Thermalright IFX-14

Felger Carbon · Post by **Felger Carbon** » Tue May 01, 2007 7:54 am

The Thermalright IFX-14 has now been reviewed. It was a used preproduction unit, not new (so the production line is probably not yet running). Projected price $80. Does outperform the stock Intel cooler.

Flame-shaped cooling fins means Thermalright has given up boring fins and is now going after the Titan/Apack market (can you say "butterflies"?).

I still say this is just a Thermaltake Sonic Tower upgrade.

cansan · Post by **cansan** » Tue May 01, 2007 8:09 am

wow, crappy crappy review.
Isn't this supposed to use a 140mm fan? "IFX-14" seems to imply that, so why are they testing with a 120mm fan? and why are there two bars on the temperature graphs? Why can't they have a picture together with a Ninja or Ultra 120 or something to show the size... worst review I have read in a long time.

Tzupy · Post by **Tzupy** » Tue May 01, 2007 8:53 am

Saw that but since the review is rubbish I didn't bother to mention it here. The temps they are getting aren't as good as I expected anyway.
The early IFX-14 samples may have a few problems, IIRC the early Ultra-120s were not as good as the latest ones.

Buddabing · Post by **Buddabing** » Tue May 01, 2007 12:22 pm

wow, crappy crappy review.

... the review is rubbish ...

You guys are overreacting. The article wasn't meant to be a full-fledged review. It's only a PREview.

LuckyNV · Post by **LuckyNV** » Tue May 01, 2007 2:32 pm

Wait for Anandtechs review

ronrem · Post by **ronrem** » Wed May 02, 2007 11:31 pm

eh....

Anand will totally focus on overclocking,won't consider whether it can be used passive. They WILL however have quite a few comparison coolers...so you'd get a rough idea.

However---there IS a pic that does show it's huge relative to a stick of Ram and appears a full 140 mm wide.

---And it is a Thermalright. Thermalright has a very good track record and generally if they put a new item out-its a serious contender.

For OUR purposes...we will likely need to wait for a few SPCR folk to try it out in a quiet setup.

christopher3393 · Post by **christopher3393** » Mon Jul 23, 2007 5:26 pm

Now available but still no full reviews. IMO merits thorough examination.

Max Slowik · Post by **Max Slowik** » Mon Jul 23, 2007 8:14 pm

I really liked the idea behind the Sonic Tower, and with two fans it performed as well as my Ninja with two fans, and the reason why it didn't fare better under high air flow conditions was simple: the fins weren't soldered to the heatpipes. Just pressure-fitted.

Talk about cheap. That one step would have made it great.

Oh, that and the heatpipes weren't soldered to the base, they were just in there with some TIM. And yet, it still performed well, considering.

Right, I just remembered it was also missing a bunch of mounting hardware. And a fan bracket.

Luminair · Post by **Luminair** » Mon Jul 23, 2007 9:10 pm

Buddabing wrote:

wow, crappy crappy review.

... the review is rubbish ...

You guys are overreacting. The article wasn't meant to be a full-fledged review. It's only a PREview.

The article isn't good. But it isn't as bad as some HardOCP articles either.

PS: The fact that the guy is happy to have a heatsink with pretty flames tells you a lot. How much time do you spend looking at your heatsink?

christopher3393 · Post by **christopher3393** » Mon Jul 23, 2007 9:16 pm

Some more substantial test results should be available in a few days:

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/sho ... 26&page=11

atlr · Post by **atlr** » Thu Jul 26, 2007 11:51 am

another ifx-14 owner report
http://forums.vr-zone.com/showpost.php? ... stcount=91

Max Slowik · Post by **Max Slowik** » Thu Jul 26, 2007 12:57 pm

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/sho ... ost2330500

Huh. It would seem that it's not as good as the Ultra 120 Extreme. I think I'd rather use the smaller of the two for a whole host of reasons, although I'd also like to see the backside cooler made available by itself, since it takes a couple of extra degrees off.

Max Slowik · Post by **Max Slowik** » Thu Jul 26, 2007 1:02 pm

Notice how much thicker the vanes are on the U120E are; I forget, are they aluminum or nickel-plated copper? In any case I suspect it works better simply by carrying more heat away from the heatpipes. More fins and a greater in^2 matter for dick if they're not effective cooling surfaces.

My guess is that they're thinner to keep the weight down. Fat lot of good...

zistu · Post by **zistu** » Thu Jul 26, 2007 4:24 pm

Interesting to see that that backplate sink does lower the temperatures some across the entire range. I was skeptical about the use of that. It should be interesting to see how they develop that further, in terms of minimizing mainboard interference, maximizing (thermal) contact, etc.

Felger Carbon · Post by **Felger Carbon** » Fri Jul 27, 2007 11:37 am

The iFX-14, designed to use 140mm fans, was tested with 120mm fans. It's a shame that there's such a limited choice of 140mm fans...

skiddy · Post by **skiddy** » Sat Jul 28, 2007 5:57 am

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/sho ... p?t=153027

Felger Carbon · Post by **Felger Carbon** » Sat Jul 28, 2007 6:33 am

Apparently when the two main sections of the iFX-14 are straightened (which was also necessary for the Sonic Tower) the center space will fit a 38mm fan (one report so far). Does anybody know of a 140mm fan that's 38mm thick? Esp. one recommended by Thermalright?

Thermalright recommended a Panasonic 38mm-thick 120mm fan weighing 270grams for one of their shelf HSFs, which I thought at the time was insane. Later I discovered the HSF needed a high-pressure fan to force air between the tightly spaced fins, and that 38mm fans typically produce more pressure than their otherwise equivalent 25mm brethren.

The closeup photos of the thin fins (high air-to-aluminum ratio) lead me to believe the iFX will be a good low airflow HSF and a poor overclocking HSF. Screams of outrage from the overclocking camp should be music to SPCR ears!

Max Slowik · Post by **Max Slowik** » Sat Jul 28, 2007 1:01 pm

38mm thick fans are mostly for servers; their designed to draw air past hot-swap cages and force it out through small, passive server heatsinks then through the PSU. I'd be surprised if you can find one that, even at its start voltage, will pass a quiet muster.

Smoken Joe · Post by **Smoken Joe** » Fri Aug 03, 2007 4:08 am

I have this heatsink and it does work with semi passive to some extent I just got it so I have not done any quiet testing but it will continue to cool with only a case fan blowing at it even under heavy load. It is significantly better than my Thermalright Ultra.

You can use a 120x38 I should have a Panisonic (panflow) low speed fan around if someone would like me to test it out or to test out a orange yate loon or two. Either would seem more than enough for overclocking even in silent mode.
I have not heard of a 38MM 140 fan but the 120x38 is such a good fit I would try that first.

This with one of the new IP35 Abit MB should let me have a overclocking beast with reasonable noise levels. Only passive cooling is needed on the chipset it is one of the lowest powered MB's out there right now and overclocks well too.

skiddy · Post by **skiddy** » Fri Aug 03, 2007 4:23 pm

Smoken Joe wrote:You can use a 120x38 I should have a Panisonic (panflow) low speed fan around if someone would like me to test it out or to test out a orange yate loon or two. Either would seem more than enough for overclocking even in silent mode.

I'm running 3 x 120 x 38mm Panaflo's on mine. At 1700 rpm, they are quite noisy, but allow 1.5v on core, and 3.75 GHz overclock on a C2D 6600. At that vcore, I can run OCCT stable.

With the fans at 7v, they are *quieter* than the 800 rpm Noctuas I had mounted, and flow more air. I would need to reduce vcore if I were to keep the fans at 7v, but am waiting on a fan controller.

thijs · Post by **thijs** » Tue Aug 21, 2007 12:12 pm

Fairly 'complete' review on the Abit Forums

Felger Carbon · Post by **Felger Carbon** » Wed Aug 22, 2007 9:30 am

What the IFX-14 seems to need is a 38mm-thick 140mm fan that can be turned down to run quietly. Not too quietly, this HS seems targeted straight at the crazed overclockers, since normal CPUs clocked normally don't need such massive cooling now that the unlamented Prescott is gone.

Am I correct that no such fan exists? Yet?

skiddy · Post by **skiddy** » Thu Aug 23, 2007 3:32 pm

Felger Carbon wrote:What the IFX-14 seems to need is a 38mm-thick 140mm fan that can be turned down to run quietly. Not too quietly, this HS seems targeted straight at the crazed overclockers, since normal CPUs clocked normally don't need such massive cooling now that the unlamented Prescott is gone.

Am I correct that no such fan exists? Yet?

There's no 140 x 38's. I don't think the extra 20mm matter, anyway. Since the IFX is only 1.5c cooler than the TRUE, with both having optimal fans, it seems to me that it's more important to have high airflow -over- the heatpipes. The IFX's outer heatpipes are only about 110 mm apart (outer circumference to outer).

BTW, this -really- surprises me (that the TRUE works as good as it does). I'd think that that clump of 6 (8?) pipes would stall airflow, and preheat it for the trailing heatpipes. Just goes to show that there's lot's more going on than is apparent by eyeballing.

bl38 · Post by **bl38** » Thu Sep 27, 2007 3:29 pm

Hello,

I have found 3 fans 140 mm x 38 mm for my new IFX-14.

They will come from Japan in one computer shop of my french town :

Sanyo Denki 140 mmx38 mm SAN ACE 140W

Ref Sanyo Denki 109W1412M102

Airflow 117 CFM
Noise 38 dB
1900 RPM
Cons. 3,6 W
Amp. 0,3A
Static Pressure : 52 Pa

I don't even know the price but for me it is not the real matter :

Opteron 165@3204 mhz rockstable with my aircooling mod ...

Enjoy these little babies

bl38 · Post by **bl38** » Thu Sep 27, 2007 3:29 pm

All technical details below if you are interested :

halcyon · Post by **halcyon** » Fri Dec 21, 2007 1:36 pm

Fairly good review at silent-hardware.de

http://www.silenthardware.de/reviews/cp ... index.html

And a quickie at forumdeluxx

http://www.forumdeluxx.de/forum/showthr ... did=333208

Another one at pc-experience

http://www.pc-experience.de/wbb2/thread ... adid=26225

XSreviews had something to say about the unnevennes of the base of their sample:

http://www.xsreviews.co.uk/reviews/othe ... ing-kit/4/

I don't know about you, but to me the evidence is mounting.

Two fans or one fan. Low wattage or high wattage heat load. Low m3/s or high cfm. This is the highest performance heat sink out there at the moment. Sans, size/price of course.

ghettojiggalo · Post by **ghettojiggalo** » Fri Dec 21, 2007 4:39 pm

how does it compare passively vs the ninja?

1 thing i dont like about thermalright is they nickel plate everything...it looks chromy and cheap...like they're trying to bling their products...and can that be good for cooling?

halcyon · Post by **halcyon** » Tue Feb 19, 2008 12:57 am

Another review, this time from Madshrimps, although the noise measurements are wanting:

http://www.madshrimps.be/?action=getart ... rticID=673

Regardless, it looks like the trend continues and this looks to be a very high performing heat sink, regardless of whether one uses low or high air flow.

thejamppa · Post by **thejamppa** » Tue Feb 19, 2008 6:06 am

High performing and high cost. In here it costs 84 â‚¬'s...

johnniecache7 · Post by **johnniecache7** » Tue Feb 19, 2008 7:33 am

ghettojiggalo wrote:how does it compare passively vs the ninja?

1 thing i dont like about thermalright is they nickel plate everything...it looks chromy and cheap...like they're trying to bling their products...and can that be good for cooling?

Thermalright cheap? I do not know how new you are to computing but the words chromy and cheap is not in Thermalright`s vocabulary. The nickle plating on there heatsinks is used stop the copper used from corroding and tarnishing like old penny. The plating has has no effect on cooling and I can only image what all copper Ninja heatsink would look like in few years. Plus I am rather fond the shinny finish it beautful if you have windowed case so it appeals to many markets.Thermalright has been king of the cooling hill for years and you can besure there stuff is 100% quality and this why the Ultra 120 Extreme beats everything you can throw at it including the Ninja.

Thermalright IFX-14 - a first review

Thermalright IFX-14 - a first review

It works better for me...

why a 38mm center space?