Thermalright Ultima-90: Small Wonder?
by Wesley Fink on August 20, 2007 2:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
Cooling at Stock Speed
Some users will never overclock their CPU, but they still want to run the coolest CPU temperatures possible to enhance stability and extend CPU life. The Thermalright Ultima-90 does not come with a fan, but it does ship with fan wires that can mount either a 120mm or 92mm fan. Testing was conducted with two well-respected, high-output, and relatively quiet fans. The S-FLEX SFF21F is the 120mm fan of choice, while the Panaflo H1A is the 92mm fan. Both 120mm and 92mm results are reported in all charts and graphs.
The very good Intel stock cooler keeps the X6800 at 41C at idle, compared to the Ultima-90 at 27C with the 120mm and 28C with the 92mm. The 27/28 results are among the best ever seen in AnandTech air cooler benchmarking. 27C matches the Tuniq120 and the larger Ultra-120. It is only exceeded by the Ultima-90 big brother - the Thermalright Ultra-120 eXtreme - which manages 26C. All these results are significant improvements over the Intel stock cooler performance at 41C, but the chart-topping performance results show the Ultima-90 is the equal of the best coolers tested at idle. We were curious whether the smaller Ultima-90 could do as well under load conditions.
It is more difficult to effectively simulate a computer being stressed by all of the conditions it might be exposed to in different operating environments. For most home users CPU power is most taxed with contemporary gaming. Therefore our stress test simulates playing a demanding game. The Far Cry River demo is looped for 30 minutes and the CPU temperature is captured at 4 second intervals with the NVIDIA Monitor "logging" option. The highest temperature during the load test is then reported. Momentary spikes are ignored, as we report a sustained high-level temp that you can expect to find in this recording configuration. This test configuration roughly equates to an 80% CPU load test using Intel TAT.
Here are the cooling efficiency results of the Thermalright Ultima-90 under load conditions and stock CPU speed compared to the retail Intel HSF and other recently tested CPU coolers.
The Thermalright Ultima-90 under load at stock speeds reaches a maximum temperature of 35C with either the S-FLEX 120 or the Panaflo 92 fans. This compares to the Thermalright Ultra-120/eXtreme at 32C/33C and the Tuniq at 34C. The Cooler Master Hyper 6+ and Zalman 9700 are just behind at 36C. Stock load performance is among the best air results we have measured. The performance of the Ultima-90 under load was really quite a surprise. It demonstrates again how very effective the 6-loop (12 riser) heatpipe design of the Thermalrights really is.
Some users will never overclock their CPU, but they still want to run the coolest CPU temperatures possible to enhance stability and extend CPU life. The Thermalright Ultima-90 does not come with a fan, but it does ship with fan wires that can mount either a 120mm or 92mm fan. Testing was conducted with two well-respected, high-output, and relatively quiet fans. The S-FLEX SFF21F is the 120mm fan of choice, while the Panaflo H1A is the 92mm fan. Both 120mm and 92mm results are reported in all charts and graphs.
The very good Intel stock cooler keeps the X6800 at 41C at idle, compared to the Ultima-90 at 27C with the 120mm and 28C with the 92mm. The 27/28 results are among the best ever seen in AnandTech air cooler benchmarking. 27C matches the Tuniq120 and the larger Ultra-120. It is only exceeded by the Ultima-90 big brother - the Thermalright Ultra-120 eXtreme - which manages 26C. All these results are significant improvements over the Intel stock cooler performance at 41C, but the chart-topping performance results show the Ultima-90 is the equal of the best coolers tested at idle. We were curious whether the smaller Ultima-90 could do as well under load conditions.
It is more difficult to effectively simulate a computer being stressed by all of the conditions it might be exposed to in different operating environments. For most home users CPU power is most taxed with contemporary gaming. Therefore our stress test simulates playing a demanding game. The Far Cry River demo is looped for 30 minutes and the CPU temperature is captured at 4 second intervals with the NVIDIA Monitor "logging" option. The highest temperature during the load test is then reported. Momentary spikes are ignored, as we report a sustained high-level temp that you can expect to find in this recording configuration. This test configuration roughly equates to an 80% CPU load test using Intel TAT.
Here are the cooling efficiency results of the Thermalright Ultima-90 under load conditions and stock CPU speed compared to the retail Intel HSF and other recently tested CPU coolers.
The Thermalright Ultima-90 under load at stock speeds reaches a maximum temperature of 35C with either the S-FLEX 120 or the Panaflo 92 fans. This compares to the Thermalright Ultra-120/eXtreme at 32C/33C and the Tuniq at 34C. The Cooler Master Hyper 6+ and Zalman 9700 are just behind at 36C. Stock load performance is among the best air results we have measured. The performance of the Ultima-90 under load was really quite a surprise. It demonstrates again how very effective the 6-loop (12 riser) heatpipe design of the Thermalrights really is.
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Rick1 - Sunday, August 26, 2007 - link
In a couple of post above the questions are asked Why run one of these coolersMy answer is simple
Quiet and cool running system
The only fan I hear is the One installed in the hard drive compartment of this P182B case
( cooling 4 drives. 2x raptors and 2x Barracuda 7200.10 SATA 3.0Gb/s 500-GB )
With 2 fans S-Flex blowing in and the stock two exhaust fans
This Q6600 runs at 32Cto35C and has never gone over 48C under a full load
I was never able to get the stock H/S below 50C on warm days
jnk - Thursday, October 18, 2007 - link
question for the reviewer:when you reviewed the ultima-90, when mounted were you able to twist it? I recently bought one and i can twist it even while its locked and the screws are tight. I emailed thermalright about it and they that its normal.
Patvs - Saturday, August 25, 2007 - link
This is the best CPU cooler review on the net! I have one question though.In the Noise Level test, some coolers are tested with low and high RPM settings.
For example the Tuniq Tower 120 @1000 RPM and @2100 RPM. However the Thermaltake Big Typhoon VX is only tested @2000 RPM.
Is the HIGH RPM setting always used for the Temperature Tests (IDLE and LOAD)?? Or do you use the LOW RPM setting as default for the temperature tests? *confused* If HIGH: it shows the Tuniq is really quiet at LOW RPM, but you show its cooler potential in temperature in HIGH RPM? How does it cool at LOW RPM? (or if LOW: how much does the temperature decrease if the cooler is at HIGH RPM) Also I would love to see a test with TWO fans hooked up to some of these coolers in the future.
Patvs - Saturday, August 25, 2007 - link
Edit: You state you use stock speed RPM settings for the temperature tests.So why use 2000 RPM for the Big Typhoon VX? Isn't its stock speed 1300 RPM. (it is for the Big Typhoon non-VX version without the fan controller)
muddocktor - Wednesday, August 22, 2007 - link
As always, a good heatsink review by you, Wesley. But I have a question about the Thermalright samples that you all get for review. Do you receive these directly from Thermalright or are they procured from an authorized reseller such as Sidewinder Computers or Newegg from actual shipping production? The reason I ask is that while I find the engineering and design of Thermalright's heatsinks to be top-notch, I have personally found that their base finish to be spotty. I own or have owned 2 XP90's, an XP90-C, SI 120, Ultra 120, and an Ultra 120 eXtreme (all bought at retail except the SI 120, which was bought used) and of those the only ones that had a half decent base finish that was usable as-is were the XP90-C and SI 120. The others either had a fairly poor base finish with visible machining marks left in them and in the case of the U-120, an absolutely horrible base finish with a ridge left on one side of the base. The XP-90's also had very concave bases too. All saw improved to much improved performance after giving the base a lap job. If you are getting your review samples directly from Thermalright instead of from a vendor that handles their heatsinks, I am sure that the samples you receive are thoroughly checked for finish before sending them out to you and aren't truly representative of what is actually going out for sale through normal channels. It would be interesting to see if you could get some samples from someone online that didn't know they were going to Anandtech (to minimize the chance of cherry picking the heatsinks) and do a consistency review showing differences (or lack of) in performance of production line Thermalright heatsinks.Also, I have heard the thing Thermalright has put out about the concaveness of their bases being engineered into their design and don't buy that a bit. I think that is just something the salesmen have thought up to cover inconsistencies in the base finish from their manufacturer and my experience (so far) has proved out for me at least that a lapped, flat base works better on both LGA775 and socket 939 systems. Other than the base finish though, I find that Thermalright makes the best overall line of premium aircooling equipment on the market.
Wesley Fink - Wednesday, August 22, 2007 - link
We first tested the Ultima-90 with a pre-production cooler. Results were then verified with a Retail cooler from a stocking retailer. Where there have been questions about items being "hand-picked" we often verify results with a retail sample.In the case of the Ultima-90 the performance of the Thermalright-supplied Ultima-90 and the one off the Retail shelf were exactly the same.
muddocktor - Sunday, September 2, 2007 - link
Thank you for the answer answer on your samples you test, Wesley. I guess I just have bad luck in the base finishes I get on the Thermalright heatsinks I buy then. But since I know how to lap the base anyways it's no big problem for me. Thermalright does make some truly excellent products for cooling highly overclocked cpus.Wesley Fink - Monday, September 3, 2007 - link
Thermalright is not alone in advocating convex bases. Swiftech has moved from promoting flat, mirror-finish bases to convex bases with a finish not as good. They call them their bow base and claim 2 to 4C better performance with the "bow".Engineers have found that the convex base (fat center) mates tighter in the area of the CPU under the cap. Also Intel manufactures caps that are not flat by design - conncave, convex, and wave designs are all used in certain processors. Research shows the convex cooler base mates best with any of these 3 Intel cap types.
The point is this is not a marketing story, as you will see as we go into water-cooling in more detail. Lapping a convex base Thermalright can DROP performance by 2 to 4C.
customcoms - Friday, August 24, 2007 - link
Any chance you guys will be reviewing an Ultra-90? The reason I ask is because silicon valley computers often has these heatsinks in stock and on sale for $15...that seems like a great bargain to me especially when the bigger brothers, the Ultra-120 and 120 eXtreme, retail for upwards of $50. I would really like to know if spending the extra money for an Ultima-90 or Ultra-120 is even worth the performance increase...dm0r - Tuesday, August 21, 2007 - link
Great review Wesley, as aways.