| Thermalright Ultima-90 Heatpipe CPU Cooler
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Installation:
The Thermalright Ultima-90 Heatpipe CPU Cooler was installed in a system with the following components for this review:
» Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 dual core processor
» ASUS P5KC P35 ATX motherboard
» OCZ Technology PC3-10666 ReaperX HPC 2GB DDR3 Kit
» Seagate Barracuda SATA II 7200 RPM 80GB hard drive
» Zippy GSM-6600P(G1) 600W power supply
» eVGA GeForce 8800GTS G92 512MB video card
» Microsoft Windows XP Pro
The installation was pretty simple, but you must remove your motherboard because the CPU backplate needs to be mounted on the backside of the board. You simply line up the CPU backplate with the holes on the motherboard and secure it with the included "pillars" and the appropriate bracket on the front side for either Intel LGA 775 or AMD AM2.
Once the initial hardware is in place, apply some thermal paste to your CPU and place the Ultima-90 on top (the Thermalright installation manual actually says to apply paste to both the CPU and base of the cooler, but I like to use a single line down the center of the CPU). There are two spring-loaded screws and a mounting bracket that hold the cooler to the motherboard. The spring-loaded screws do have a stop to ensure you do not screw them down too tight and do any damage to your CPU. Attach your favorite 90mm or 120mm fan to the heatsink and you are ready to power on your computer.
 
The images above take a close look at the clearance around the CPU socket of the ASUS P5KC motherboard.
Testing:
For comparison purposes, the cooling performance of a Kingwin KA-9227 Heatpipe CPU Cooler will be compared to the Thermalright Ultima-90 Heatpipe CPU Cooler. Since a fan is not provided with the Ultima-90, a Kingwin brand 90mm unit rated for 2800 RPM and 54.6 CFM was used. The Kingwin KA-9227 does come with a 90mm fan of its own (rated for 2500 RPM and 43.45 CFM), but it was removed so that the same higher performing fan could be used on both coolers.
To test the thermal performance of the Thermalright Ultima-90 CPU Cooler, the idle and load temperatures were monitored using the ASUS Probe software included with the motherboard. The idle condition was established by powering the system without running any other applications for a period of at least 30 minutes, and the load condition was established by also running OCCT 1.1.1b for a period of at least 60 minutes. The Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 CPU used in this review was also overclocked and overvolted to create more heat (from a frequency of 266x9 to 333x9, and from a CPU Voltage of 1.25V to 1.47V).
The chart below details the thermal results from both coolers while maintaining an ambient temperature of 25° Celsius in an open chassis:
From the data in the chart you can see that the Ultima-90 is the clear winner. The idle temperature dropped 6° Celsius and the load temperature dropped 7° Celsius by switching from the Kingwin to the Thermalright cooler. In its review, the Kingwin KA-9227 proved to be about equivalent to a stock cooler, so the Ultima-90 should be a great upgrade for anyone still using the cooler that came with their processor, or anything comparable.
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