Installation and Testing:

Fan clip into holes	Fan clip inserted	Notice the clip fully inserted
Locking onto the fan	another angel	Fan locked and loaded
K8 retention clip	Locked on to the cpu	Other side of retention clip
Close quarters	Spacing around RAM	Another RAM shot

    Ahh... finally, a tower style cooler that uses the stock CPU bracket. There is no need to remove the motherboard for this installation. Since the Thermalright Ultra-90 didn't come with a fan, I decided to grab one of the extra 92mm Coolright fans sent to me from Noctua.

   Mounting the fan is tool less. The way the fan is held in place is by wire spring clips. These wire spring clips are preformed and need to be installed in a certain orientation. The first thing to do is insert the ends of the clips into the predrilled holes in the aluminum fins, then rotate the clips and snap them onto the fan to securely lock the fan in place. Oh, and be sure to check which way the fan is blowing - you don't want to mess up the air flow in the case. The way this cooler mounts in the case puts the fans on a horizontal plane. With this setup, you can have the fan blow the air into the fan on the bottom of the PSU, if your PSU has a fan there.

    After the fan is installed, it's now time to install the Ultra-90 into the case. Included in the box is a syringe tube with thermal paste... enough thermal paste to reseat just about everyone's HSF at the next LAN party.

   After the paste is applied to the CPU, grab the heat sink retention clip and pass it through the heat sink, lining up the center pin on the clip with the hole on the heat sink block. The best way to attach the Ultra-90 to the CPU is by laying the case on its side. This will keep the heat sink in place and not moving around on the CPU. Snap the clip on the bracket and flip the locking lever to lock the Ultra-90 onto the CPU. That's it for installation... now time for testing.

Conclusion:

    I'm not going to say I'm highly impressed with this cooler, but I'm not disappointed with it either. The Thermalright Ultra-90 performs just like all the other heat pipe coolers in its size range. The temps are only 1-2C difference under idle and load conditions.

   So, after wondering if these coolers are closely matched or something is wrong with my temp sensor (HA HA! Yeah, right!) I came to the conclusion it wasn't my PC. The answer is that a lot of these coolers are closely matched.

   So, for the price of the Ultra-90 ($35.99 - which is priced less than some other coolers of the same performance and size,) I would recommend this cooler based on price and performance. I would like to thank CrazyPC for sending out the Thermalright Ultra-90-K8 for review.