Thermalright Ultra 120 Extreme Gets Revised

[btarunr]

Thermalright's iconic Ultra 120 Extreme (TRUE) CPU cooler has a new revision. TRUE Rev. B brings along a small design change that the company claims improves its cooling performance a little. Most of its 52 aluminum fins barring the top one have a 'V'-shaped cutting in the center. This perhaps increases turbulence (for better heat dissipation) a little. The resulting temperature drops are estimated around 1~2 °C. TRUE Rev. B has started selling in China for RMB 530 (which is around $79), including fan. Without the fan, $72.95 is all it takes.



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[arroyo]

WOW, they made a hole inside TRUE !!! OMG that's genious.

I'm going to mod mine TRUE. I would make twice as much holes as they made. THERE WOULD BE HOLE IN TRUE.

 

[inferKNOX]

Thermalright told me that they're going to revise the TRUE 120 design, heat pipes & retention kit to fit well and allow space for both the the closest RAM slots, and the highest PCIe Card simultaneously on the MSI 790FX-GD70 and other AM3 motherboards whose PCIe and RAM slots are close to the CPU socket.
I wonder if this is supposed to be it, because the heat pipes look the same...

 

[twicksisted]

pity they diddnt revise it by selling the cooler with a flat surface instead of the rounded heatsink surface on the one I bought (and subsequantly put into my secondary rig)

 

[Mussels]

its a good basic design, so i'm glad they're doing tweaks.


less metal without hurting temps also means its lighter and cheaper to produce - all good things.

 

[inferKNOX]

This definitely can't be the revision I'm expecting.
Which good thing, because everyone has been complaining that Thermalright need to make a TRUE that has direct contact between the CPU and Heatpipes, which Xigmatek is doing and actually beating the TRUE (in quite a few reviews out there), whilst still providing lower prices, partially (IMO) because of less metal used on the block contacting the CPU.
The price of this "rev. B" cooler is way too high. Seems like a gimmick to me.

 

[tkpenalty]

This definitely can't be the revision I'm expecting.
Which good thing, because everyone has been complaining that Thermalright need to make a TRUE that has direct contact between the CPU and Heatpipes, which Xigmatek is doing and actually beating the TRUE (in quite a few reviews out there), whilst still providing lower prices, partially (IMO) because of less metal used on the block contacting the CPU.
The price of this "rev. B" cooler is way too high. Seems like a gimmick to me.

The actual reasoning behind the HDT cooler's better performance isn't only because of the heatpipes being closer, its mostly because of the thicker heatpipes; they move more heat versus the thermalright. But yeah, it would be great if thermalright shamelessly adopted HDT. You have to bear in mind that its probably patented in taiwan and thus its probably out of thermalright's reach.

 

[inferKNOX]

The actual reasoning behind the HDT cooler's better performance isn't only because of the heatpipes being closer, its mostly because of the thicker heatpipes; they move more heat versus the thermalright. But yeah, it would be great if thermalright shamelessly adopted HDT. You have to bear in mind that its probably patented in taiwan and thus its probably out of thermalright's reach.

Yeah, I know what you mean about the heatpipe thickness, but I was just stating the general complaints.
Surely there are other companies have heat-pipes in direct contact on their coolers!
Isn't such a patent far too broad?!

 

[Mussels]

Yeah, I know what you mean about the heatpipe thickness, but I was just stating the general complaints.
Surely there are other companies have heat-pipes in direct contact on their coolers!
Isn't such a patent far too broad?!

all the other companies use rebranded versions of xigmatek coolers.


Its not 'too broad' since coolers work without it. its not like they're patenting heatsinks with a fan on em.

 

[leonard_222003]

Which good thing, because everyone has been complaining that Thermalright need to make a TRUE that has direct contact between the CPU and Heatpipes, which Xigmatek is doing and actually beating the TRUE (in quite a few reviews out there), whilst still providing lower prices, partially (IMO) because of less metal used on the block contacting the CPU.
The price of this "rev. B" cooler is way too high. Seems like a gimmick to me.

Care to point me to that review where xigamtec beats the TRUE ?

Don't you like those reviews where they don't specify what cooler they put on the TRUE ( it could be a 500 rpm or a 5000 rpm cooler ) and they get xigamtec or some other brand as the winner ( sponsors sponsors and paid reviews ).

Many enthusiasts tested sycthe , xigamtec , cooler master and ...... , bottom line was HDT is bullshit and all marketing , cuts costs of cooler , and of cousre TRUE is still the king , not the best because there are some huge coolers that weight over 1 kg ( cooler master V10 i think ) but at that reasonable size the TRUE beats any bullshit cooler with fancy HDT if they are tested with the same vent. on them.
There are some huge coolers that match or beats the TRUE performance , but they always have some drawbacks , eighter they are HUGE and block ram slots , don't fit , very heavy that might damage the MB , or it is a water cooler wich is more expensive.

 

[h3llb3nd4]

Thermalright need to make their coolers flatter, god there was a huge gap between it and mah E7400!

 

[leonard_222003]

Thermalright need to make their coolers flatter, god there was a huge gap between it and mah E7400!

That cooler is called Intel edition , that bump it has it's specially made for core i7 to improve cooling.
It doesn't help the 775 socket or amd sockets but what can we do , you can lap it and get 1-2 better C.

 

[LaidLawJones]

I see that I was not the only one with a round base on my extreme. There was ~10-15% of the cooler that was not contacting the surface. It took 3 sheets of emery paper to flatten it out and put the correct finish on.

In future reviews, how about someone holds a knife edged straight edge across it (at several different angles) instead of showing that penny reflection which proves nothing.

In response leonard, so now I know why they did it. Mine was an AMD chip. It made a 5c temp difference and brought both my cores closer to the same temp. I happen to have access to a surface plate, but the same results can be achieved using a new thick piece of scrap plate glass.

 

[Initialised]

Any word on socket 1156 compatibility?

 

[Mussels]

I see that I was not the only one with a round base on my extreme. There was ~10-15% of the cooler that was not contacting the surface. It took 3 sheets of emery paper to flatten it out and put the correct finish on.

In future reviews, how about someone holds a knife edged straight edge across it (at several different angles) instead of showing that penny reflection which proves nothing.

i lapped mine as well. it was nowhere near flat at all.

 

[dr emulator (madmax)]

with this i need them to look at

 

[newtekie1]

The base on the Ultra-120s definitely needs lapping, mine was also not flat...

Not really a big deal though, I lap all my coolers anyway, except Zalmans.

 

[twicksisted]

That cooler is called Intel edition , that bump it has it's specially made for core i7 to improve cooling.
It doesn't help the 775 socket or amd sockets but what can we do , you can lap it and get 1-2 better C.

i doubt that to be true because i bought one of those way before nehalem was released... ages ago when they first came out... and it had no fitting for 1366 either...only 775 and amd

The base on the Ultra-120s definitely needs lapping, mine was also not flat...

Not really a big deal though, I lap all my coolers anyway, except Zalmans.

you would this that after spending £50 on an air cooler... which at the time was the priciest, you wouldnt have to hack the thing and lap it though

 

[Mussels]

i doubt that to be true becuase i bought one of those way before nehalem was released... ages ago when they first came out... and it had no fitting for 1366 either...only 775 and amd

the difference is that the new one will likely come with 1156 and 1336 adaptors.

 

[twicksisted]

the difference is that the new one will likely come with 1156 and 1336 adaptors.

yes, the new one does... but that dosent explain why the 775 version was exactely the same (rounded on the bottom)

 

[Mussels]

yes, the new one does... but that dosent explain why the 775 version was exactely the same (rounded on the bottom)

it came with a convex bottom due to the uneven nature of the CPU's - it gave better contact to the hotspots on dual core CPU's, since they didnt think that intel would stick two dual cores to make a quad core (thus moving the hotspot) or that intel would release convex CPU's as well.

|| - both flat
)| - what TR expected (the main part still has good contact)
)( - what TR got when intel stopped making flat CPU's for no reason

 

[dr emulator (madmax)]

arghh the i7 isn't straight for the money it costs i'd expect it to be perfect :shadedshu

 

[twicksisted]

it came with a convex bottom due to the uneven nature of the CPU's - it gave better contact to the hotspots on dual core CPU's, since they didnt think that intel would stick two dual cores to make a quad core (thus moving the hotspot) or that intel would release convex CPU's as well.

|| - both flat
)| - what TR expected (the main part still has good contact)
)( - what TR got when intel stopped making flat CPU's for no reason

im not debating that its a good cooler or not... its just when i purchased it it had no mention of this... only after buying it and spotting how warped it was (and not evenly as youd expect either)... I think that operhaps if their goal was to make better contact for intel CPU's then they shouldve stated so on the box and not just called it a 775 cooler when theres so many different types of chips (or included an amd retention bracket either).

If this was such a feature... the surely it wouldve been spalyed all over the box in hyped ad speak (heatpipes etc... like they always do)... it just kinda seems like a design flaw that they found an excuse for

 

[trt740]

Guys Thermalright has addressed the lapped not lapped ,flat not flat issue several times. I emailed them and they said the design was made intentionally that way including the machined base. I was told by Thermalright the machine marks held the thermal paste in place better not allowing air pockets and that the smile shaped base was made that way on purpose to make better contact with ceratin cpu cores on certain cpus. I was also told the base was ment to swivel to allow the heatsink to be angled or moved slightly in any direction to make mounting more compatible. There have been several threads dedicated to lapping tests that say it does next to nothing on most cpus. Do I believe that (not so sure but don't kill the messenger). Also with the same air flow no Iggy beats a TRUE. It a good cooler but it doesn't beat a TRUE. There is nothing wrong with the TRUE even the MEG cannot outright beat it and it's based on it's design. Match it in some cases yes but beat it no. DHT hasn't proven itself superior even my Noct beats every direct touch cooler out and is very close to the TRUE, but doesn't beat it. You could argue that there are coolers that can provide similar performance to the TRUE and even beat it under certain circumstance, but on a consistent basis the TRUE is still the King of air cooling.

 

[inferKNOX]

Care to point me to that review where xigamtec beats the TRUE ?

Don't you like those reviews where they don't specify what cooler they put on the TRUE ( it could be a 500 rpm or a 5000 rpm cooler ) and they get xigamtec or some other brand as the winner ( sponsors sponsors and paid reviews ).

Many enthusiasts tested sycthe , xigamtec , cooler master and ...... , bottom line was HDT is bullshit and all marketing , cuts costs of cooler , and of cousre TRUE is still the king , not the best because there are some huge coolers that weight over 1 kg ( cooler master V10 i think ) but at that reasonable size the TRUE beats any bullshit cooler with fancy HDT if they are tested with the same vent. on them.
There are some huge coolers that match or beats the TRUE performance , but they always have some drawbacks , eighter they are HUGE and block ram slots , don't fit , very heavy that might damage the MB , or it is a water cooler wich is more expensive.

Whoa, a little passionate there!?
I don't remember where exactly, it was something I read in passing as I was looking around for which cooler is a good one to compete with the TRUE when I saw the problem of the heatpipes getting in the way of the RAM slots on the GD70. Quite a few people said it. Only marginally though; what made Xigmatek good was that there was that marginal performance increase came at a cheaper price.
However I remember the bad part was that Xigmatek include a custom fan attachment, which means you can't just strap any on like with the TRUE. Also, I remember that the TRUE and Xigmatek were trading blows, some reviews saying one is the winner, some the other. Don't even remember which Xigmatek it was though...

I'm happy with my ZEROTherm Nirvana NV120 for now though. I'm only worried that it only takes a proprietary fan, so if it dies, I'm in trouble.