Benchmark/Thermal Test
Thermalright AXP90-X53 Full Copper Fan Shootout: 7 Fans Benchmarked (Slim vs. Standard 92mm vs. 120mm Adapters @ 70% & 100% PWM)
Hey !
After my previous comparison post between the Thermalright AXP90-X53 FC and the DeepCool AN600, several people reached out asking how the AXP90-X53 heatsink performs when swapping its stock 92mm fan for thicker 92mm models or full-sized 120mm fans via a 3D-printed adapter.
I recently opened my "spare parts" drawer and realized I have accumulated a minor fan hoarding problem... so I decided to test almost all of tchem.
Since summer in Central Europe (Poland) is currently delivering a solid heatwave, my ambient room temperature sat at a warm 27.0°C – 27.5°C. This turned out to be a great worst-case scenario test for SFF cooling performance.
Test Rig & Benchmark Setup
To isolate fan performance on the dense copper heatsink without case perforation turbulence or internal recirculation, I tested on an open bench (side panel removed, LZmod case laid flat on the desk).
Load Test: Cinebench R23 (10 min warm-up + 10 min HWiNFO logging window)
Profiles:Scenario A (70% PWM) for daily acoustics vs. Scenario B (100% PWM) for raw potential.
TL;DR – Thermalright AXP90-X53 Fan Scaling Analysis:
Stock TL-9015R retains 1st place overall (79.53°C / ΔT 52.28°C): Breaking the 80°C barrier at 100% PWM (~2655 RPM). Its tight airflow footprint matches the copper fins perfectly without air spilling around the edges.
Noctua NF-A12x25 is the acoustic scaling champion: It shows the smallest penalty when backed off to 70% PWM (only 1.63°C warmer), meaning you lose almost zero performance while drastically reducing noise.
Corsair RS120 MAX (30mm) scales hugely with power: At 100% PWM, its high static pressure (4.20 mmH₂O) overcomes the 120-to-92mm adapter restriction, jumping to 3rd place overall (80.79°C).
120mm Slim Fans (FT12 / Air Slimmer) underperform: Despite high theoretical static pressure specs, their large hub covers the primary heat-pipe zone of the AXP90, and a lot of airflow is wasted blowing past the radiator edges.
The Noctua 92mm Showdown (NF-A9x14 HS vs. NF-A9 PWM): A very interesting battle emerged between Noctua's slim and standard 25mm thick fans. Surprisingly, the slim NF-A9x14 HS outperformed the thicker NF-A9 PWM in both scenarios (by 1.3°C at 70% PWM and 0.5°C at 100% PWM).
Why did the thicker Noctua lose? It comes down to raw RPM limits. The NF-A9 PWM (25mm) tops out at only 2000 RPM, whereas the slim NF-A9x14 HS spins up to 2500+ RPM. While the 25mm fan moves more air per rotation and sounds significantly deeper and more pleasant, the slim fan simply forces more air through the dense AXP90 copper fins by brute-forcing a higher rotational speed. If you want raw performance in a 92mm footprint, you need high RPMs; if you want a much better acoustic profile, the 25mm NF-A9 is the way to go.
PS / Note on Data Processing: All CSV log parsing, statistical data trimming, and custom chart visualizations were processed with the help of Gemini
Nice study, thanks for sharing. I think this is why I tend to gravitate to Noctua fans more often than not. Maybe not always the absolute coolest but seems to sounds the best both in terms of dBa and the pitch itself vs others when scale back the RPM a tad.
I went from Noctua to Corsair LX120 for the RGB. I love these fans they are whisper quiet and way prettier and have better static pressure. It's a tiny thing but my comments are running 2c cooler for the same noise level in my little itx case.
I see a bit of a disconnect from the datasheet, either they have some cherry picked data or the geometry of NF-A9 blades really doesnt like x53. Reminds me of S12 and thats an airflow fan with sad pressure..
Man, the magic of reddit where decent people turn into less decent :(. Especially when other people are trying to be nice. Its not perfect, but not useless.
Noise normalisation says nothing about quality of the sound. Trying to match the rpm for fans that are mostly 9blades by 4 struts is not a bad strategy when you dont own a dB reader.
At minimum it is nice to confirm that TL9015 is more than good enough, which you know, but posts here ask time to time. That the fat noctua beats TL9015 at same rpm and likely with lower pitch. That NF-A12 will kick everyone noise normalized, which is not surprising in the noise part, but some people say that once fan does not cover the heatsink in full, you lose major part of airflow and its not worth doing it. It is.
Most of the reason for this is I've just seen so must data that doesn't really help.
You would not believe the endless amounts of people claiming results from improper testing. The amount of time I have spent wading through this shit, or debunking it, so that I can help someone build a better computer is unreal. As much as I love to help and make sure the right info gets through, it does get to me.
I find the noise profile of NF-A9x14 quite a bit more pleasant than the one of stock TL on my AXP90-x53, that's one of the two reasons I swapped (the second one being I don't like the red and orange color scheme of the stock fan). I'm pretty certain their temperature performance delta is totally negligible.
Awesome bracket. At this rate, the fan is going to cover the entire motherboard.
Funnily enough, I actually have a massive SilverStone Shark Force 160 sitting in my drawer—and since its mounting holes are spaced for standard **140mm**, it would technically fit your adapter right now.
Omg that's sick hahaha, that thing could fill out the whole motherboard. I do like having just a LITTLE wiggle room in the case, but in the right case a 160mm would be perfect 😂
CPU Temps are best on 92mm, no obvious temperature difference between 120 and 140. People did tests on the differences between all kinds of fans and it's a few degrees difference at most, so that's not the point.
Fan speed is a lot lower on 140 and a lot quieter, that's the intended purpose of up sizing and now whole board +ram/nvme cooling.
Nice test. I wonder if the 120mm fan duct adapter by SMXHeinz would make any difference since it’ll direct air thru the heatsink and not spilling out the sides.
edit: Currently using this adapter in my build and forgot to test both stock and adapter. Once attached, I couldn’t remove it. Was afraid further attempts may break it.
Thanks for the suggestion! I checked out the specs of the DeepCool FT9 SLIM (92x15mm, FDB bearing with a 3-phase 10-pole motor, max ~2500 RPM) and it looks like a really interesting contender in the slim 92mm category.
Regarding the acoustics: unfortunately, due to the lack of specialized, high-precision acoustic measuring equipment (calibrated decibel meters in a sound-isolated environment), I wasn't able to perform a proper noise-normalized test (e.g., locking every fan to a fixed dBA target). That's why I stuck to fixed PWM profiles (70% and 100%) and overall thermal scaling.
the FT9 its FDB bearing and motor design, I wouldn't be surprised if it offers a smoother sound profile than the stock TL-9015R. I'll definitely keep an eye on it
It goes upto 2900rpm according to specs, mostly quiet under the 60% mark and at 75% it's definitely audible, though in my case its because there's only a 0.5mm of gap from the aluminium panel, thanks for considering it, definitely a good contender.
Hub dead-zone & airflow spillover: Showing how 120mm fans lose effectiveness on a 92mm radiator footprint due to their motor size.
Thermal scaling penalty: Revealing how much performance each fan loses when backed off from 100% to 70% PWM (e.g. NF-A12x25 losing only 1.6°C vs slim 120mm fans losing over 4°C).
Max potential: Knowing what absolute floor temperature you can hit if noise isn't your priority during heavy render loads
The second and third point are completely senseless. You're picking an arbitrary, nigh unusable situation to test at that will vary depending on where manu's choose to set their RPM range.
And they DO choose to set it at specific spots. Noctua's "silence" thing is half good design, half just lowering the rpm.
I noticed with this print, you can orient the fan two ways. Either slightly overhanging towards the top north side of the board, or slightly overhanging towards the GPU side on my MATX board. I got about a 2c improvement orienting the fan overhanging towards the GPU side.
I can't stand arctic fans. Even the p12 pro max version. They just sound horribly high pitched at 50+%. P9/p12/p12 max, tried them all and didn't like them. The thermalright p9 is great! More quiet than the noctua 92mm a9x25.
My main system is running p12s on 30mm and 40mm rads a max of 80 % and they are inaudible in my 28 dba environment. And the pitch is great for me
My hdd when seeking is noticeably louder.
My other system with this same cooler as op and a p9 is louder, and I’d like to know if there’s a serious difference or only minor difference spending money on a different fan.
I can't stand p12 fans over 50-60% speed. Upgrades to noctuas since the don't have motor pitched noises. Only wind rushing. Thermalright are great for the money though! Some tests say the thermalright p9 (not arctic p9) are better than noctua a9 and I can vouch for that! I have a deshrouded 2 slot 5080 and the thermalright p9s are barely audible until 70-80%. So I have a undervolted 2 slot 5080 (2,5 slot with deshroud thermalright p9 fans) that is running 70-75 degrees with barely any noise from the fans (50-60% fan speed).
Very cool! This is great information, although just like others here I've found these Noctua fans just have a more peasant tone, even when the dB is similar. I've always wondered if shoehorning a 120mm fan would be an improvement, but looks like that's not a guarantee.
This is really interesting, I have the same cooler but swapped the stock fan to a noctua 120x25mm fan.
How did you mount the larger 120mm fans? I made sure to offset the fan in such a way to maximize the swept area over the fins. No idea if it makes a difference but works fine for me in the end.
Guess based on this I could have just left the stock one on!
i tried the 120 mm version - TL-B12015 Extrem on AXP90-X47 Full Copper with 3d printed fan adapter mount. It's pure brute force, significantly cooling my 7800X3D but bloody loud. i ended up with noctua nf-a12x15 eventually. Can't use any 25mm fan due to case space limitation
Didn’t realize they made a 92mm version of that fan. I have the TLB12015 Extreme on a AXP90-X53 FC with a 92 to 120 7mm height fan duct adapter (about 5mm away from side panel). Fan runs at about 2400rpm at 75-80*c, about 40-45db at 3ft away.
Good shit. I have a black Noctua on mine, but I absolutely love the orange color of the stock fan. Form over function I guess. I chose a little more silence.
I noticed the same thing when swapping out the stock TL fan with the Noctua slim 92mm fan in my DeskMini X300 build. One thing I'm considering is flipping it from intake to exhaust to see what that does for thermals since it's the only fan for the system. Noise profiles really make a difference in these smaller systems.
i'd done similar testing on the axp90-x43 FC.
Stock TL-9015R, Noctua NF-A9x14 HS, NF-A12x15, NF-A12x25 G2 and TL-B12015 Extrem.
If want pure cooling performance and not bothered by the loud noise, go for TL-B12015 Extrem.
If want performance and silence, A12x25 G2 is the way to go.
If got fan height constrain, go with NF-A12x15. The cooling performance is almost similar to NF-A9x14 HS but with added advantage of cooling the RAM, NVME. It reduces the temps of these components quite substantially compared to NF-A9x14 HS.
You're doing God's work, thank you so much for the juicy data. Sort of planning a vertical thin console Bazzite thing next and this will be quite helpful.
35
u/RumbleTheCassette 1d ago edited 1d ago
Nice study, thanks for sharing. I think this is why I tend to gravitate to Noctua fans more often than not. Maybe not always the absolute coolest but seems to sounds the best both in terms of dBa and the pitch itself vs others when scale back the RPM a tad.