SPCR

The Ultra 120 Extreme on the top of the throne on this Ninja loving site.
I pray for peace now.

I got this Extreme but mine has fully visible machine marks on the surface, it seems flat though.

Looking good. I'm still waiting tha IFX review. It shows promising... Ninja has it floss. I think that Scythe should do something...

Thanks for the review. Will you be testing the Ultima-90?

Another nice review.

For those who have to point the fan other than towards the rear of the case viewtopic.php?t=43860 might be worth reading.

Essentially if you are considering very low voltage operation in a vertical motherboard situation you are better off orienting the fan to help the heat rise (fan on top of the heat sink blowing upward).

Thanks to Lawrence, Mike, and Bluefront. Your work is read and appreciated.

I've previously owned the Ninja and currently have an TRUE on my CPU. My findings don't support SPCR's in regards to the Ninja; the TRUE outperforms it at all fan voltages by a significant margin, including at higher speeds and voltages.

However, thank you for the review!

Wow, the IFX-14 goes on my shopping list. If anything can run a cpu passive, it must be that monster.

EDIT: when I actually upgrade, that is. No point to get it for my sig machine.

Excellent review, but so long after the release with so many forum members already reporting on this and so many other sites having reviewed it. Still helpful, but very late. Further, IFX-14 has already come and gone from the attention of many enthusiasts (and found wanting from an active cooling perspective). The Ultima 90, probably more relevant, merits review. The list goes on: from aftermarket graphics coolers like the HR-03 and the Zalman VF-1000 to cases like the Antec P190. Technology changes so quickly, some of these products will be close to irrelevant before they are reviewed.

There is a need for more timely reviews of major product releases that impact the SPCR community in order for it to maintain a leading voice.

Great HSF just got better

Ive never been fully happy with my ultra extreme. I have a e4300 and at stock I get 36/34 idle and 46/44 load. Overclocked to 2700 I get 40/39 idle and 49/48 load. This is with a globalwin ncb at 12v. Do these temps seem high to you?

I did notice that there are clearly visible machine marks, and if you run your finger across the bottom you can feel the ridges.

Just a comment about the review...

Proprietary bent winglet design to minimize airflow resistance

We'll take their word for it, but surely unbent fins are less restrictive...

There are two things that the "bent winglet design" may do to reduce resistance or at least help performance.

1) Since the fan is flush mounted to the heat sink, the airflow is probably not going in a straight line, they have hopefully bent the fins to "catch" the airflow in its spin.
2) This is more for a performance than for resistance but the bent winglets may help cause the air to be turbulent or to stay turbulent through the fins. Turbulent air will help the heat transfer significantly as opposed to laminar. It is possible that this could help reduce the resistance as well, but probably insignificantly.

Anyway, just a couple musings from an HVAC engineer.

Greetings,

Dazrin wrote:1) Since the fan is flush mounted to the heat sink, the airflow is probably not going in a straight line, they have hopefully bent the fins to "catch" the airflow in its spin.

This my take on the purpose of the asymmetrically bent fins, too. They point towards the counter-clockwise rotating fan blades, so if anything, they will improve the air flow through the fins, I think.

There has been mention of the Thermalright IFX-14, as being excellent at "passive" cooling -- and it has unusual fins of a different sort...

GamingGod wrote:Ive never been fully happy with my ultra extreme. I have a e4300 and at stock I get 36/34 idle and 46/44 load. Overclocked to 2700 I get 40/39 idle and 49/48 load. This is with a globalwin ncb at 12v. Do these temps seem high to you?

I did notice that there are clearly visible machine marks, and if you run your finger across the bottom you can feel the ridges.

Those temps do seem on the high side. If your motherboard supports undervolting try that and i wouldn't be suprised if your temps drops by 10 degrees or so. According to Thermalright's faq the ridges don't have any effect on performance and they advise against lapping.

In the article it says that the p35-dq6 is on Thermalrights incompatibability list but it's not really (it's conditional on whether you remove crazy cool which is quite easy to do, instructions in the manual). Crazy cool is just the name of the backplate cooler. The towers/pipes on top of the motherboard do not have to be removed. I have this combination and it is not a difficult install

Any chance you are planning on doing a review on the updated Thermalright HR-01?

roadie wrote:I've previously owned the Ninja and currently have an TRUE on my CPU. My findings don't support SPCR's in regards to the Ninja; the TRUE outperforms it at all fan voltages by a significant margin, including at higher speeds and voltages.

However, thank you for the review!

I agree, I'm not happy with my Ninja, especially now that I've upgraded to an OC'd quad. I'm planning to upgrade to a TRUE. I think one of the design flaws of the Ninja is the contact (or lack thereof) between the heatpipes and the base.

I'm running my Q6600 at 3.2GHz with 1.35V and my load temps hover in the mid-upper 60s with the Ninja. I'd really like to push it up to 3.6GHz or more, but I'm at the cooling limits of the Ninja.

christopher3393 wrote:Further, IFX-14 has already come and gone from the attention of many enthusiasts (and found wanting from an active cooling perspective). The Ultima 90, probably more relevant, merits review.

More info please?

I could have sworn this heatsink was already reviewed months ago. I remember hearing that it is just slightly better than the ninja, and that advantage goes away at very low airflow.

I'd also rather have a review of the Thermalright Ultra-90 other than the IFX-14.

I think i'd go with the Thermalright Ultra 120 Extreme heatsink over the ninja just for the superior mounting mechanism, if nothing else. The ninja's increased performance under very low airflow is minimal at best.

djkest wrote:I could have sworn this heatsink was already reviewed months ago. I remember hearing that it is just slightly better than the ninja, and that advantage goes away at very low airflow.

That's the Thermalright Ultra-120. This is the "eXtreme" version

A potentially confusing statement in the article is :

"To be perfectly clear, there's no way to install this heatsink having access to both sides of the motherboard."

I think you meant to say, "without having access to both sides..." I realize the next statement in the article clarifies your actual intent, but it in truth contradicts the intial statement.

Other than that, impressive write-up! I love reading reviews on SPCR, they are always well written and thorough.

With a Gigabyte GA-P35-DS4 rev 1.0 motherboard, Thermalright Ultra 120 Extreme heatsink and Antec Solo case there's about 2mm clearance between the support bar and heatsink.

The heatsink just about fits with the Northbridge heatsink on the motherboard also. I actually filed some of the northbridge heatsink away to make sure there was enough clearance but it didn't really need it.

If you have the Gigabyte "crazy cool" backplate you can just cut it in half with a hacksaw or refit the the northbridge heatsink with bolts. Doing that allows you to fit the heatsink backplate of the Thermalright cooler.

Two points worth mentioning about the Thermalright Ultra 120 Extreme are the "penny mod" which in some cases can drop CPU temperatures significantly:

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/sho ... 499&page=2

The base finish on some of these heatsinks is really bad also. When I put a metal ruler across the base of my Ultra 120 Extreme heatsink it was really uneven and poorly finished. It was quite shocking just how bad mine was (purchased August 2007).

After lapping it works fine now.

There are a few pics of some other people's uneven Ultra 120 Extreme heatsink bases here:

http://www.exoid.com/?page_id=81

http://forums.extremeoverclocking.com/s ... ?p=2727879

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/sho ... me+lapping

.

Woohoo, finally a SPCR of the Ultra-120 Extreme!

thanks for the great review - and another vote for testing the ultima-90

I can report that the U120-extreme fits a solo case with a gigabyte GA-965P-DS3 mobo; just barely.

geofelt wrote:I can report that the U120-extreme fits a solo case with a gigabyte GA-965P-DS3 mobo; just barely.

in what orientation?

WR304 wrote: worth mentioning about the Thermalright Ultra 120 Extreme "penny mod" which in some cases can drop CPU temperatures significantly:

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/sho ... 499&page=2

I agree with the user that went with a dime instead.

Dime Thickness: 1.35 mm (0.053 in)
Penny Thickness: 1.55 mm (0.061 in)

Note the Penny is manufactured in larger batches, has more irregularities and is mishandled by the public much more. You are likely to see more variation in thickness with the penny.

Your choice if you choose to try it...

Yes, the TRUE (<--took me a while to figure out what that was an acronym for) does seem to have a better mounting mechanism than the Ninja, but the Ninja costs around $32 and includes a very good fan. I'd still get the Ninja and then the TR bolt-thru kit and I'd still be saving $25 over the TRUE, not even including a fan.

With a Gigabyte GA-P35-DS4 rev 1.0 motherboard, Thermalright Ultra 120 Extreme heatsink and Antec Solo case there's about 2mm clearance between the support bar and heatsink

I have the rev 2.0 of the same board. I would guess, having looked at the clearance from the side, that it was closer to 5mm. And the TRUE rocks - once I discovered that I had not closed the CPU retention bracket properly. CPU is E6750 at stock, with an S-Flex 120mm (the 1200 rpm module, controlled by mobo)

As I am using Linux, my temp information will not be directly comparable to speedfan, but lm-sensors reports the temps as:

temp1 thermistor (probably motherboard) 39
temp2 diode (CPU) 34

isa-CPU-000 24
isa-CPU-001 25

fan 560-590

with ambient temp about 10c. gkrellm reports both CPUs at 95-99% (folding), and the cpu temps at 34-ish. All the tri-cools in the P182 case are running at low-speed; and the sides are off, because I am still fiddling with the TV card and wireless adaptor; but according to many experts, this should not dramatically impact the cooling. Best of all, it is functionally inaudible.

I followed Ace-a-Rue's option of velcro on the base. The scissors top plate stays centered on it pretty well and it's more secure than the dime was.

Like others, I had to lap mine as I could feel the ridges.

This is interesting. In 2006 the Ultra-120 beat the scythe ninja.

http://www.silentpcreview.com/article646-page3.html

In 2007 they released the Ultra-120-Extreme.
In this article, the Ninja beats the Ultra-120, but loses to the U120-Extreme by about the same margin that it lost to the U120 last year.


I believe that the CPU in 2006 produced more heat.

This is why I thought that this had already been reviewed.