Overclocker Cafe - Thermalright Ultra 120 Extreme Review

ThermalRight Ultra 120 eXtreme Cooler

Performance

Coolers that have a built in fan as the Thermaltake MaxOrb or Zalman 9700 NT are easier for comparison purposes because you bolt them on and go. Coolers such as the ThermalRight Ultra 120 and Ultra 120 eXtreme don't come with a pre-packaged fan. This allows the end user to purchase a fan based on their needs. While nice, it does make direct product comparisons a bit tricky because your results depend heavily on the fan you select.

So you have two choices, a high RPM fan that will move mountains of air and make a helluva lot of noise in doing so OR a low RPM fan aimed at silent operation while providing maximum acceptable performance. My thoughts are that the 'no holds barred' performance crowd will really be looking at water cooling over air. The smaller working areas typically found in HTPC cases don't mix too well with the standard all-in-one water cooling kits out today. This leaves a niche that is looking for maximum performance but within the context of low fan noise, overall compactness and simplicity. To this end we are going to use a Scythe S-Flex 33.5 CFM 120mm Quiet Fan to power our ThermalRight Ultra 120 eXtreme test unit.

For comparison purposes, we are going to use the Tt MaxOrb with its fan speed set to low to make this a battle of the silent beasts. Both coolers will be installed and run five times by placing both processor cores at 100% load by way of SiSoft Sandra's XI Burn In Module for 30 minutes with a final temperature reading taken at the end. The highest and lowest results will be thrown out and the remaining three will be averaged and graphed. ThermalRight Chill Factor Thermal Paste will be used in all tests. Ambient room temperature at time of testing remained within one half a degree of a 25 degrees C.

Let me underscore the differences in fans here. The Tt MaxOrb fan is set to turn at 1275 RPM while the silent Scythe S-Flex runs at less than two-thirds this speed, operating at 800 RPM. This will be an apples to oranges comparison to give you a ball park idea of the new ThermalRight's performance. So please keep this in mind whatever results we come up with.

Test Bed

ASUS P5N32-E SLI mainboard

Intel Core 2 Duo 6600 (2.4GHz) @ 3.0GHz - 1.51 volts

(2) 1GB OCZ PC2-6400 Ti Memory (4-4-4-15) @ DDR2-867

250MB Western Digital Caviar SE SATA II HDD

(2) Inno3D GeForce 7900 GS iChill in SLI

Generic 16x DVD-RW drive

Tt ToughPower 1200w PSU

Windows XP Pro with all service packs installed

Open rack mounting

Results

Conclusion

Very impressive indeed. I picked up the Scythe S-Flex 800 RPM fan for a HTPC I built with the goal of complete silence. This fan moves air that is barely noticeable to your hand and to have this super low air flow get within one degree Celsius of Thermaltake's flagship cooler running at 1250 RPM is amazing. We are talking LESS than two-thirds the RPM and the same performance. A 1250 RPM version of the S-Flex is available that I wish I had one to try on the Ultra 120 eXtreme. The increased airflow of that unit would hands down take out the mighty Orb.

There is a flip side to this, not including a fan with a $60 cooler effectively makes this a $75 cooler unless you have a fan on hand. That's a lot of money in my mind. My other issue is more to the argument that currently rages over horizontal versus vertical coolers. The Tt Max Orb for instance blows air down onto the mainboard components, helping to keep heat from building up in places. Vertical coolers blow air parallel to the mainboard making it easier to exhaust from the system but does nothing for mobo components. And again, there is another side to even this. ThermalRight's 120 Ultra eXtreme cooler can be mounted to face up, down, to the left or right side of the motherboard making it super easy to direct your warm exhaust to a case's exhaust fan or a PSU intake so it can be circulated out of the box. So as you can tell, it's a preference issue that depends on your set and setup.

In the end, if you run a rig where you are looking to find maximum cooling at the lowest possible sound cost, this is it. The ThermalRight Ultra 120 eXtreme is just that eXtreme. Thanks go out again to Sidewinder Computers for sponsoring this review.

Pros

Great cooling
High performance cooling even with very low RPM fan
Cooler's exhaust orientation can be up, down, left or right
Excellent workmanship
Universal fit to all modern AMD and Intel processors

Cons

Motherboard removal necessary for installation
Fan not included - adds to final price

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