape and covering maximum surface for effective heat dissipation.

The left and the right sides are identical. They have raised edges with the middle portion in an inset. One thing that I appreciate the Thermaltake for is that the fins are finished rounded from all sides so there is no chance of cutting the hands as they are not sharped. This cooler has a bit different approach when it comes to the fan mounting as well. The raised sides don’t act as latches to hold the fan clips. There are holes in the fins in which the clips are inserted. The dimension of this side only is 108x48mm.

Let’s take a look at the top side of the cooler. The top fin has Tt embossed on both sides in opposite direction. As the cooler is symmetrical from both sides so it can be mounted in either direction. We can see the heat pipes are coming out of the top fin and terminating here.

There are 4 small size holes with 2 on each side of the fins. These are where the fan clips are inserted into. Thermaltake has provided 2 clips only. Provision for mounting the second fan is provided. I wish they had provided extra 2 clips as well to check the cooler in the Push/Pull setup. The dimension of this side only is 140x48mm excluding the protruding heat pipes.

Let’s take a look at the top side of the base. There are raised bars on both sides forming a channel onto which the mounting bracket/crossbar is placed. It is also finished in the aluminum.

Taking a peek at the bottom side of the cooler, we can see the 4 heat pipes each of 6mm thickness going inside the heatsink at different angles in a group of two forming a U shape pattern. These heat pipes are copper base in finished in nickel coating. This cooler is using a C.D.C design when it comes to the point of contact between the cooler’s base and the heat source. C.D.C stands for the CPU Direct Contact.

Under this design, the heat pipes make a direct contact with the heat source hence eliminating the middle layer between the heat pipes and the heat source. This cooler has Continuous C.D.C approach which is highly advocated in favor of. In Continuous C.D.C there is no gap between the heat pipes when making contact with the heat source. The dimension of the base is 37x35mm. There is a safety sticker pasted on the base warning the user to peel it off before mounting the cooler.

Thermaltake has provided their popular Riing 120mm fan with this cooler. Our variant has red LED Riing fan. The fan has rubber pads on the mounting holes to reduce the vibration and its noise. The motor hub has a sticker pasted on it with the Thermaltake brand name and logo printed. A transparent ring is visible with the LEDs on it. It is more towards the backside of the fan’s frame.

Eleven fan blades are engineered to create a large volume of air passing through the heatsink at any angle and provide the best balance between silent and performance.

To achieve maximum cooling performance in all applications, the wind blocker frame is designed to direct airflow towards the middle section of the blade, thereby creating a compression effect and blocking any air from escaping. This special design reduces the blade’s noise and vibration, creating a perfect balance between power and sound.

The backside of the fan has a sticker pasted on the motor hub with Thermaltake brand name and logo printed at the top. The fan is using DC Brushless motor. The fan is made in China. There is a 4-arm design holding and connecting the motor hub and the blades to the fan’s frame. Rated voltage is 12V DC with an input power of 3.2W at 0.30Amp.

Rated speed is 500 ~ 1400 RPM which can be reduced to 300 ~700 RPM using the LNC. Airflow rating is 53CFM at full speed. Air pressure rating is 1.23mmH₂O. Acoustical noise rating is 19 dBA with 12 dBA using the LNC. Fan’s power cable has 4-pin PWM connector. The length of the cable including the connector is approximately 300mm.

The fan is using the hydraulic bearings. The hydraulic bearing self-lubricates with a high quality, friction-reducing substance that reduces operating noise and improves efficiency. The seal cap prevents leakage of the lubricant and improves the lifespan of the unit.

Thermaltak Riing Silent 12 Pro Installation

The cooler was installed on the Asus ROG Maximus X Hero. Before proceeding I would like to share few words on the improved mountings with this cooler. Thermaltake has used foam padding on the metallic backplate. So, there is no more hard plastic material backplate. There is no plastic washer either but metal nuts that hold the backplate onto the motherboard’s PCB. Let’s take a look at the installation procedure of this cooler. The accessories are placed inside the labeled plastic containers. Each label is identified and cross-referenced with on the user manuals.

Place the backplate on the backside of the motherboard in such a way that the foam padding faces the PCB of the motherboard. The same backplate will be used for the AMD socket and this cooler is out of the box AM4 compatible. Make sure that Tt printed side is facing up. Now, pass the 4x 16.6mm screws (the longest of all) through the mounting holes of the backplate and the motherboard.

Use the 4x metal nuts and thread them on the screws from the front side of the motherboard. Note that these nuts have one plain side and black washers on the other side. Make sure to use the washer side on the motherboard’s PCB.

Now, place the bracket on top of the metal nuts. Make sure that Tt printed side is facing up. One side is labeled with A and the other with B. B side holes are for Intel LGA-2011 socket only. A side is used for rest of the Intel sockets and the AMD sockets. Use the 4x 9.6mm black color screws and secure the bracket onto the metal nuts.

Take out the fan’s clips. Place the short side of the clips from the top and the bottom of the heatsink through the small holes. This will hold the clips on to the heatsink.

Apply the thermal paste. Place the mounting plate with Thermaltake printed on both sides on the top side of the base. Place the heatsink on the CPU by aligning the screws on the mounting plate with the raised holes on the bracket. Tighten the screws till the thread runs out.

Place the fan on the front side of the heatsink and secure it with the already placed clips. The raised corner of the clip should fit in the holes of the fan. Connect the 4-pin PWM connector on the desired motherboard’s fan header. This would complete the installation.

Riing 12 Pro Compatibility and Clearance

Before discussing the performance of the cooler, let’s take a peak on the compatibility and clearance of this cooler with respect to the PCIe slot, RAMs’ height Motherboard’s I/O cover, and PC Chassis.

PCIe Slot Clearance

This cooler has no clearance issue what so ever with respect to the top PCIe slots.

RAM Height Clearance

This cooler has no restriction on the RAMs’ height. RAM of any height can be used, though the high profile RAMs may cover the front of the 120mm fan.

Motherboard’s I/O Cover Clearance

Absolutely no clearance issue with respect to the motherboard’s IO.

PC Chassis Clearance

The height of the cooler with the fans is 159mm. Check the chassis manufacturer’s website for the maximum cooler’s height possibility before buying.

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Thermaltake Riing 12 Pro Testing

We have recently upgraded our second test bench to the Coffee Lake platform. We were able to test a few coolers on this platform hence there are just three coolers on the graph. Here is the test build configuration:

Intel i7 8700k
Asus ROG Maximus X Hero
Ballistix Elite 2x4GB @ 3000MHz DDR4
HyperX 120GB SSD
Thermaltake TP DPS-G 750W PSU
Colorful GTX 1050Ti Vulcan U 4G EC

Each cooler was tested on stock clocks at 1.140V with turbo boost. Asus Real Bench 2.4 was used to stress the CPU. RealTemp was used to monitor the temperatures during the testing. A single run of RealBench was run on stock clocks and an average of max temperatures on all cores was recorded. We are using delta temperature to counter the uncontrolled environment. The average figure is subtracted from the recorded ambient temperature to obtain the delta temperature.

CPU was overclocked to 4.8GHz at 1.28V. This i7 8700k runs way hot and due to the warranty concern, we have not yet delided the chip. 3 runs of RealBench were made with overclocked chip each of 60 minutes duration with the interval of 15 minutes to let the CPU cool down before the next run. The average of each run is obtained and the maximum value is mentioned on the graph as a worst case possible scenario. Fans were made to run at 100% of their rated speeds across all tests.

We are using Noctua NT-H1 to test all coolers. This helps to ensure the standardization of the testing by mitigating any possible performance effect that can be had with the bundled thermal paste with the cooler. Microsoft Windows 10 x64 is used. Let’s take a look at the performance graphs.

The Thermaltake Riing Silent 12 Pro Review did a maximum of 47.98°C which is below the Raijintek Leto Pro RGB. This seems a promising performance from this cooler with one fan as compared to the two fans solution on the Leto Pro RGB.

With overclocked 8700k the results were other way around. The Raijintek Leto Pro RGB is leading by 2.19°C.

With just 22 dBA on our Fonseo Digital Sound Meter, this is truly a good overall performance.

Conclusion

The dimension of the cooler is 159x140x74mm [HxWxL]. The weight of the cooler is 825g. The heatsink packs 4 heat pipes with a less dense fin stack. There are total 58 aluminum fins which are placed wider to each other. They 0.4mm thick and have 2.4mm air gap in between. The build quality of the heatsink is solid. It feels like a premium one in the hands. The cooler has 4 heat pipes each of 6mm thickness. The displacement of the heat pipes inside the heatsink is effective. Heatpipes are made of copper and are nickel plated.

The base has a different approach for making contact with the CPU surface. Instead of having a copper-based making a point of contact with heat pipes soldered inside the base this cooler is C.D.C design. C.D.C stands for CPU Direct Contact. Idea is to let the heat pipes make direct contact with the heat source and dissipate the heat more effectively and quickly. This cooler is using a continuous C.D.C design. Under the continuous C.D.C, there is no gap and advocates of later points to higher thermal performance owing to the design mechanism.

The Thermaltake has provided a Riing 12 premium fan with the cooler. The fan dimension is 120x120x25mm. Rated voltage is 12V DC with an input power of 3.2W at 0.30Amp. Rated speed is 500 ~ 1400 RPM which can be reduced to 300 ~700 RPM using the LNC. Airflow rating is 53CFM at full speed. Air pressure rating is 1.23mmH₂O. Acoustical noise rating is 19 dBA with 12 dBA using the LNC. Fan’s power cable has 4-pin PWM connector. The length of the cable including the connector is approximately 300mm. The fan is using the hydraulic bearing with MTBF of 40000 hours.

The Thermaltake is using the padding on the backside of the backplate. This is far better than the hard plastic based backplate which could damage the sub-components on the backside of the motherboard’s PCB. Thermaltake is offering 1 year of warranty on the cooler which could have been at least three years for better prospects. This is my personal opinion only.

Value and Performance

This cooler is retailing at Rs. 4400/- at the time of the review. This is a budget CPU cooler with a better thermal performance which is further augmented by the LED on the Riing fan. Despite being a budget level cooler it has performed well to keep the hot 8700k cool relatively. This cooler is not designed to handle the extreme overclocking hence it is better suited for stock clocks or mild overclocking on which it will get the job done. I would not have expected much either from this cooler. This level of thermal performance was with the silent level of the operations something which is a trademark of the Noctua coolers.

We are thankful to the Thermaltake for sending us their Riing Silent 12 cooler for the review.

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