Thermalright Ultra-90-K8 Cooler

Introduction:

    In this review I will be testing the Thermalright Ultra-90 from CrazyPC. Thermalright offers a larger version of this heat sink that will accept a 120mm fan. The layout of the Ultra-90 is the same type of layout for this style of tower coolers: aluminum fins spaced out evenly over heat pipes. This model was designed to work with the AMD K8 CPU's, but they also have a version for the P4 Intel's.

Specifications:

A Closer Look:

Retail box	Foam protection	Another view
Contents	Mounting gear	Cooler and sticker
Smooth bottom	Cooler front	Side view of base
Mounting hole	Heat pipes	Top of Cooler

    Packaged in a brown box with the Thermalright name across the top keeps the package simple but enticing.  The Ultra-90 is a heat pipe style cooler in a tower format. There are 3 copper heat pipes bent into a U shape, giving a total of 6 heat pipes. These heat pipes pass through a 2 piece copper block and then up through aluminum fins. There are 40 of these fins that make up the cooler. The copper block and heat pipes are nickel plated, so the entire cooler is silver in color.

   Thermalright also includes a sticker that you can place on the case or case window if you so choose. That's about it for the cooler itself.

    Now, since I have been reviewing a bunch of heat pipe style coolers lately, I'm going to give a brief description on how a heat pipe works. Inside the heat pipe is some sort of liquid kept under a vacuum. Also along with the liquid is a wicking material. When the fluid gets heated, it turns into a vapor and rises through the tube. As the heated vapor rises along the walls of the tube, the heat gets pulled away and vapor starts to return back into a liquid. As the vapor heats the tube, that heat gets transferred to the fins and spread out over a larger area. Once the vapor cools enough, it will go back into a liquid form, is picked up by the wicking material, and transferred back to the bottom of the heat pipe. With this type of setup, the heat pipe can work in just about any orientation and still function properly.

   If I'm wrong on any of that, please let me know in the VH Forums.