Better air cooling than my trusty TRUE...

NoxTek

The Geek Redneck
Joined
May 27, 2002
Messages
9,300
I've held onto my Thermalright Ultra 120 Extreme for NINE YEARS now. It's seen me through so many socket revisions now it's crazy and about the only thing I've ever done is buying the LGA 115x kit back when I went from LGA 775 to LGA 1155 for Sandy Bridge.

The TRUE still holds up fairly well with my new i7-6700k, but I'm beginning to wonder if I'm missing out by not having a newer, better cooler. So what say you, [H]? Should I move on to a newer and perhaps better cooling solution, and if so do you guys have any suggestions? I'd prefer not to spend more than $100 and hopefully a fair bit less than that.

I'm not TOTALLY opposed to a pre-packaged watercooling setup so long as it's fairly maintenance free and is build solidly, but I'd think my budget would pretty much negate that anyway.

Thanks for any and all input! :)
 
as you aren't using Low profile ram you will be certainly limited to use the big behemoths of coolers that can make a considerable difference.

My choices would be Cryorig R1 Universal, Noctua NH-U14S, thermalright Silver Arrow ITX and of course the TRUE 140.
 
Add the Be quiet Dark Rock Pro 3 to the list of choices above. It's slightly down on cooling from the Noctua DH-D15 but it's even quieter. I bought one after a lot of research, it's great (but so is the DH-D15 and the Cryorig R1).
 
In all honesty, I would probably keep the Ultra and put a new fan on it. Something like a TY-147A. I did this on my old Ultra 120A 4-pipe. Used zip-ties to mount it. Put therm through each fan mounting hole, through cooler and slipped another on the end and snugged it up. Clipped off excess. I don't have a pic of it, but here is Ultra 120 Extreme dimensional drawing with one.
Ultra%20120%20Extreme%20w-%20TY-14x_zps03atlr8d.png


Testing of Ultra CU, NH-D14 & TRUE Spirit 140 Power shows just how good the Ultras' are
TS140PTY-143graph_zps35d445d0.jpg
 
THREAD NECRO!

I finally bit on the True Spirit 140 'Power' edition cooler (whichever one has the 8mm vs 6mm heatpipes). I spent months trying to decide between this and one of the 240mm AIO watercooling kits from Corsair or Thermalright, but in the end after looking at all the numbers the difference in overclocked load temps was just so slight it didn't seem worth it to do water.

Sure, the watercooling kit would look sweet in my new Thermaltake Core X9 (Jesus freakin' massive case, man!), but hey.... a huge hunk of nickel plated copper (or whatever it is) will look pretty sweet too and for about half the price. :D
 
No necro to it.
Just let us know your thoughts when you get it up and running!
 
I'm using a Phanteks PH-TC12DX, and just bought a Scythe Ninja 4. Air cooling is still alive!
 
I have had the Noctua NH-D14 before was a great cooler. Now I have on a box sitting in my room a Noctua NH-D15 nice cooler but not using it about to sell it off. I do have on my current system a Be quiet! Dark Rock Pro 3, I like it a lot. Looks nice but about this weekend I may be water cooling the CPU anyways to overclock it a bit higher.

Here is a picture of my current setup

900x900px-LL-8432540d_IMG_20160130_183658806.jpeg
 
Nice system.

A word of caution about 'water cooling' If you are thinking of a clc please don't do it While some can beat the Dark Rock Pro 3 by a few degrees, but at the sacrifice of being 2-6 times as loud. A cooler like D15 with high flow fans like TY-143 or iPPC 2000rpm or 3000rpm will give you a good (maybe better) cooling at similar noise levels. And of course you will need to mod the case airflow to match.
 
I have had the Noctua NH-D14 before was a great cooler. Now I have on a box sitting in my room a Noctua NH-D15 nice cooler but not using it about to sell it off. I do have on my current system a Be quiet! Dark Rock Pro 3, I like it a lot. Looks nice but about this weekend I may be water cooling the CPU anyways to overclock it a bit higher.

Here is a picture of my current setup

900x900px-LL-8432540d_IMG_20160130_183658806.jpeg

I love those red evga power cables in your case!! Way better than many much more expensive crap:)
 
So oddly enough the new Thermalright Ultra 140 Extreme Power Edition seems to have made almost no strides in performance over the 9+ year old Ultra 120 Extreme. I'm going to give the thermal compound (GELID GC Extreme) a few days and some cook-cool-cook cycles to see if things improve, but sofar we're looking at a 2 to 3 degree load temperature difference running Prime95 on the machine in my sig @ 4.6ghz.

I don't know if that speaks to cheapening of the build quality in the last ten years, or that the original TRUE 120 was just that damn good. I'm leaning towards the latter....

I did notice that the new TRUE 140 Power actually weighs LESS than the original TRUE 120, and honestly that's something I wish I had noticed when I was making my purchasing decision.


Other thoughts:

- I'm not dissing Thermalright at all, the build quality on both units is stellar
- The included PWM fan is actually REALLY nice, I like it a lot and may buy a few more to use elsewhere. It's also nice that they actually included the fan seeing as in the past Thermalright hasn't always included fans - the TRUE 120 being a prime example.
- There are a lot of mitigating circumstances and variables here (fan differences, thermal compound, etc)



So I may end up looking at an AIO watercooler after all or possibly even delving into custom watercooling again.
 
Last edited:
The TRUE Spirit 140 Power is not a huge step up from TRUE Ultra. I would have expected a couple more degrees improvement, but much is based on case airflow and the temp of air going into cooler. Room ambient is always at least a couple degrees cooler and usually much more. 8-12c warmer cooler intake is very common with 15-22c not at all uncommon under heavy load. Best wya to find out is to place a remote sensor thermometer probe in front of cooler intake fan and compare it's readings to room

Here is what I use to monitor air temperature different places inside of case:
  • A cheap indoor/outdoor thermometer with a piece of insulated wire and a plastic clothespin works great. Other thermometers like remote terrarium or fridge models also work well. I like indoor/outdoor because it shows me air temp near the case as well as cooler intake all in one unit. ;)
  • Made up with floral wire and tape. We don't want anything to short out with metal. ;)
    e65759c3-fbf9-414f-9f1f-f5941d540397_zps2fe90c77.jpg
  • Clip and position sensor where I want to check the temp. Make it easy to see what the air temp going into components actually is relative to room temp. ;)
  • When system is working air temps going into coolers will be 2-3c warmer than room.. up to about 5c is okay.

Would have been nice to know what the cooler intake air temp was with your old TRUE Ultra. Then we would know for sure how much difference there is between the coolers themselves instead of the difference in your system as a unit. ;)

Here is a link to a basic guide for case airflow and cooling
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?p=1040832403#post1040832403

Please think long and hard before going AIO .. assuming you ae thinking of a CLC (only AIOs that are not CLC are Swiftech and EK Predator, which are good coolers. I think Swiftech is better, but have not tested either so have no hard facts.
 
I'm going to redo some of my tests because quite honestly I wasn't taking ambient temperature into effect when I did my second run with the new cooler. Now that I'm thinking about it the room was quite a bit warmer (on the order of at least 5 degrees F) when I ran comparisons on it. I know, kinda stupid but I was excited and in a hurry.

As for the air temperature into the cooler, trust me it's about as close to ambient as possible - pretty much equal to running on an open air test bench. I'm using a Thermaltake Core X9 case which is an absolute behemouth with more airflow than I know what to do with.
 
'trust me it's about as close to ambient as possible' is easily 5-15c when monitored during a test run. :D 5c is good, but still means 5c hotter CPU temp. Just changing the cooler fan speed can change the temp of air going into cooler.

Core X9 might have great airflow as far as lots of vents and fans, but that does not mean components are getting cool air all the time. Airflow is a fickled witch. What looks like is should be giving the best and coolest airflow to components is often not .. which is why I recommend monitoring the air temp going into component.

I found that the intake temperature almost always differed from the ambient room temperature and, perhaps more significantly, it also varied a lot between tests, depending on the fan speed used and the positioning of the thermistor. With higher fan speeds the intake temperature fluctuated significantly because the exhaust air from the cooler was sometimes circulated back into the path of the intake fan; and with lower fan speeds the intake temperature was generally higher because there was no air current to remove the heat being dumped by the motherboard and memory. All this was taken into account when calculating the final results and intake temperature was closely monitored throughout the process.
2nd paragraph below 2nd picture
http://forums.bit-tech.net/showthread.php?t=269339&highlight=true+spirit+140+power

So if you really want to know for sure how much difference there is between the two coolers, you really need to know what the cooler intake air temp is. ;)
 
Well.... I just bit on a NH-D15. :D

I figure if I'm going to spend all this money on a semi-badass enthusiast rig I might as well have one of the best air coolers around.

Funny enough I started out looking to buy another of the TY-147A fans to stack on the new TRUE 140 Power, but when I realized they cost $20 each I just decided I might as well try out the Noctua since it comes with 2 of their awesome fans anyway.

And yes, I did consider CLC again but I just have so many problems with the idea of them - if I'm going to put water in my machine then I don't want something that restrictive. I want to add the option of cooling my CPU, GPUs, etc on the same loop and CLC just doesn't tick those boxes. So then you're into the time and expense of custom loops, and I had that sort of fun way back in 2004. It's a game for the young and adventurous and I'm not much of either since I've hit 40. :D



Anyway, I did re-run some of my tests with ambient temperatures that were much closer to matching. It should be noted that I do not have the capability to measure the absolute intake air temperature at the cooler as doyll so adamantly suggests in his posts above, but I'm going to assume it's really damn close to ambient given the open air nature of the Tt Core X9 case.


TRUE 120 w/ Thermaltake TT-1225 120mm fan - 6700k 4.6ghz @ 1.353v 100% fan speed (~1000rpm):

idle: 21C (4 core average, ambient ~18C)
load: 72C (" ... ")


TRUE 140 Spirit Power w/ included TY-147A fan - 6700k 4.6ghz @ 1.353v 100% fan speed (~1300rpm):

Idle: 22C (4 core average, ambient ~19C)
load: 70C (" ... ")


It should be noted that my testing is far from scientific and is for my own notes and experience, I'm just sharing in my thread for my own reference.


As I said there is not a huge difference between the TRUE 120 and TRUE 140 Power and I really think that's due to the reduced weight of the 140 Power compared to the much older TRUE 120. I think the main advantage the TRUE 140 Power has over it's much older brother is going to be the sound level, you can get equal cooling capability with a quieter noise profile since you've got the ability to use a 140mm fan (which is included in the package).
 
Last edited:
I hate to burst your bubble, but D15 is not much better. If you want extreme cooling , get the Silver Arrow SB-E or IB-E Extreme. You will probably need a couple more high flow fans for case to to supply it with needed air, but then you will get about 8c more cooling. ;)
 
As an ex user of Thermalright Extreme 120 I would suggest you keep it. It's an amazing cooler. If it doesn't fit anymore it's not hard to ghetto fabricate some brackets and mount it again.
 
As an ex user of Thermalright Extreme 120 I would suggest you keep it. It's an amazing cooler. If it doesn't fit anymore it's not hard to ghetto fabricate some brackets and mount it again.
Only way Im taking mine out is going Water AIO....and you can bet your ass im keeping my Extreme as backup for when the water cooler breaks lol
 
So I thought I would update this thread...

I got the Noctua NH-D15 and even with both included fans running full blast my temperatures were pretty much the same... Low to mid 70s after multiple hours running Prime95.

So then this happened:












Temps now at the same speed, voltage, and ambient temperatures? Mid 50s across the board!


That's with GELID GC-Extreme being used between the IHS and the CPU die, as well as between the IHS and NH-D15. I quite simply couldn't be more thrilled! Now I'm strongly considering picking up a tube of Coollabs Liquid Ultra to round things out.

I was so damn nervous about de-lidding a ~$400 processor but damn am I glad I did, and it really wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it was going to be. Really was kind of fun in a way, takes this old fart back to the days when we would do stuff like pencil in the L1 bridges on the AthlonXPs to overclock and stuff. :D
 
i thought the hole point in de-lidding .....was to run without the heat spreader? maybe thats to much weight in one spot lol reminds me of the old days before heat spreaders
 
Last edited:
Jeez that's a massive improvement. Can't believe Intel hasn't sorting this IHS issue out yet, I remember it being a big deal during the Ivy Bridge launch which is the last time I upgraded.
 
Back
Top