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Thermalright Ultra-120


Date
: 07/3/06 – 03:03:02 AM

Author
:

Category
: Cooling

Page 1 : Index

Manufacturer:
Thermalright, Inc.

Price:
$54.95 MSRP / $43.99 USD (Crazy PC)

This week seems to be CPU cooler week for me and the theme is heatpipes, lots of them. If your CPU cooler doesn't have heatpipes, it isn't good enough it seems. When 939 dual core CPUs started to show up with heatpipe coolers in the box, it spelled the end of traditional heatsink coolers. VGA coolers are now starting to emerge with heatpipes alongside the already plentiful CPU and Hard Drive heatpipe based coolers. One of the early adopters and more famous designers of heatpipe CPU coolers is Thermalright.

Thermalright is a name I am sure almost everyone at some time has heard of and if not then it is about time you have. The product line of Thermalright has expanded as rapidly as the size of heatsinks in recent years and now appears to have over 15 different CPU cooler models in its lineup. Mix in a few chipset and VGA coolers and you have a complete cooling family. Recently, here at O², Michael looked at the Thermalright HR-01 which appears to be the early model of what I will test today, the Ultra-120.

The Ultra-120 is another "stand-up" cooler that detours away from the design that has made Thermalright famous with the heatpipes curling back overtop of base coming perpendicular to the CPU surface. Their most recent designs, like the Ultra-120, bend the heatpipes straight up into an array of aluminum fins to do the cooling. This leaves a somewhat smaller footprint while still allowing a massive 120mm fan mount. It also eliminates that downward air movement that helps cool motherboards, PWM areas, and memory like their more traditional design of the XP-120/90 so there is some draw back. I am excited to see the difference between the Ultra-120 and an XP-120 but there is plenty more to look at before testing.

Page 2 : Package

If by chance you just finished reading my Ultra PSU review, then you will be witness to what is called a complete 180 in packaging. Both in appearance and package protection, Thermalright doesn't sell that many products in retail stores and rely on their quality background to sell products, not packaging, the next four photos are all the evidence you need.

I wasn't kidding, there is nothing to this package but a very thick walled, well designed, corrugated box…AKA cardboard box done right.

Pulling back and getting a photo of the whole box shows nothing more than the logo on the top of the box. The best part was that I received this box inside of a foam chip filled package. This package is solid enough that a simple tape job would be enough to send this in the mail.

There is one more marking on the exterior of the package and that is to identify it as housing an Ultra-120. This section is rather thin but there isn't much else to show you so let's move on to the specifications of the Ultra-120.

Page 3 : Specifications

I went to Thermalrights web site to gather some information about the Ultra-120 but was greeted by very little in the way of actual information. This should come as no surprise to anyone who has been to the Thermalright web site. They do have a short features list:

It is pretty standard stuff except for the bent winglet design. It was the first thing I noticed when I pulled the Ultra-120 from its box and am intrigued to see just how quiet the Ultra-120 will run. Here is a photo of what I am discussing when Thermalright says "bent winglet":

Next up is the specifications such as size, weight, and eye color.

The weight of 745g isn't too bad but the Ultra-120 is certainly a few donuts heavier than a stock cooling unit. The height of 160.5mm is nothing over the top although any low profile cases may interfere with the Ultra-120. The only concern is the compatibility at the bottom of that list. All models of the Athlon64 are certainly not compatible otherwise the testing would be done with an Athlon64 AM2. According to the Thermalright web site the AM2 bracket is to be out sometime at the end of June. As of this review, that means now or very soon.

I also found a link to motherboard compatibility on the Ultra-120 page. Although there were no issues to be found, Thermalright leaves an open invitation for anyone if they find one. I also found this little blurb of text and immediately became concerned with my setup having just sold my only 939 Asus motherboard:

After some quick looking around, most of my nForce4 boards do not have a backplate useable with the ULtra-120 retaining module. This include both Foxconn and both DFI motherboards I have spanning both the Infinity and Lan Party line. In fact, the only motherboard that has the equivalent of the metal K8 backplate is my ECS KA1 MVP Extreme. You can read more about this in the Installation section, complete with the photos that tell the story better than I ever could.

Page 4 : Package Contents

The real action starts once we open the lid so we do that now.

Very nicely tucked into the foam packaging is the Ultra-120 and lying on top is what appears to be instruction sheets and the standard Thermalright sticker I have received with all my Thermalright heatsinks. Notice the white pad underneath the instruction sheet?

It is blown out here so you cannot see, but it is a foam piece comprised of the same material as the foam surrounding the heatsink. Thermalright take every precaution possible to protect the heatsink and its fins in packaging. There is also a box present at the bottom of the box, we'll have a look at that.

Inside is just our two hardware mounts for each AMD Socket A/754/939 and Intel S-775. There are also two sets of instructions, one for each mount method. The instructions are thorough and do the job but it is easy enough to figure out how the mount works. The sheet instructions make no mention of a metal backplate.

A closer look at the bag inside the white box exposes the two retaining modules, a small bag of the screws for each module, a large tube of thermal paste, the two fan retaining clips and two small strips that prevent vibration from the fan on the heatsink fins. The retention plates and backplate for Socket 775 all look well made and nicely finished.

I finally have the Ultra-120 free of the package and just wanted to take one more photo of what I call its coffin. The heatsink is in perfect shape without a finger print or bent fin in sight. I will say it one last time, Thermalright knows how to package a product.

the head on view shows that the heatpipes raise straight up at different widths. I am sure this is to provide the heat to the fins more evenly to aid in removing that heat. The base where the four heatpipes remove the heat from appears as a one piece design but I am sure it is two pieces fused together somehow.

When I turn the Ultra-120 it shows exactly how the bent winglet design works with the whole cooler. Despite the pure size of the cooler, the base area looks very open and it looks to have a small footprint. I do not anticipate any mounting issues with this cooler surprisingly enough.

From the side it is clear that the base is two pieces as it almost has to be but the top piece that is responsible for mounting is quite solid and looks to be a perfect base for the mount. Again, even close up, every single fin is perfect and exactly where it should be.

Again, the machining on the base is near flawless with smooth edges everywhere. The more I look at this solid base, the more I feel confident that the mounts will be easy and perfect each time. I really like solid pieces of work and this base is built very well and

Our last photo before heading into the installation section will be of the base which faces our processor. The flawless finish appears to be flat from corner to corner but the mounts will be the true judge as I do not have the hardware required to measure that myself.

Page 5 : Installation

If we recall the specifications section, I touched on the mounting difficulties without a metal backplate. I will start off with photos explaining this and then go on to installing the Ultra-120 on a few boards I have laying around.

On the right is the backplate from the ECS KA1 MVP Extreme and on the left, the backplate for my DFI LanParty Ultra-D. The ECS backplate is the equivalent of the metal backplate that Thermalright offers on their web site for sale. The difference between the two is where the threads start on the accepting receptacle for the mounting bolts. The DFI backplate, along with many others, have just a nut at the bottom of the backplate and the threads don't start until that nut. The metal backplate design has the threads start at the top of the recepticle, up above the motherboard even.

This photo shows where the bolts sit when they first start to thread into the backplate. As you can see the metal backplate has the retaining bolt sit about a 1/4" higher and this is all the difference in the world. The DFI backplate only allows the bolt to thread in half a turn and wouldn't be useable even if I bent the retaining bracket.

I figured since its backplate will get used on all other motherboards, I should at least show the ECS KA1 MVP photo first. Installation went flawlessly and memory can even be removed with the Ultra-120 in place.

Next up for install was the DFI Infinity Ultra using the ECS backplate. If I was to use the backplate that came with the Infinity, I would not be able to install the cooler. The Ultra-120 goes two for two which is a very good start. The Infinity fits the Ultra-120 nicely with the memory still removable with the cooler in place. The only issue is the very top PCI-E slot which may interfere slightly with some cards.

This is the Foxconn 6150K8MA-8EKRS mounted to a motherboard tray with its stock backplate. In order for the bolts to thread they have to reach down into the backplate all the way through the motherboard. That is not a possibility in any way, shape, or form. Swapping to the ECS fixes that issue and the Ultra-120 fits perfectly on the m-ATX board.

The testing motherboard for this review will be in the last of the installation photos as I prepare it for testing. You can see in this photo that the metal backplate of the ECS allows the bolts to thread and secure the massive Ultra-120 to the DFI LanParty Ultra-D.

After mounting the Ultra-120, I slid some memory into the orange slots quite easily and mounted the ADDA fan with the included clips. Installation is remarkably easy with the metal backplate and impossible without so be sure to get one of those when buying this cooler if you need it. I noted that all motherboards allowed memory to be installed and removed with the cooler in place, very nicely done Thermalright.

This photos sort of shows the mounting clips for the fan but more importantly identifies the fan for those that are interested. Here are the specs of the fan as it will be used for testing:

And testing is all we have left to do so that is what is up next.

Page 6 : Performance & Testing

Here is the lineup that will be responsible for testing the Ultra-120 and seeing how it stacks up to some other heatpipe coolers:

With the nature of this heatsink as a powerhouse cooler I will not even bother testing inside of a case as everyones setup is so different there really is no point. Instead, I will compare it against my aging Thermalright XP-120 in the most brutal of conditions I can throw at them…sitting on top of a 3GHz Socket 939 AMD64 Opteron 146. Each cooler will be mounted on the CPU with the included thermal paste. When first powered up, I will jump into the BIOS for 5 minutes to ensure temperatures are okay and a good mount was achieved. It is then on to windows for 4 hours of StressPrime04 on Stesstest Blend mode. Mother Board Monitor is my temperature monitoring program of choice now and this will be used to record temperatures.

At the end of the 4 hours I will record the Load temperatures and then let the system idle for 2 hours and take the temperatures again. Ambient temperature will be monitored via a thermal probe coupled to another system with the probe sitting on the desk beside the test setup. Here are the results both under Load and at Idle:

The chart above tells the story. The Ultra-120 handles the high heat load of the 3GHz AMD Opteron 146 better than the XP-120. Where the Ultra-120 does fall short, is cooling the motherboard. The PWMIC Temperature is the only real difference between the two coolers and the XP-120 clearly gets some airflow over that sensor where as the Ultra-120 doesn't. At the same time, the Ultra-120 would be an amazing setup for a case setup with front to back airflow if the Ultra-120 was orientated to blow its hot air off the cooler straight out the back.

Page 7 : Conclusion

Another review has come to a close and Thermalright have outdone themselves again. The Thermalright Ultra-120 is a bit different from the XP-120 design and with that design there are some slight drawbacks but the CPU cooling ability seems to have been approved upon.

There is no real point of mentioning anything about noise because you can choose your own fan but I will state that the Ultra-120 seemed to make less air noise than the XP-120. Of course the XP-120 is pushing air straight down towards the motherboard and finding more resistance so that may be the reason for the extra noise as well versus the Ultra-120 who's airflow out the fins is unobstructed and free of any turbulence.

Installation is as simple as it gets as long as you have the correct backing plate. In fact, I found it almost easier to mount the Ultra-120 than a stock AMD cooling unit and certainly easier than the XP-120 whose clip style makes it quite difficult to install in a case, unlike the Ultra-120 which would be easy. Just make sure you get the metal backplate if you don't already when you order one.

Advantages:

• Superb cooling ability
• Noise is up to you with fan choice
• Installation is very simple

  Disadvantages:

• Height will limit its use in some HTPC cases
• AM2 mount not out yet
• Metal backplate required to mount cooler

  Overclockers Online would like to thank Crazy PC for providing this sample for review.

  If you like how this cooler performed, don't forget to enter in our latest contest where you could win one!