Thermalright's high-performance Peerless Assassin 120 SE dual-tower air cooler is on sale for $33 on Amazon, a 15% discount from its usual price. The cooler is one of our favorite air coolers on the market, with absolutely unmatched cooling performance for the money compared to other air and liquid CPU coolers — capable of cooling CPUs beyond 200 watts. If you are in the market for a CPU cooler, the Peerless Assassin 120 SE provides flagship-class cooling performance at an entry-level price.
The Peerless Assassin 120 SE is a dual-tower air cooler with two 120mm fans and six 6mm heatpipes weighing 850g. The heatsink comes in a silver finish with black covers on the top portions. The cooler supports all modern socket types: AM4, AM5, LGA 115x, LGA 1200, LGA 1700, and LGA 1851.
We were blown away by the cooler's performance when we reviewed it in 2022. Even in 2026, the Peerless Assassin 120 SE is our top pick for Best CPU cooler of 2026 (so far). In our review, we discovered that, despite the cooler's extraordinarily low cost, the cooler managed to provide cooling performance akin to full-blown 240mm liquid coolers.
We put the Peerless Assassin 120 SE up against the flagship coolers at the time, including the Arctic Liquid Freezer II 240, Be Quiet Pure Loop 2 FX 360, and DeepCool AK500. The Peerless Assassin 120 SE performed better, on par, or within a couple degrees of all these coolers in some of our tests featuring a Core i9-12900K.
The Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 SE is a cheap dual-tower air cooler with flagship-level cooling performance, enough to cool even the hottest mainstream CPUs made today.
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(Image credit: Tom's Hardware)
(Image credit: Tom's Hardware)
The Peerless Assassin 120 SE already had virtually no competition at its regular MSRP, which makes Amazon's 15% discount an even sweeter deal. If you want performance similar to that of the 120 SE, you will need to shop for coolers that cost twice as much as the Peerless Assassin — if not more.
While this is definitely a solid deal spending the extra ~$2 for the V3 is worthwhile as it has better fans:
https://www.thermalright.com/product/peerless-assassin-120-se-v3/
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DMVZ3YQ7
or the Extrem for more higher airflow capability:
https://www.thermalright.com/product/peerless-assassin-120-se-extrem/
https://www.amazon.com/Thermalright-Peerless-SE-Aluminium-Technology/dp/B0FQ5MF5D5/
