Thermalright Ultra 120: Elegant, Fanless and Efficient Cooling
by Wesley Fink on March 5, 2007 12:05 AM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
Noise
For many enthusiasts upgrading cooling the goal is maximum stable overclock, and they will live with the inconvenience of a louder system. For other users silence is the most important factor, and these users will forgo maximum overclocking if that increases system noise levels. As demonstrated on page 4, the Ultra 120 can easily cool a Core 2 Duo at stock speeds without a fan. The fanless configuration is also effective at cooling a C2D that has been mildly overclocked at stock voltage. Certainly this "no-fan" or passive-cooling configuration is the lowest noise level that can be achieved with the Ultra 120.
We also Measured noise levels with the Thermalright Ultra 120 with the Scythe S-Flex SFF21F fan. To test idle and load noise levels, a Zalman fan controller was used to dial in the lowest and highest fan speeds. The difference in noise levels between low and high speed settings on the Scythe fan were very small
There are virtually no power supplies that do not have a fan. While Zalman and a few others do make an expensive fanless power supply, we have not seen a fanless unit larger than 500W, or one that would be used for seriously overclocking a system. With that in mind the noise level of the system with all fans turned off except the Power Supply was measured. The power supply used for the cooling test bed was the OCZ PowerStream 520, which is one of the quieter of the high performance power supplies. The noise level of the Power Supply was 38.3dB from 24" (61cm) and 47dB from 6" (152mm). The measured noise level of the test room is 36.4dB, which would be considered a relatively quiet room with a noise floor slightly below the OCZ PowerStream 520 PSU.
Measured noise levels in this chart should be considered worst case. Measurements were taken with an open side of a mid tower case 6" from the open HSF and 24" from the open HSF. Real world would be a completely closed case with a further reduction in noise.
While the Tuniq matches the Ultra 120 for low noise at low speeds - also below the noise floor of the system - the S-Flex is significantly quieter than the stock Tuniq fan at high speeds. At 24" the S-Flex measures 39.8dB compared to 48dB for the Tuniq. At 6" the S-Flex is at the system floor of 47 DB at high speed compared to the Tuniq at 54 dB. Of course one way to lower the noise of the Tuniq fan on high is to replace the Tuniq 120mm fan with the Scythe S-Flex. High speed noise levels of the Tuniq should then be comparable to the Ultra 120 with the S-Flex fan.
The noise results with the Thermalright Ultra 120 with a Scythe S-Flex fan are impressive. At both high and low speeds, measured from 6" or 24" the Ultra 120 was below the system noise floor in almost all measurements. This is even more surprising when you consider the air flow with the SFF21F is a very high 63.7CFM.
Any 120mm fan should be mountable on the Ultra 120 as long as the fan uses open holes for mounting; the fan can be any thickness. We know the Scythe S-Flex and Noctua fans will mount properly on this heatsink, and you can chose from a wide variety of fans in both product lines. These range from ultra-quiet 8dB-A fans all the way to the 28dB-A fan used in these tests. Considering how quiet the S-Flex measured in our tests, users can opt for higher CFM with assurance that the fan will still remain quiet.
While the Ultra 120 and the Tuniq Tower 120 performed virtually the same in cooling and overclocking, the Ultra 120 with the S-Flex fan proved quieter than the Tuniq when the fans were running at highest speed. Considering the Ultra 120 is also effective as a fanless cooler at stock speeds, the Ultra 120 comes out as the low-noise leader among the coolers we have tested at AnandTech. You can likely lower noise levels of the Tuniq to those of the Ultra 120 by replacing the Tuniq fan with a Scythe S-Flex fan like the one used in our cooling tests with the Ultra 120, although that would increase the total price of the Tuniq.
For many enthusiasts upgrading cooling the goal is maximum stable overclock, and they will live with the inconvenience of a louder system. For other users silence is the most important factor, and these users will forgo maximum overclocking if that increases system noise levels. As demonstrated on page 4, the Ultra 120 can easily cool a Core 2 Duo at stock speeds without a fan. The fanless configuration is also effective at cooling a C2D that has been mildly overclocked at stock voltage. Certainly this "no-fan" or passive-cooling configuration is the lowest noise level that can be achieved with the Ultra 120.
We also Measured noise levels with the Thermalright Ultra 120 with the Scythe S-Flex SFF21F fan. To test idle and load noise levels, a Zalman fan controller was used to dial in the lowest and highest fan speeds. The difference in noise levels between low and high speed settings on the Scythe fan were very small
There are virtually no power supplies that do not have a fan. While Zalman and a few others do make an expensive fanless power supply, we have not seen a fanless unit larger than 500W, or one that would be used for seriously overclocking a system. With that in mind the noise level of the system with all fans turned off except the Power Supply was measured. The power supply used for the cooling test bed was the OCZ PowerStream 520, which is one of the quieter of the high performance power supplies. The noise level of the Power Supply was 38.3dB from 24" (61cm) and 47dB from 6" (152mm). The measured noise level of the test room is 36.4dB, which would be considered a relatively quiet room with a noise floor slightly below the OCZ PowerStream 520 PSU.
Measured noise levels in this chart should be considered worst case. Measurements were taken with an open side of a mid tower case 6" from the open HSF and 24" from the open HSF. Real world would be a completely closed case with a further reduction in noise.
While the Tuniq matches the Ultra 120 for low noise at low speeds - also below the noise floor of the system - the S-Flex is significantly quieter than the stock Tuniq fan at high speeds. At 24" the S-Flex measures 39.8dB compared to 48dB for the Tuniq. At 6" the S-Flex is at the system floor of 47 DB at high speed compared to the Tuniq at 54 dB. Of course one way to lower the noise of the Tuniq fan on high is to replace the Tuniq 120mm fan with the Scythe S-Flex. High speed noise levels of the Tuniq should then be comparable to the Ultra 120 with the S-Flex fan.
The noise results with the Thermalright Ultra 120 with a Scythe S-Flex fan are impressive. At both high and low speeds, measured from 6" or 24" the Ultra 120 was below the system noise floor in almost all measurements. This is even more surprising when you consider the air flow with the SFF21F is a very high 63.7CFM.
Any 120mm fan should be mountable on the Ultra 120 as long as the fan uses open holes for mounting; the fan can be any thickness. We know the Scythe S-Flex and Noctua fans will mount properly on this heatsink, and you can chose from a wide variety of fans in both product lines. These range from ultra-quiet 8dB-A fans all the way to the 28dB-A fan used in these tests. Considering how quiet the S-Flex measured in our tests, users can opt for higher CFM with assurance that the fan will still remain quiet.
While the Ultra 120 and the Tuniq Tower 120 performed virtually the same in cooling and overclocking, the Ultra 120 with the S-Flex fan proved quieter than the Tuniq when the fans were running at highest speed. Considering the Ultra 120 is also effective as a fanless cooler at stock speeds, the Ultra 120 comes out as the low-noise leader among the coolers we have tested at AnandTech. You can likely lower noise levels of the Tuniq to those of the Ultra 120 by replacing the Tuniq fan with a Scythe S-Flex fan like the one used in our cooling tests with the Ultra 120, although that would increase the total price of the Tuniq.
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Wesley Fink - Monday, March 5, 2007 - link
The Thermalright mounting holes were not designed to hold fan wires for two fans. They are about the diameter of a single wire and two just won't fit. The lower fan clip mount hole opens and breaks if you try to mount two fan wires in the mounting hole. Clearly Thermalright did not design the Ultra 120 for multiple fan mount, though we agree the design looks a natural for a push-pull fan setup. In the end the Thermalright cooled as well or better than anything, even a two-fan Infinity, using just one excellent fan.The mounting surface of the Thermalright was reasonably flat and smooth. The flatness mattered a great deal more when you were dealing with a small surface area mount like the AMD Socket A from the past. With processors today shipping with a large area heatspreader the surface flatness is less important, but it still matters.
The proper application of thermal compound matters a great deal in performance. We usually place a little larger than a BB-sixed glob of thermal in the center of the CPU and mount. When the heatsink is removed that normally has spread on mounting to the edges of the processor with no thermal grease builup around the sides of the processor. THe prurpose of thermal grease is to fill the irregularites of the mounting surfaces and improve contact between the mounting surfaces.
xsilver - Monday, March 5, 2007 - link
would it be easy for a mod job to add the ability to mount 2 fans? screwing them in to the fins directly maybe?JoKeRr - Monday, March 5, 2007 - link
Guess in the end it's not just the # of heatpipes and overall fin surface area. Great review overall. btw, what kind of thermal compound do you guys use? And I thought fluid dynamic bearing was developed by Panasonic instead of sony.Would it be possible in the future to test arctic coolings Freezer 7 Pro? That looks like a decent tower heatsink, and it comes with a fan too. Also it's much cheaper as well. It will be really nice to see how that heatsink compares to the bigger towers. Another question I have concerns with previous generation heatsinks. Currently I have a ThermalRight XP-90 with a 92mm panaflo, my cpu is a socket 478 P4 3.0ghz OCed to 3.6ghz at default v-core (it's a northwood core btw). I know XP-90 is a very good heatsink, and I'm really considering of using it on my future LGA775 setup (with a LGA775 bracket), but it's really hard to compare it with new heatsinks. Thanks again.
Wesley Fink - Monday, March 5, 2007 - link
I have referenced the review showing toothpaste and Kraft Vegemite superior to a well-known siver compound several times in past review comments. As we have stated several times, in our experience the thermal compound doen't matter. The Thermalright comes with a white soupy themermal compound in a tube, and that is what we used. As we have said before, if the cooler manufacturer cares enough to include a tube or jar of thermal grease that is what we use. If it is just a packet or no thermal grease included, we use our standard silver-colred (no silver content) tube thermal compound.In our tests of various thermal compounds in the past, we found the thermal compound made used made no difference at all. That is particularly true now that all the current CPUs use heatspreaders. On past small surface area processors like the AMD Socket A, The thinner compounds were sometimes more effective short term, but even there the thermal grease used made no difference in cooling after a few days pf seating - all else being the same.
Souka - Monday, March 5, 2007 - link
Hmm...I seem to recall a number of reviews that clearly demonstrate the differing effects of compounds on coolers....
DrMrLordX - Tuesday, March 6, 2007 - link
I believe you mean reviews like this?http://forumz.tomshardware.com/hardware/DaClan-Rev...">http://forumz.tomshardware.com/hardware...-Interfa...
Shin-Etsu x23 = winnar
goinginstyle - Monday, March 5, 2007 - link
What were the results of this fan in the Tuniq 120 and did you try it on the Scythe that was reviewed last week? It looks like a fan review is in order after seeing these results.Wesley Fink - Monday, March 5, 2007 - link
The Tuniq and Scythe are supplied with 120mm fans, and we tested the heatsinks with those fans. The Thermalright does not come with a fan, so we used the best fan we had in the lab that balanced quiet and cfm, in this case the Scythe S-Flex, for testing.With the Scythe Infinity, we also tested the 2-fan push-pull configuration using two Scythe stock fans that are like those shippied with the Infinity. These are NOT the same fan as the Scythe S-Flex. We tested this configuration because Scythe claimed the multi-fan setup was best for demanding cooling situations and the Infinity heatsink can mount up to 4 fans.
Introducing the fan as another variable in standard heatsink reviews changes the scope of these reviews. You can always replace the fan with a better one if it is removable, as we say in almost every review. Most fans can be replaced, but the Zalman coolers, for example, use non-removable embedded fans. We will take a closer look at 120mm fans in the future, but for now we will test with the fan supplied with the heatsink. This is how users will buy the heatsink.
It is likely the Tuniq fan noise at full speed could be reduced by using the Scythe S-Flex instead of the supplied Tuniq fan. However, sooling effieciency of the Tuniq and Thermalright Ultra 120 are already virtually the same, and we seriously doubt the Tuniq would coold more effectively than it already does by changing to a Scythe S-Flex fan. We did try a high-output Silverstone fan on the Infinity in that review, and it did marginally improve cooling a degree C, however a high-output fan on the Infinity doid not bring the single fan Infinity even close to the cooling performance of the Tuniq Tower 120 or the Thermalright Ultra 120. THe overclocking still topped out at 3.83GHz with a single fan on the Infinity and 3.90GHz with the dual fan push-pull.
PICBoy - Tuesday, March 6, 2007 - link
Hi Wesley. That was a GREAT review with totally unbelievable results and you have clarified things like the thermal compound influence on these reviews.Do you think the Scythe Infinity would be closer to the Tuniq 120 (like 54-55ºC) if it was mounted with the dual fan push-pull configuration usign 2 Scythe S-Flex or something stronger like 2 Scythe Minebea NMB Silent IC Series (75.9 CFM - 31.0 dBA)?
Wesley Fink - Tuesday, March 6, 2007 - link
The Scythe Infinity stock fans are considerably lower output than the Scythe S-Flex fan, but they are very quiet. I suspect two S-Flex SFF21F fans in push pull would definitely improve the cooling efficientcy of the Infinity.However you may want to wait a few days to see a review of a new cooler from Thermaltake. It will post this week and is definitely worth waiting for.