In the test 15 years ago: Thermalright's first tower cooler Ultra-90

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The Thermalright Ultra-90 (test) was the manufacturer's first tower cooler. With compact dimensions and a comparatively low price, the model should continue to guarantee excellent processing quality and cooling performance.

Table of contents

  1. 1 Compact tower cooler with moderate compatibility
  2. Cooling performance in the midfield
  3. Conclusion

Compact tower cooler with moderate compatibility

The dimensions of the Ultra-90 were 50 × 102 × 147 mm with a weight of 435 g excluding fans. This made the cooler more compact and lighter than most of its competitors. As usual for Thermalright, the scope of delivery was spartan and customers had to purchase a suitable 92 mm fan themselves. The heat sink consisted of 40 aluminum fins at a distance of 1.5 mm each, which were connected to the copper base plate by means of three 6 mm heat pipes.

The effective cooling surface of the Ultra-90 was tiny compared to the 120 mm bolides of the time: the Zalman CNPS 9700 LED had a cooling surface that was about three times as large as the Ultra-90. In terms of compatibility, Thermalright offered the standard fare in the form of the Intel socket 775 and the AMD socket 754, 939 and 940 – but only either one or the other. Customers had to make sure when purchasing the right version of the cooler for the corresponding socket type (AMD/Intel). AM2 users in particular had to overcome major hurdles, as a separate AM2 conversion kit had to be purchased in addition to the AMD version of the cooler.

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Scope of delivery of the Ultra-90 without fan
Lightweight hybrid construction in nickel cladding
Copper cooling core with triple heat pipe
Super narrow lamellar body
Fan fixing with wire bracket
Assembly via push-pin system
Super easy installation thanks to sufficient space

cooling capacity in the middle field

The cooling performance of the tested Socket 775 version of the Ultra 90 was in the midfield on a Pentium 840 Extreme Edition. As expected, the Ultra-90 could not keep up with the significantly larger 120 mm coolers, but achieved the same performance as a Zalman CNPS 9500 LED at the same volume (with a Papst fan). At lower speeds, it was even enough to catch up with a Scythe Mine Cooler and the SI-128 from our own company. If you were looking for the lowest temperatures at low volume, you had to use a larger cooler with ideally wider fin spacing.

CPU cooler in performance comparison Unit: ° C

  • Zalman CNPS 9700 LED [Series 2584 rpm]:
    • load temperatures59.0
    • Idle temperatures40.0
    • Volume in dB (A) 54.1
  • Scythe Ninja [Coolink 1556 rpm]:
    • Load temperatures63.0
    • Idle temperatures40.0
    • Volume in dB (A) 44.2
  • Scythe Ninja [Pope 1187 rpm]: < ul class = "chart__group-body">
  • Load temperatures66.0
  • Idle temperatures41.0
  • Volume in dB (A) 36.7
  • Thermalright SI-128 [Coolink 1532 rpm]:
    • Load temperatures66.0
    • Idle temperatures41.0
    • Volume in dB (A) 44.1
  • Zalman CNPS 9700 LED [1264 rpm series]:
    • load temperatures66.0
    • idle temperatures43.0
    • volume in dB (A) 34.6
  • Scythe Ninja [Pope 542 rpm]:
    • Load temperatures68.0
    • Idle temperatures43.0
    • Volume in dB (A) 30.8
  • Scythe Mine [Pope 1175 rpm]:
    • load temperatures69.0
    • idle temperatures43.0
    • volume in dB (A) 36.9
  • Thermalright SI-120 [Coolink 1532 rpm]:
    • Load temperatures70.0
    • Idle temperatures41.0
    • Volume in dB (A) 44.1
  • Zalman CNPS 9500 LED [2451 rpm]:
    • load temperatures70.0
    • idle temperatures41.0
    • Volume in dB (A) 52.9
  • Thermalright SI-128 [Papst 1145 rpm]:
    • load temperatures70.0
    • idle temperatures42.0
    • volume in dB (A) 36.6
  • Scythe Mine [Series 1358 rpm]:
    • load temperatures70.0
    • idle temperatures45.0
    • Volume in dB (A) 39.4
  • Thermalright Ultra-90 [Papst N2GL 1699 rpm]:
    • load temperatures70.0
    • idle temperatures45.0
    • volume in dB (A) 42.2
  • Zalman CNPS 9500 LED [1365 rpm]:
    • load temperatures72.0
    • idle temperatures44.0
    • Volume in dB (A) 36.2
  • Thermalright Ultra-90 [Papst N2GLLE 1035 rpm] :
    • load temperatures73.0
    • idle temperatures46.0
    • volume in dB (A) 34.5
  • Thermalright SI-120 [Pope 1145 rpm]:
    • Load temperatures74.0
    • Idle temperatures43.0
    • Volume in dB (A) 36.6
  • Scythe Mine [ Papst 531 rpm]:
    • load temperatures75.0
    • idle temperatures47.0
    • Volume in dB (A) 31.0
  • Thermalright SI-128 [Papst 496 rpm]:
    • load temperatures76.0
    • idle temperatures45.0
    • volume in dB (A) 30.7
  • Thermalright Ultra-90 [Pope N2GL 525 rpm]:
    • Load temperatures76 , 0
    • Idle temperatures47.0
    • Volume in dB (A) 30.8
  • Intel Boxed without PWM [2325 rpm]:
    • load temperatures77,0
    • idle temperatures46,0
    • volume in dB ( A) 49.5
  • Scythe Mine [Series 662 rpm]:
    • Load temperatures77.0
    • Idle temperatures47.0
    • Volume in dB (A) 30.9
  • Thermalright SI-120 [Pope 496 rpm]: < ul class = "chart__group-body">
  • load temperatures78.0
  • idle temperatures47.0
  • volume in dB (A) 30.7
  • Intel Boxed without PWM [1604 rpm]:
    • Load temperatures84.0
    • Idle temperatures50.0
    • Volume in dB (A) 37.9
  • Thermalright Ultra-90 [Pope N2GLLE 265 rpm]:
    • Load temperatures91.0Thermal throttling
    • Idle temperatures55.0
    • < li class = "chart__row"> Volume in dB (A) 30.5

  • Conclusion

    The Ultra-90 was Thermalright's entry into the world of tower coolers. Despite the comparatively compact dimensions and the associated small cooling surface, the model was able to hold its own in the test. At a price of less than 40 euros, it was also relatively cheap by Thermalright standards. This made the cooler suitable, among other things, for users with limited space in the case. Equipped with a correspondingly quiet fan, the performance was well above that of an Intel boxed cooler with significantly lower volume at the same time. However, overclocking records could not be set with the Ultra-90. Those looking for maximum cooling performance were much better advised with large 120 mm coolers such as the Zalman CNPS 9700 LED. The Ultra-90 also had to put up with criticism for its moderate compatibility – 15 years ago, other manufacturers already offered mounting systems that worked on all available bases.

    In the “Tested 15 years ago” category, the editorial team has been looking into the test archive every Saturday since July 2017. The last 20 articles that have appeared in this series are listed below:

    • 125 ° C were still ok with the GeForce 7950 GT from XFX
    • Zalman made a comeback with the CNPS 9700 LED
    • The Scythe Mine Cooler was a lot cooler for little money
    • The GeForce 7900 GS was a cheaper 7900 GT
    • Intel's Core 2 Extreme pushed multi-GPU setups to the limit
    • ATi's Radeon X1950 XTX was a top model for 399 euros
    • Thermalright's SI-128 was good, but not perfect
    • Microsoft WHQL torpedoed Nvidia's Quad-SLI
    • An overclocked one GeForce 7600 GS with 512 MByte memory
    • Intel's Core 2 Duo E6600 and E6700 cleaned up with AMD
    • The absolute price-performance tip GeForce 7600 GST
    • The Core 2 Extreme X6800 left them all behind
    • The Zalman VF-900 Cu dominated them all
    • Three GeForce 7950 GX2s from loud to fast
    • GeForce custom designs in extra fast and silent
    • The “gamer cube” that only ventilated via the power supply
    • Nvidia's double decker alias GeForce 7950 GX2
    • Intel's Core 2 Duo E6700 shone in the preliminary test
    • Nvidia's nForce 500 for AMD's Socket AM2 with DDR2 RAM
    • The best Radeon X1900 XTX came with a Zalman cooler

    Even more content of this kind and many more reports and anecdotes can be found in the retro corner of the ComputerBase forum.