Introduction and First Impressions
Will this massive air cooler provide low noise and high performance?
The Le Grande Macho RT is a massive air CPU cooler design from Thermalright that pairs a very large heatsink (with 7 heat pipes) with a quiet 140 mm fan. It certainly looks impressive, but you'll want to read on to find out how it performed on our test bench!
"With the Le Grand Macho RT we offer an actively cooled version of our famous semi-passive flagship. Thanks to the silent-running TY 147 B with fluid dynamic bearing, the Le Grand Macho RT can cool up to 280 watt.
The design of the heat sink has not been changed and is still asymmetrical. This offers the highest possible compatibility to the most recent motherboards. Thus it is guaranteed that the Le Grand Macho RT neither blocks the RAM spaces, nor the top-most PCIe slot on current ATX-boards."
While the Le Grand Macho RT is one of the largest coolers I've tested, it is still a little smaller than Thermalright's famous SilverArrow dual-tower cooler. In fact, the 159 mm height means it will fit a large number of enclosures (with 165 mm being a common limit).
The single-fan design of the Macho makes it look like a good candidate for low-noise air cooling, and it's physically larger than the Scythe Ninja 4 cooler I reviewed back in January – which was, incidentally, the quietest cooler I've tested to date.
Why install this giant on a mini-ITX board? Why not!
Specifications:
Heatsink:
- Dimension: L150mm x W120mm x H159mm (Fin Area only)
- L150mm x W125mm x H159mm (Heat sink incl.)
- Weight: 900g
- Heat pipes: 6mm heatpipe*7 units
- Fin: T = 0.4 mm ; Gap = 3.1 mm
- Fin Pcs: 35 pcs
- Copper Base: C1100 Pure copper nickel plated
- Motherboard to Fin: 36 + 8 = 44 mm 46 + 8=54 mm
TY-147B Fan:
- Dimension: L152 mm x W140 mm x H26.5 mm
- Weight: 160g
- Rated Speed: 300 – 1300 RPM
- Noise Level: 14 – 20dBA
- Air Flow: 16.9- 73.6 CFM
- Connector: 4 Pin (PWM Fan connector)
- Bearing Type : FDB Bearing
Thanks to Thermalright for providing the Le Grand Macho RT Cooler for our review.
- Thermalright Le Grand Macho RT Cooler – $79.99, Amazon.com
First Impressions
The Le Grand Macho RT arrives in premium packaging, and offers the most significant internal padding I've seen from a CPU cooler. Once out of the box, however, it's far more impressive!
Did I mention this was a large cooler? The heatsink is huge, and all the more impressive given the 7 nickel-plated copper heatpipes.
The base is also nickel-plated copper, polished to a mirror finish.
The included TY-147B fan is a 140 mm PWM model that spins from 300 – 1300 RPM, and can move up to 73.6 CFM at its top speed. Thermalright says this new fan is "a slightly upgraded version of the TY 147 A" with a fluid-dynamic bearing, and is, "thanks to the side vents in the fan frame, even more silent than the TY 147 A".
The Le Grand Macho RT's heatsink weighs 900g, and 1060g after adding the fan, so the retention mechanism needs to be quite robust to handle the weight.
A plastic shim is also included for socket 1151 processors as an added measure of protection for the thinner Skylake substrate.
Next we'll take a closer look at the Le Grand Macho RT and go over the installation process.
I clicked on this article
I clicked on this article just to look at Sebastian’s beautiful photography.
PCPer should sell these shots to Thermalright since they are better than the ones on Thermalright’s website haha
Indeed!!
Indeed!!
I second that.
I second that.
Too kind! 🙂 Thank you.
Too kind! 🙂 Thank you.
Noctua has been my go to big
Noctua has been my go to big ass air cooler for quite a few years now. Looks as if Thermalright has taken back the crown, based on installation, noise, performance, and space constraints, and will be near the top of my short list for my next one. Thanks for the review.
Don’t you have the cooler
Don’t you have the cooler mounted the wrong way around? And isn’t the Grand Macho supposed to operate well fanlessly? It would be useful to see those results.
Wait! I’m macho. I must have
Wait! I’m macho. I must have this
With how popular the Hyper
With how popular the Hyper 212 is I’m surprised to find it missing from these charts.
Check back in a few days once
Check back in a few days once I've had a chance to test it on the Intel system. I haven't revisted the 212 EVO on Intel since way back when I had it face off against a low-cost liquid cooler.
Impressive, looks like
Impressive, looks like Thermaltake actually put a lot of thought into this cooler. And that is saying a lot, because I have never much cared for their products. But I would definitely consider this one if I need such a huge cooler. Bummer you didn’t have the Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO to benchmark against this.
THERMALRIGHT makes some of
THERMALRIGHT makes some of the best heatsinks available. (If not the best) THERMALTAKE makes junk.
So let me get this straight,
So let me get this straight, this review only tested the CPU at stock????? Why would anyone buy such a cooler unless they were going to do some overclocking? Stock i5’s can be cooled passively if need be. Also why not compare it (in testing) to the NH-D15 instead of the NH-D14?
I was so excited seeing the
I was so excited seeing the performance and noise charts I totally missed that. I certainly buy big ass coolers, noctua for years, so I can overclock easily with low temps and low noise levels. The overclocked results have to be added to make this review useful and complete. Many coolers perform well at stock and terrible with overclocking. The conclusions might change dramatically when the over overclocked results are added to the review, though I hope not. Thanks in advance Sebastian.
Working on overclocking
Working on overclocking results now. I have results from this cooler, but nothing to compare against until all available coolers are re-tested using the same OC. I've overclocked the i5-6600K from this test setup to 4.50 GHz, and those results will be included in either an update, or an overclocking roundup.
I am very happy with my
I am very happy with my Thermalright Macho rev. B and this one looks just as good.
how hard is it to clean?
how hard is it to clean?
I bought Le Grand Macho RT
I bought Le Grand Macho RT because I own a BitFenix Neos case and not all the coolers had the right dimensions.
I do overclock with my i5-6600k, and I must say that this macho is a true miracle.
I recommend it to all those who want the most for air cooling.
It also does not make any noise and runs almost always the middle of the turns, in smart mode.
I second that! This is maybe
I second that! This is maybe the best air cooler, my overclocked system is now (after years of struggle(!) finally stable with 4GHZ OC. i7 950 @ 4,009 MHz, power-hungry chip needs 1,35V to achieve this OC and with previous cooler the temps were in very dangerous region! VRM were too hot and air-flow around MOBO was zero, and my previous cooler was not some junk, it was arctic cooling freezer extreme. With the same settings (maybe one step voltage higher) the temps went down from 85 to 70-73 °C after one hour of linpack OCCT torture. Also, there is ZERO noise! I am looking forward to build my next PC this year, I am sure this cooler will handle well any modern CPU.
I bought this thing recently
I bought this thing recently and slapped it on an AMD 8370. It keeps my CPU cooler than my H100i V2 water cooler. I get idle temps at 25C (77F) and max out at 44C (111F).