Tuniq Tower 120 Extreme CPU Cooler

Manufacturer: Tuniq
Supplied by: Tuniq
Street Price: $65

by Dean Barker (10/04/2009)

Introduction

Tuniq looks like they pulled out all the stops with their latest cooler.  The Tuniq Tower 120 Extreme looks exactly that, extreme!  This gigantic cube of a cooler comes packed with Core Contact Design heatpipes, a silent fan, a rheostat adjustment bracket and to be sure you get the last drop of performance out of the cooler, a small tube of Tuniq TX-3 Thermal Paste.  Tuniq has obviously put a lot of thought into the Tower 120 Extreme Cooler design and today we plan on putting that design to the test. 

Tuniq has sent over a sample of this oversized cooler for us to see how well it looks, installs and most importantly performs.  Let's start out with a look at the raw specs and our thanks to Tuniq for sponsoring this review.

Specifications

• Application: Intel: Socket 1366, Socket 775, AMD: Socket AM3, AM2, AM2+, 939, 940

• Observed Dimensions: 133 x 113 x 153mm

• Observed Weight: 941 gms

• Construction: Aluminum fins / Copper Heatpipes

• Fan Size: 120 x 25mm

• Fan Speed: Variable rate 1000 ~ 2000 RPM

• Fan Noise: 16 ~ 20 dBA

• Maximum Air Flow: 90.65 CFM

• 3-Pin Connector

What you get

To be perfectly honest, I wasn't sure what was really going to be in the box when I opened it up.  The box itself was 7.5" x 6 x 10".  That's a good sized box!  Opening it up we found in addition to the cooler, we had mounting hardware, a small tube of TX-3 Thermal Paste, a fan speed control bracket along with a fairly straight forward installation manual.

The Unit

Let's get down to business.  The Tuniq Tower 120 Extreme is an interesting design to say the least.  The large convection fin assembly measures a good 133 x 113 x 110mm alone  The height of the entire cooler is a tall 153mms.  Before we go any further, installing the Tuniq Tower 120 Extreme into one of our test beds, a Zalman GT1000 Midtower Case, we didn't run into any issues with the cooler not fitting in the case. 

Shifting our gaze back to the now, the scalloped convections are offset in such a way as to look like some type of artistic layering.  You have to admit, the black anodized fin array is pretty hip looking.

Let me take a second before we move on to underscore exactly how big this cooler is.  I wear a size 10 1/2 shoe.  A picture speaks a thousand words...

Looking at the cooler face forward we can see that there is a 120mm cooling fan sandwiched in there.  The fan is a variable speed unit rated to run between 1000 ~ 2000 RPM making a reported 16 ~ 20dBA of sound.  That's pretty quiet.  While we don't have CFM specs at low speed, Tuniq cites the fan as moving just under 91 cubic feet of air per minute at its maximum setting.

The Five 'U' shaped heatpipes you see provide a structure for the convection fin assembly to be attached to.  If you look closely you will see that the nickel plated heatpipes are not all the same size.  The outer and middle heatpipes measure 8mm where the heatpipes in the number two and four position measure 6mm thick.  For my part, I'm glad to see Tuniq supersizing three of the five heatpipes from the standard 6mm to 8mm.  But I'm left wondering why not supersize them all.  I'm sure cost containment was part of the answer.

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