True Spirit 140 Direct

When Ryzen + AM4 originally launched, there was very little support, and this thing supported it out of the box. "X" branded chips didn't ship with coolers for Gen 1 of Ryzen, and I had a 1700x.The first computer I ever built used the Thermalright Ultra 120 eXtreme (TRUE) tower cooler and it was the best of it's time. Coasting of those memories, and needing the AM4 compatibility, I bought this. Installation was a bit annoying, but straightforward enough. Thankfully my case had a cutout window to install the backplate, which also facilitated the removal of the stock backplate.It was almost too tall and the tips of the heat pipes actually scratched my acrylic window in the NZXT S340, and the direct contact pipes made thermal-compound application uncharted territory for me, but it did work and kept my CPU nice and cool till I switched to an AIO.Bottom line: It fit my AM4 motherboard, fit in my case (barely), and kept my CPU from thermal throttling. I'd say it's worth.

I was looking for something that was currently in stock that I could use on my new Ryzen 1700 to replace the stock cooler until the upgrade bracket for my Noctua NH-D15 arrives. After scouring the web for a while I stumbled on this little gem. The manufacturer website stated units shipped after January 1st 2017 would include the needed back plate. I decided to take the gamble on one of these in the hopes it would be one of the recently made units, and the gamble paid off. The only speed bump I encountered was that while the back plate itself was the updated unit with AM4 mount holes, the thick plastic shim that sits between the back plate and motherboard lacked the update. I marked the appropriate spots on the shim and used a small diameter screwdriver and a lighter to melt holes in these locations. After that it was smooth sailing. I am currently running the R7 1700 overclocked to 3.8 GHZ on all cores at default voltages. The TRUE Spirit 140 Direct dropped my CPU temp under stress testing from 80c (I would manually halt testing once it hit this temp, about 10 minutes in) to around 64c after ~ 1 hour. For a small bump in performance you can add a second 140mm fan. Thermalright includes a second set of mounting clips and rubber vibration guards in the box to facilitate this... a nice and appreciated touch. For less than 50 bucks this thing is a real winner. It is extremely quiet, but not entirely silent. Certainly not objectionable, and I am rather sensitive to noise coming from the tower.

Works amazingly well with my AMD Ryzen/AM4 socket. However, I found that while the metal backplate had the AM4 mounting holes, the plastic piece between did not, so I had to drill/puncture a hole to match up with the backplate. Minor annoyance, though not a show stopper.

If you use this you will probably think the Noctua NH-U12S is overpriced. Great cooling performance and quiet operation.