1. Thermalright Phantom Spirit 120 EVO Best Air Cooler for Most People SPECIFICATIONS Dimensions: 110 x 125 x 157 mm Weight: 28.57oz (810g) Fans: (2) 120 x 25mm Socket Support: Intel LGA 1700/115x/1200/2011/2066; AMD: AM5/AM4 Warranty: 3 years Not long ago, Thermalight released its first Phantom Spirit 120 air cooler, which blew us away in terms of its tested performance and price, earning it a rare perfect score. But then, mere months later, the company returned with The Phantom Spirit 120 Evo, sporting updated fans with a dash of RGB and even better performance. The fans are also louder at max speed, but our testing shows you don't need the fans spinning at 100% to achieve chart-topping performance with this cooler. The Phantom Sprit 120 EVO cooled 238 watts in our benchmarking, a result only bested in air coolers by even larger coolers with 140 mm fans, like ID-Cooling’s A770 and Thermalright’s own Frost Commander 140. Even better, all coolers set to run their fans at a quiet 38.2 dBA, The Phantom Spirit 120 EVO EVO was actually the best-performing air cooler we've ever tested, beating out those larger, more expensive alternatives. 2. Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 SE Best Big Air CPU Cooler SPECIFICATIONS Dimensions: 155 x 125 x 110 mm Weight: 25.75 oz (730g) Fans: (2) 120 x 25 mm Socket Support: 115x, 1200, 1700; AM4, AM5 Warranty: 2 years Thermalright's Peerless Assassin 120 SE lives up to its name, delivering the best performance from an air cooler that we've tested on Intel's Alder Lake at a price that undercuts the competition. In our tests, it performed so well when cooling our Core i9-12900K that we re-tested it multiple times to be sure the results were correct. The Peerless Assassin 120 SE cooled the CPU when it was drawing over 200 watts better than our tested competition, and at lower thermal/TDP settings, it performed much better than the competition. The cooler's two 120mm fans did their job of dissipating all that heat at low noise levels, making at just 34.5dB at max speed, and 33dB at 50% speed. It's also available in in silver/gray, white or black, so it should fit in with most build themes if you care about matching aesthetics. Whether you care about value or not, you should consider this cooler for your next system build, so long as your case has room for it. 3. DeepCool AK500 Best Mid-size Air CPU Cooler SPECIFICATIONS Dimensions: 127×117×158 mm Base Height: - Weight: 36.7oz (1040g) Fans: (1) 120 x 25mm Socket Support: AMD AM4, AM5; Intel 2066, 2011x, 1200, 1700, 115x Warranty: 3 years DeepCool’s AK500 performs great in our testing when paired with Alder Lake's Core i9-12900K at loads over 200W – and it keeps the CPU cool while running nice and quiet. Priced as low as $55 when we wrote this, the AK500 delivers an impressive combination of silence, performance, and value that's tough to beat. 4. Noctua NH-U14S Best AMD Threadripper Air CPU Cooler SPECIFICATIONS Dimensions: 171.45 x 151.4 x 52.3mm Base Height: 25.1mm Weight: 36.5oz (1035g) Fans: (1) 140 x 25mm Socket Support: AMD TR4, SP3 Warranty: 6 years The Noctua NH-U14S TR4-SP3 provides whisper-quiet cooling with big league thermal performance – the kind of overclocked Threadripper performance that sneaks into quality 360 AIO cooling performance. Armed with six nickel-plated copper heatpipes and a NF-A15 140mm PWM fan, the AMD-friendly NH-U14S TR4-SP3 is a silent thermal assassin. For Threadripper air cooling, this cooler checks all the boxes for enthusiasts and overclockers alike. Read: Noctua NH-U14S review Best Threadripper Cooler Alternative: Arctic Freezer 50TR Neither as cool nor as quiet as Noctua's NH-U14S, the Artice Freezer 50 TR got our attention for its lower price. The value advantage could be important to current builders hoping to save money by using AMD's previous generation 2000-series parts.