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!

Continue reading our review of the Thermalright Le Grand Macho RT CPU cooler!!

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.