Thermalright Ultra-120 eXtreme 1366 RT CPU Cooler Review

Heat Sink Construction and Design

At this point in the game, there isn't going to be anything about the Thermalright Ultra-120 eXtreme (TRUE) that is going to be new to a lot of readers. This heat sink is known in every enthusiast forum discussion regarding heat sinks and is the staple for any high-end system build. With that said, let's have a peak at the beast up close and personal, for those that have never laid eyes on it.

With no fan, the TRUE stands tall and proud knowing that every conversation about air coolers usually involves the question, "how does it compare to the TRUE"? Six nickel plated copper heat pipes make their way down through the 52 aluminum cooling fins that are arranged in meticulous fashion. What is new, however, is the fancy fan shroud and accompanying fan that comes with the Ultra-120 eXtreme-1366. Previous versions of the Ultra-120 and Ultra-120 eXtreme heat sinks did not come with a fan but Thermalright is now including a 1600RPM/63.7CFM 120mm fan with the Ultra-120 eXtreme-1366.

The fan holder attaches to the heat sink via these nine "fingers" that clip on behind the seam down each side of the heat sink. If we look closely at the first photo above, we can see that the fingers are spaced to have two or three fins in-between each one. The fingers are relatively flexible and as we will see in the installation section, they have to be. From the back side of the cooler - which can be either side as the TRUE is symmetrical - the fan holder is barely visible grasping on to the face of the heat sink. The fit of the fan holder is superb and like the rest of the heat sink construction, meticulously perfect. Speaking of the Ultra-120 eXtreme's construction, let's have a closer look at the main players, the cooling fins and the heat pipes.

As mentioned earlier, the six heat pipes work their way through the cooling fins and as we can see by this close-up, the construction of the heat sink is near perfect. Each gap between the cooling fins is identical to the next and the interlocking tabs that tie down each side of the heat sink are perfectly folded. The six heat pipes are fed through the base, where they are soldered for optimal heat transfer, and up through each side of the heat sink in a fashion to evenly distribute the heat into the cooling fins that is being pulled from the base. At the top of the Ultra-120 eXtreme the heat pipes peak out of the top cooling fin just enough for us to know they are there. The heat pipes are copper and plated in a nickel finish to provide the shiny finish to them and if the Ultra-120 eXtreme wasn't such a good performer, you would think it was just a pretty model to look at.

Unlike some models, the Thermalright Ultra-120 eXtreme is hardly just a pretty face and is all business when planted on a CPU. The business of the heat sink is the base and what we are looking at above. Thermalright has nicely protected the base during transport with an adhesive sticker that is actually quite thick and should do a really good job of protecting the finish on the base. In the past the Thermalright base has been given mixed reviews due to the rough nature they seem to come from the factory with, in the second photo above, we have illuminated that finish with some careful color adjustments in Photoshop.

To enhance what we are talking about we have lowered the brightness and adjusted levels to pronounce the grooves shown in the base. If you use your fingernail and run it over the base you can feel the ridges but they are rather difficult to see sometimes. There are two schools of thought on this, one says that a perfectly flat base is best. The other idea is that since no CPU is actually going to be flat, the very small ridges may actually help thermal transfer. Our in house thermal physics staff member is away on vacation so we will simply rely on the results from the testing to tell us the story. The last photo is trying to capture the reflection of the included Thermalright sticker but is heavily distorted. This is another hot topic in forums all over the world and everyone has a different opinion. Like thermal paste application discussions, we will keep our heat sink base opinion to ourselves and let the testing results do the explaining.