Thermalright Ultima-90: Small Wonder?
by Wesley Fink on August 20, 2007 2:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
Conclusion
The Thermalright Ultima-90 is a surprisingly good cooler, made even more attractive by the smaller size, lighter weight, and lower price tag than most of the top air coolers tested at AnandTech. In virtually every measurement the Ultima-90 was at least the equal of all the top-tier coolers, matching or outperforming the Tuniq 120, Thermalright Ultra-120, Scythe Infinity with push-pull fans, and the Scythe Ninja Plus B/OCZ Vindicator running a high output SilenX IXTREME fan.
At this point in time, Thermalright seems to have an excellent handle on how to design heatpipe towers that perform at the top of the performance charts. Now we can also add that they apparently know what to do to make a cooler smaller and lighter without giving up too much in performance. The Ultima-90 weighs only 460g, but it uses the same heatpipe setup as the much larger Ultra-120 eXtreme. That heatpipe arrangement of six staggered full loops creating twelve risers appears to be the key to the performance of both the eXtreme and this new Ultima-90.
The Ultima-90 is ideal wherever you want to use a high-performance cooler. Its smaller size and weight make it particularly well-suited to tight cases and motherboards with limited clearance around the CPU. It is also shorter than most top coolers, with a height of just 139mm. However, this is still not small enough for thin rack cases, a very small HTPC case, or a case that places the power supply above the CPU socket. The lower cost of the Ultima-90 will also be attractive to many buyers, with a retail price of $50 compared to other top coolers in the $65 to $80 range. You will still have to add a fan, but that can be as little as $5 to as much as $20 or more depending on your choice.
Thermalright advertises the Ultima-90 as a 90mm body with 120mm cooling power. That is certainly a fair description, because the Ultima-90 is designed to mount a 120mm or 92mm fan. It certainly performs best with a 120mm fan, but if you want to keep the cooler very compact it performs nearly as well with a quiet, high-output 92mm fan like the Panaflo H1A. If you choose the 92mm you will only give up a small amount of headroom at the top, and cooling in the overlap speeds is almost identical.
The Ultima-90 is not the best air cooler we have tested. That distinction still belongs to big brother Thermalright Ultra-120 eXtreme. Where the Ultima-90 carries our CPU to a stable 3.90 GHz, the eXtreme pushes it to 3.94 GHz. The eXtreme also manages a few degrees better cooling than the Ultima-90 at higher overclocks. However, in all other respects the performance of both coolers is all but the same. The Ultra-120 eXtreme is bigger, heavier and costs about $65 retail, where Ultima-90 costs about $50. However, the Ultra-120 eXtreme remains the better performer. You will need to decide which attributes are most important to you. Beyond the Ultra-120 eXtreme, we do not know of an air cooler that outperforms the Ultima-90. Several other top models match its performance, but they don't outperform it.
We asked in the beginning of this review if the smaller and lighter Thermalright Ultima-90 might be too compromised compared to other top coolers from Thermalright, Tuniq, Scythe, and others. After running it though our cooling tests we can only conclude that Thermalright made the right choices in the design of the Ultima-90 to make it the smallest and lightest air cooler we have tested that is still able to deliver top-of-the-line performance. At a price of $50 or less you even get some savings compared to the very best Ultra-120 eXtreme. We are pleased to have the smaller, lighter Thermalright Ultima-90 as a new choice for air cooling. Choice is good, even at the top, and the Ultima-90 will not disappoint you with its performance.
The Thermalright Ultima-90 is a surprisingly good cooler, made even more attractive by the smaller size, lighter weight, and lower price tag than most of the top air coolers tested at AnandTech. In virtually every measurement the Ultima-90 was at least the equal of all the top-tier coolers, matching or outperforming the Tuniq 120, Thermalright Ultra-120, Scythe Infinity with push-pull fans, and the Scythe Ninja Plus B/OCZ Vindicator running a high output SilenX IXTREME fan.
At this point in time, Thermalright seems to have an excellent handle on how to design heatpipe towers that perform at the top of the performance charts. Now we can also add that they apparently know what to do to make a cooler smaller and lighter without giving up too much in performance. The Ultima-90 weighs only 460g, but it uses the same heatpipe setup as the much larger Ultra-120 eXtreme. That heatpipe arrangement of six staggered full loops creating twelve risers appears to be the key to the performance of both the eXtreme and this new Ultima-90.
The Ultima-90 is ideal wherever you want to use a high-performance cooler. Its smaller size and weight make it particularly well-suited to tight cases and motherboards with limited clearance around the CPU. It is also shorter than most top coolers, with a height of just 139mm. However, this is still not small enough for thin rack cases, a very small HTPC case, or a case that places the power supply above the CPU socket. The lower cost of the Ultima-90 will also be attractive to many buyers, with a retail price of $50 compared to other top coolers in the $65 to $80 range. You will still have to add a fan, but that can be as little as $5 to as much as $20 or more depending on your choice.
Thermalright advertises the Ultima-90 as a 90mm body with 120mm cooling power. That is certainly a fair description, because the Ultima-90 is designed to mount a 120mm or 92mm fan. It certainly performs best with a 120mm fan, but if you want to keep the cooler very compact it performs nearly as well with a quiet, high-output 92mm fan like the Panaflo H1A. If you choose the 92mm you will only give up a small amount of headroom at the top, and cooling in the overlap speeds is almost identical.
The Ultima-90 is not the best air cooler we have tested. That distinction still belongs to big brother Thermalright Ultra-120 eXtreme. Where the Ultima-90 carries our CPU to a stable 3.90 GHz, the eXtreme pushes it to 3.94 GHz. The eXtreme also manages a few degrees better cooling than the Ultima-90 at higher overclocks. However, in all other respects the performance of both coolers is all but the same. The Ultra-120 eXtreme is bigger, heavier and costs about $65 retail, where Ultima-90 costs about $50. However, the Ultra-120 eXtreme remains the better performer. You will need to decide which attributes are most important to you. Beyond the Ultra-120 eXtreme, we do not know of an air cooler that outperforms the Ultima-90. Several other top models match its performance, but they don't outperform it.
We asked in the beginning of this review if the smaller and lighter Thermalright Ultima-90 might be too compromised compared to other top coolers from Thermalright, Tuniq, Scythe, and others. After running it though our cooling tests we can only conclude that Thermalright made the right choices in the design of the Ultima-90 to make it the smallest and lightest air cooler we have tested that is still able to deliver top-of-the-line performance. At a price of $50 or less you even get some savings compared to the very best Ultra-120 eXtreme. We are pleased to have the smaller, lighter Thermalright Ultima-90 as a new choice for air cooling. Choice is good, even at the top, and the Ultima-90 will not disappoint you with its performance.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
38 Comments
View All Comments
Wesley Fink - Monday, August 20, 2007 - link
The performance of the stock Intel Retail cooler also needs to be put in perspective. In our testing the Intel Retail HSF is stable to 3.73GHz at 1.50V. That translates into about 137W with an X6800 CPU.While early Intel Retail 775 coolers were very noisy, stock coolers since late Presller and through Core2 have been very quiet, as you can see in our noise measurements in reviews.
With a stock cooler performing this well, we think a cooler HAS to provide performance better than Intel Stock to persuade you to buy it. We could argue using your logic that the difference between the Intel stock of 3.73GHz and the top 3.94GHz is only 200 megahertz and so it is minor. The wattage difference, however, is between 137W and 166W, which is a significant difference in the ability of coolers to dssipate heat.
ssiu - Monday, August 20, 2007 - link
I have a serious question regarding this. 3.73Ghz is perfectly fine with me and I don't care for another 200Mhz. The louder noise of stock cooler is also okay with me. So that leaves the temperature difference of 71C for stock cooler versus (43C for Ultra-120 eXtreme, 47C for Ultima-90, 59C for NinjaB, 62C for Infinity, etc.) Does the stock cooler's higher temperature make the CPU die prematurely? Or is it a case of "the CPU is designed to withstand 71C; at 3.73Ghz, 71C may make it last 5 years instead of 10 years at 43C, but even at 71C it will become obsolete (too slow) before it will die"?Wesley Fink - Monday, August 20, 2007 - link
Intel shows a maximum recommended temp of 60.4C at 75W (stock) for the X6800 in their thermal design document at ftp://download.intel.com/design/processor/datashts...">ftp://download.intel.com/design/processor/datashts... However, 3.83 Ghz is about 137W and we really don't know the recommendations at these higher frequencies since they represent overclocks.It would seem reasonable to aim for lower than the max recommended temperature at stock speed if you are aiming for longevity of the CPU. That cahart can be found on p.85 of the Intel PDF linked above.
Wesley Fink - Monday, August 20, 2007 - link
Correction - 3.73GHz at 1.5V is about 135W - which is the max stable speed with the Intel stock HSF. Sorry for the typo.Jedi2155 - Monday, August 20, 2007 - link
To Coolerman:I had the Tuniq 120 for about 6 months on my E6600 setup, and although it was a great cooler and signifcantly cheaper than the Ultra 120 Extreme, it just isn't as good when all things are considered (size, noise levels, fan options) and the Ultra 120 extreme is worth the price difference IMO. The size made installation ever so much easier than the Tuniq and improvement in cooling (even with a cheap $7 thermaltake fan) was significant (went from 80 C Intel TAT to around 70 C).
I definitely think that you should recategorize the coolers, but instead of temperature, how about price range or probably best category SIZE.
I've had a number of issues during builds for friends, where the a certain cooler wouldn't fit (like a Tuniq 120 or the Ultra 120 Extreme) fit inside a case without significant modification (with a pair of pliers and remove a good section of the case).
That should help us decide better than just pure temperatures and overclock speed.
CZroe - Monday, August 20, 2007 - link
I think that sorting by value/prices is a bad idea. Have you looked for the actual prices? Anandtech's reported suggested prices and "actual" market prices have been FAR lower than I've been able to find in each cooler that interested me. I eventually just settled on the Ultra-120 Extreme and the same fan from Newegg and paid FAR too much.Perhaps the observed difference is because they keep getting price results for similar models (which complicated my own searching) or the only places that still carry some of these still have them because they always overcharged.
tom0099 - Friday, August 6, 2021 - link
http://google.com">googletom0099 - Friday, August 6, 2021 - link
<a href="https://google.com">google</a>