![[H]ardOCP](/images/blank.gif){kind=small}
- Date:
- Sunday , October 18, 2009
- Author:
- Marc Adams
- Editor:
- Kyle Bennett
- Google +1
Thermalright Ultra Extreme 120 Revision B & C Review
All hardware enthusiast and many gamers are very much aware of just how good Thermalright's Ultra Extreme 120 (TRUE) CPU heatsinks are. Contenders over the last two years have been few. Today the original TRUE vs. TRUE Rev. B and the TRUE Rev. C. Thermalright decided to challenge itself and give the enthusiast a better product.
Results: Temperatures
For our stock testing our Intel Core i7-920 will be kept at 2.66GHz with a minimal 1.25v vCore. For overclocked CPU testing we will be running our Intel Core i7-920 at 3.6GHz with 1.45v vCore. Idle temperatures will be recorded after a fifteen minute period of inactivity. Any fluctuation during the last sixty seconds will reset the timer for an additional five minutes. Load temperatures will be recorded after a fifteen minute period of 100% load. To obtain this load we will be using Prime95 v25.3. Any fluctuation during the last sixty seconds will reset the timer for an additional five minutes.
Please note the following scores are normalized to the ambient temperature. This will show you visually the rise above ambient temperature as well as the overall temperature. Since we are dealing with air cooling it is physically impossible for the temps to be less than ambient. This is why we start our charts at 25º C.
Stock Settings
At stock speeds we see a nice increase in performance from the TRUE C. The TRUE B lags behind and the TRUE C with an 800 RPM fan turns in a very respectable performance. For those looking for a silent PC the TRUE C paired with a low flow fan may be just what you’re looking for. Now it’s time to turn up the heat.
Overclock Settings
With the added wattage the TRUE C continues to dominate and even though the original TRUE is using a fan that is 25% faster it is only able to edge out the Rev. C by a mere four tenths of a degree. The B revision continues lagging behind and the 800 RPM fan shows just how well this heat sink can perform with a moderate fan attached.
Apples to Apples
For these tests we used the same fan for all the coolers except the Intel box coolers. They are included as points of reference. By using the same fan across all coolers we can see which cooler offers better performance and efficiency.
The fan of choice is the Thermaltake Thunderblade 120mm fan. It is loud and pushes a ton of air. With air flow being a moot point thanks to this fan, we can now definitively see which cooler reigns supreme.
We are using our overclocked settings for this test to give the maximum amount of differentiation between heat sinks.
It seems the small tweaks by Thermalright have produced tangible results. When we started our testing on the Rev. B we reported our odd findings to Thermalright that informed us that even at this early stage it had already updated the design and were producing a Rev. C. It is this reason why the Rev. B was included and also why you won’t find it for sale. Rev. B was a product that was shelved before it ever saw a launch into the market place.
Sound
This information is included for those of you who want an idea about noise as a factor when deciding which cooler to buy. As a personal reference, for anything under 43 dB(A) the noise was easily tolerable and if placed inside a case would be even more so.