Three months since it was released - Why are there still no reviews of Thermalright's new flagship CPU air cooler, Royal Pretor 130 Ultra?
Posted by zuperlo@reddit | hardware | View on Reddit | 63 comments
Does anyone know why tech YouTubers and tech news websites still have not made any reviews of the Thermalright Royal Pretor 130 Ultra? It is their new flagship and has been available for purchase for three months now.
According to Thermalright themselves, it performs better than their previous flagship, the Phantom Spirit 120, but without any thorough reviews, it is hard to confirm.
Tyz_TwoCentz_HWE_Ret@reddit
several reviews of the Royal Pretor 130 (tom's hardware for example) For the Ultra variant techpowerup has a write up for it here: https://www.techpowerup.com/338943/thermalright-unveils-the-royal-pretor-130-ultra-dual-fin-stack-cpu-cooler and tech2geek news here: https://www.tech2geek.net/thermalright-royal-pretor-130-ultra-review-premium-dual%E2%80%91tower-cpu-cooler-july-2025/ I didn't look past the first few search results so there could be more? Shrug.
Good luck, cheers!
MeedLT@reddit
The tech2geek "arcticle" looks like a chatgpt summary of the spec page from product page from themlaright, theres no new information, no actual testing and the emoji placement screams AI.
DiatomicCanadian@reddit
"Oh, there's a new Thermalright flagship cooler?"
Probably the reaction of every content creator learning that Thermalright did that. Interesting.
People still buying Peerless Assassin 120 because it's still a beast.
zuperlo@reddit (OP)
That's probably part of the reason, having too many products with the exact same function and size in a very niche market segment makes it difficult for consumers to distinguish the differences between them.
However, Royal Pretor 130 Ultra is a model Thermalright has been hyping up quite a lot for over a year now. Even when Gamers Nexus and other tech YouTubers visited their booth at Computex in 2024 and 2025 they emphasized that the Royal Pretor 130 Ultra would be their best CPU air cooler ever. That should be reason enough to review it, especially considering the popularity of other Thermalright CPU air coolers, such as the Peerless Assassin 120 and Phantom Spirit 120.
someguylostinbush@reddit
If I remember right, the non ultra royal preator wasn't that awesome. I think hardware canuks reviewed it.
RHINO_Mk_II@reddit
At its price, someone might well prefer to have a flagship Noctua in their case for bragging rights if the temp difference is a degree or two. The key to the PA and PS series' success was the bang for buck in the lower midrange cooler market.
TheChartsHaveEyes@reddit
For the price? The Noctua is around $130. Thermalright coolers run $50 and below....
If they perform the same or near that's dumb as heck to buy that ugly brown thing.
LividLife5541@reddit
I think you mean "that beautiful organic brown color that shows you have excellent taste"?
TheChartsHaveEyes@reddit
My computer isn't made of dirty....
The color matches with nothing.
No motherboard, no graphics card, no case, power supply it literally has 0 components it will match with.
tr2727@reddit
That's "you" problem bud, there's "Noctua edition" Cabinet, GPU's , PSU's .. with fans and coolers, if you are not building noctua themed, why are you even building your pc?
TheChartsHaveEyes@reddit
You can feel the way youd like and blow tons of extra money for brown. But I dont feel its a me problem as Im with the vast majority of builders with this preference.
RHINO_Mk_II@reddit
The royal praetor ultra 130 is over $50 when I checked on Amazon, but not as much as the price was speculated to be when it was teased at computex.
TheChartsHaveEyes@reddit
Looking at the Aliexpress listings the lowest is $62.60. Considering all the others I expect this one will probably fall in that $60 range. Which is hardly bad for a top end cooler. But gives us plenty of good options depending on how much we want to pay.
Strazdas1@reddit
PA120 is still arguably the best option in its price range.
No_Matter_3647@reddit
Have one on my 9800x3d, easy to install temps high 70s under 100$ stress. Seems decent enough
WolfishDJ@reddit
9800X3D is known for running hot though
No_Matter_3647@reddit
Weird everyone says intel runs hot so what gives?
Strazdas1@reddit
certain generations of both manufacturers run hot.
WolfishDJ@reddit
They both run hot. AMD runs hot probably because of their thicker IHS and Intel runs hot because of wattage
bizude@reddit
More than that. I believe AMD CPUs have smaller hotspots in comparison to Intel CPUs. (I.e. heat is more concentrated)
kaszak696@reddit
Can you even buy it yet from an official distribution? Newegg doesn't have it, neither does amazon. Aliexpress seems to have it, but well, it's Aliexpress. It just seems it didn't have a global release yet.
zuperlo@reddit (OP)
That probably explains it. It's difficult to do a thorough review of something without knowing what the pricing is going to look like. I don't live in the U.S., so I assumed that it was available for purchase there too.
I don't remember Thermalright ever taking this long to make a product available worldwide before.
pmjm@reddit
Getting things into the US has been a little... problematic... as of late.
CrzyJek@reddit
Global != the U.S.
pmjm@reddit
OP's implication is that it's available everywhere else.
bondybus@reddit
It's available on taobao, I can read some Chinese and if you type rp130, it's one of the first listings to pop up. Costs about $58 sgd(45US)
CheemsGD@reddit
The Stream Vision and Phantom Spirit Digital are on Amazon, but not the Royal Pretor Ultra. What the fuck?
TheChartsHaveEyes@reddit
Agreed. It's NOT available yet. Amazon has a page for 1 model of it up. BUT it's listed as unavailable. So until it ends up going up on Amazon it's still not even launched yet. Amazon seems to get them first. Same thing happened with the Petra 130 base. It's on Amazon but not even on Newegg yet.
But we cant go wrong with any of their air coolers. Not sure about water but they are also priced insanely well.
zuperlo@reddit (OP)
That probably explains it. It's difficult to do a thorough review of something without knowing what the pricing is going to look like. I don't live in the U.S., so I assumed that it was available to purchase there too.
It's really strange, I don't remember Thermalright ever taking this long to make a product available worldwide before.
JuanElMinero@reddit
Whenever /u/bizude gets his hands on one, you'll likely see it over at Tomshardware.
I wish HWcooling.net checked out some of Thermalright's recent offerings, but they don't seem to be interested or get samples.
Chimbondaowns@reddit
You mean the clown who reviewed the Arctic LF3 and concluded it was "unimpressive" ?
bizude@reddit
Well, they did take this jester's jabs to heart and came out with the Pro model in response which in turn he called "The best AIO for Ryzen 9950X3D, and Intel too" ;)
meepiquitous@reddit
Tomshardware is a credible source, now that they've killed Anandtech? \^^
bizude@reddit
Tom's Hardware is a publisher, I'm a tester. I'm human and have certainly made mistakes, but I think that by now most of y'all should know that I'm fairly competent at testing coolers.
Of course, always check out multiple reviews before making any purchasing decisions.
Ratiofarming@reddit
Personally, such a cooler exists in a void for me. Above 50€ I'll go straight to the very high end, which isn't Thermalright. And below that, there is the Peerless Assassin, which is doing an amazing job for less than 40€.
NewestAccount2023@reddit
Tomshardware reviewed it https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/air-cooling/thermalright-royal-pretor-130-review/2
JuanElMinero@reddit
That's for the original Pretor version.
The Pretor Ultra has a better front fan and a slightly updated fin stack.
Charwinger21@reddit
Give me a fantastic dense fin stack with 3D heatpipes and sealed sides and slap two P14 Pros on it (front and middle).
I know it's not Thermalright, but I want to see what that static pressure and airflow does. And it might be surprisingly affordable.
JuanElMinero@reddit
Not sure who downvoted you, but yeah, Arctic might even release something like that in the future (give or take the 3D pipes).
Those P12/P14 Pro excel on anything radiator-like and have real potential to shake up the budget market.
NewKitchenFixtures@reddit
Does that thing crack motherboards?
It looks like it’s a good percentage of the 2D area of an mATX PCB.
TheChartsHaveEyes@reddit
I mean the cooler is huge. Idk if I would want to put a 1000 plus gram cooler on mini or micro atx board. With the right mounting and support it may be fine. But Id still be concerned about bending.
BrightCandle@reddit
Thermalright really needs to sort its stack out. The AIO and cooler lists of products is enormous and its really hard to work out what the differences are. Its just adding a bunch of confusion they need to trim the product lines down.
TheChartsHaveEyes@reddit
Yes and no. Some are designed to work better on lower heat loads. Some better on intel vs amd. Some designed to be quiter. Some prettier, light up and have displays. It's all down to options. Their naming could use a touch up for sure to better differentiate and maybe they include a ranking system or detailed info clarifying what I just listed on the product pages.
wankthisway@reddit
So...yes, their product stack and name needs some sorting out. That is a lot of words to say that they have a very convoluted lineup
YouKnowWhom@reddit
TLDR: Like someone else said this company just nails performance and price. People like me who want “better quality” or high tsp air cooling use our case, and, and no it’s because they own the price bracket. Does an assassin on par cool to a ton of noctua stack? Yea on paper for today. Noctua had long term customer service and free replacements and free new cpu socket adaptors with the best fans ever. And they make them in black now too so. Idk. I’m happy with my UHS-14S add a fan (but it’s something else as it has two cooling towers idk), option I can use on basically anything forever until we start needing like 20a sockets for computers.
WolfishDJ@reddit
Hence why I don't like the brand. I'd rather just get something that doesn't share like 95% of things that another product does in its lineup only to turn out that other product is better because or X or Y.
RedditorWithRizz@reddit
Is there any CPU cooler that's all better than TR Phantom Spirit EVO 120 and <$100
WolfishDJ@reddit
ID-Cooling FROZN A620 SE
datrumole@reddit
the SE and nonSE are > evo no?
I've tested the K12 and B12 fans on a PS120 SE and non-SE (evo being k12s on a non-SE) and the tl-c12b-v2 (stock) beat the K12 and B12 easily
it wasn't until they hit their top end they broke away from the c12, which started to get into obnoxious loud territory
himemaouyuki@reddit
The Chinese are testing it so no result yet, but currently over there Pentawave Z06D EX SRB and Valkyrie VK DX140 are kings for 9950X3D and 14900K. image
Monratisek@reddit
To be honest looks like nothing new and special whats the selling Point why is it better than every other air cooler
JPAU401@reddit
Someone reviewed it here on Reddit recently, against the regular Pretor. Seemed disappointing, given a 2-ish celsius difference. And that's with them using a Phanteks T30 front fan (since the 120s are different). It's more like a Pretor+
datrumole@reddit
I've done some testing with my own PS120 (both SE and non) and Canucks confirmed as well, but 'on paper better' fans performed worse with the PS120 than the stock fans, so I'd first confirm that the T30 in fact performs better with the pretor before using it as a baseline of comparison
TheChartsHaveEyes@reddit
It depends on heat load and cpu because of flatness between amd/ intel. But 2 degrees is huge when your at the point where these coolers are rivaling some water coolers. I've always seen the Noctua offerings JUST 2 degrees better in the best case. So likely half the price as the new g2 formed base model for the same performance would be insane.
Idk how you guys are at the point where your asking for 420 AIO levels of performance out of an air cooler for $60.
JPAU401@reddit
I'd love to buy one and slap a couple T30s on it, but alas my setup needs a flipped version of the Scythe Fuma 3 to accommodate my exhaust fan.
zuperlo@reddit (OP)
Thank you for this.
That's really a shame, I was hoping it would at least come close to the performance of the Noctua NH-D15 G2, but it seems like it's closer to the performance of the Phantom Spirit 120.
xNailBunny@reddit
Thermalright insists on keeping 158mm height for all their coolers, so the finstacks are simply too short for any fan above 120mm
TheChartsHaveEyes@reddit
Well yeah most cases can't fit above that height. That's hitting the side for most mid tower cases and most of the market uses mid tower or smaller.
xNailBunny@reddit
Modern mid tower cases definitely support taller air coolers. Fractal Design Epoch and Lian Li Lancool 207 list 170mm and 180mm cooler clearance respectively, and those are some of the more compact cases. If thermalright isn't willing to sacrifice some compatibility, they won't be able to produce anything better than the Phantom Spirit.
JPAU401@reddit
I wouldn't completely disregard it yet since they didn't do high end CPU testing. I'm just thinking nobody's reviewed it since it completely flew under the radar after supposedly getting cancelled + not many people are aware it's already on sale + some people are waiting for a manufacturer sample
someshooter@reddit
Probably because the peerless assassin et al are still fine?
WarEagleGo@reddit
:)
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