Suck or Blow - Thermalright Ultra 120 Extreme

[Trunkz_Jr]

Just wondering, I've always had 1 fan on this puppy till it decided to die (I even had another as a backup and it died, last time I buy a Silentx fan) found out tho that I can add 2 fans on my CPU cooler, but I'm not sure if their both suppose to suck out the heat, or 1 blows in and the other sucks it out, anyone have some advice?

 

[Aragorn]

You definately want them both pointing the same direction. I suggest both pointing at the back of the case (one will push air into the heat sink and the other will remove it). If one is more powerfull it should push (you get better heat transfer with positive presure.

 

[pbrigido]

Yup, Aragorn has it right. Getting your case to have a good directional flow should be the goal.

 

[spaztic7]

I did this test last winter and found that running two fans will make no difference on the temp. I did find that it cool quicker in dual mode to get back to idle temp much faster. It also made no difference when overclocking either.

I tested it with a Q6600 non G0 stepping, evga 680i sli, 4 gb ddr2, inside a Gigabyte 3d aurora 570, oh with 119 cfm fans... antec fans I believe. REALLY LOUD FANS!!! The room temp was 65f.

I could see possible gains if you do both suck as cool air would enter through the middle of the heat sink directly hitting the heat pipes cooling them as well as passing cooler air over the fins better. Although other may not agree, there may be some benefit to this.... but your fan will be fighting each other.


Good air flow is good, but if you can remove the air that is coming out into the case, then you will be in business. I do not think you will get any better performance that with just 1 fan.

 

[aevm]

+1 for Aragorn's answer.

Try Scythe SFF21F fans next time.

Edit: spaztic makes a good point too. I've seen reviews where they proved that a second fan doesn't really make a big difference with the Ultra-120 Extreme. It does help with the Scythe Infinity or the Noctua NH-U12P, but with your cooler you don't need to bother.

 

[Trunkz_Jr]

So it would look something like this? The fan blows in one and the other could blow it out then the fan at my back of my case would blow it out? (I might as well use 2 since I already ordered 2 along with 8 gigs of ram).

Btw these are the fans I got I didn't look too much into it like I did with those SilentX's http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3478786&CatId=494

 

[dagger]

You definately want them both pointing the same direction. I suggest both pointing at the back of the case (one will push air into the heat sink and the other will remove it). If one is more powerfull it should push (you get better heat transfer with positive presure.

That is wrong. The more powerful fan should suck, not push, at least for this particular model of heatsink. The one thing you overlooked is that sides of the heatsink are not sealed. The positive pressure you create will just vent the hot air through the sides (and circulating around the case) instead of going out back in a straight line and venting through the case fan. Besides, pushing air against a slower fan can create much more wind noise than normal operation.

The second fan usually don't make much difference, unless you use a heatsink with sealed sides for a tunneling effect.

 

[V3NOM]

lol nice diagram trunkz

 

[iluvgillgill]

get some ducting to seal off both side of the heatsink when you do a push and pull fan config. it helps by about 1-2C or maybe more depend on condition.

 

[spaztic7]

Ok, if you want to decrease your temp with the TRUE, then build a tunnel/funnel for it. When I did this with cardboard I noticed up to a 5c drop in idle temps and a little over a max of 10c drop at load temps. I did run a push pull setup when I built the tunnel/funnel for them. I had the TRUE completely enclosed and made sure air flowed through and could not leak out. I piped the air to two rear 120 fans to remove the hot air.

I will see if I still have picture from it. I did this test a couple of weeks after I tested the push pull and after a move and a large break up I may have missplaced or lost them. Oh, when I did the push pull, I also found that regardless of the fans cfm, it made no real difference at peak temperatures. A fan that has a higher cfm took longer to get to the same peak temp, but it did get there. Also, after at load, a fan with a higher cfm got cooler or to idle temps faster. But all fans went to the same temperature.

After I did this test, I went back down to a 60cfm fan that the original benchmark I read (I believe it was anandtech) did. I did it for quietness.



Sorry about my posts if they sound choppy or anything. My mind has been fried for the past couple of days. College full time, work full time (helpdesk..... just me for 500 employees..... yeah, talk about fun...), and a personal life to get in the way. I do realize I dropped a lot of "s"' off in my last post. If you don't like it, you'll get over it.

 

[iluvgillgill]

so the tunnel style does more then 2C drop i mentioned. great result

 

[spaztic7]

Yeah, I was really happy with it. I was wondering why people didn’t make kits for this because it really drop temperatures. The simple fact is that if you can direct the air through the TRUE, you temps will drop. Please take into consideration what my ambient temps were, the case I had and also the layout of my motherboard. The other nice this is that with the tunnel, heat from the video card does not affect the heatsink as much. As heat rises from the back of the video card, it could warm the case air enough or just rise into the heatsink. With the tunnel, you can block that warmer air from rising into the cpu heatsink. This is why the cases that separate the main components can run so cool or why when placing the psu at the bottom reduces case temps.

Although I am general IT right now, my passion is with desktops. Even further, I am really into exploring exotic cooling methods for air cooling. My goal is to run at ambient temps.

My next exhibition now is with my cosmos case. It runs dead silent, but hot. I am looking into ways to cool it with max air flow but with no noise. I want to try thermalrights heatsink that good behind the motherboard to help cool the cpu. That could be interesting.


My other goal is to find someone around me who wants to start up a PC design business. As in, we put PC’s together and sell them. My goal is to build extreme quality, extreme cooling, extremely silent, for low cost. Instead of buying a Dell, Alienware, HP, Cyberpower PC, or anyone like them who may have either a high cost or low quality (cyberpower), give them Enthusiest quality at the cost of a newegg (for example) built PC.

 

[Trunkz_Jr]

Could you draw a picture then of this Cardboard box cooling method XD

 

[iluvgillgill]

just use 2 pieces of cardboard stuck on both side of the heatsink to the air doesnt "escape" from the side.

 

[Trunkz_Jr]

Does that Include the top and bottom??

 

[iluvgillgill]

just the 2 side of the heatsink.

 

[spaztic7]

It is more than just two pieces.

I made a box that fully encapsulated the heatink from bottom most fin to top. I had the tunnel come up to the front fan. I sealed the box's corners, and any unwanted openings with.... ehem... packaging tape... to ensure the air went through the heatsink and did not escape. From the rear of the heatsink, I ran the box to the rear fans. It looked kinda like this.


Side View:

http://picasaweb.google.com/Spaztic7/CardboardHeatsinkTunnel#5242155434493647362

Bottom View:

http://picasaweb.google.com/Spaztic7/CardboardHeatsinkTunnel#5242155427987379986

Top View:

http://picasaweb.google.com/Spaztic7/CardboardHeatsinkTunnel#5242155438423127618

I dont know if these images will work. I am at work and do not have access to photobucket. If they are not, then I will fix this when I get home.

 

[iluvgillgill]

nope! all those links dont open.you got msn?

 

[iluvgillgill]

if you have you can upload it to here

skydrive.live.com

free 5GB storage.with 50mb limitation per file.not bad i would say1

 

[spaztic7]

Try that!

If that works, you can tank google! BTW, try out Chrome, I love it.

 

[spaztic7]

if you have you can upload it to here

skydrive.live.com

free 5GB storage.with 50mb limitation per file.not bad i would say1

Thats not bad at all. I will give it a look at at home. Its blocked here at work.

 

[iluvgillgill]

i havent got round to Chrome yet.what it has to be better then firefox?

 

[spaztic7]

Chrome is good, but it is still beta. I like it more than firefox, it is definitely quicker. The multi-tabbing additions are really nice; gear box (that comes with chrome) blows your mind. It makes shortcuts to your computer, but you can use this for any webpage. So take Google document creator. If you make a shortcut for their word processor, when you open it, it opens it like a program; it looks like a program and not like a web page. Also the hidden mode aka porn mode is an interesting feature. It does not record what you do when in that mode.

The home page is amazing. It records what web pages you go to most (most used web pages) and then sets them as links. It looks like Operas opening page but you don’t have to set it, just use Chrome and it does the work for you. It is dynamic so as you change and start to look at other things more, the homepage will change too. It also makes a list of recently closed tabs one the home page. That way if you ever exit a page by accident, you can get back to where you were in just a click or two.

The other really important and amazing thing is Chrome task manager. This manages all tasks going on inside Chrome, so all web pages or applications opened. If something fails or is locked up, you go to Chromes task manager, tell it to end that task, and you are on you way!


Many people say that this is revolutionary. They are 100% correct in saying so. This is Google’s first major attack to Microsoft (I don’t count their document thing because it isn't super useable yet) which will be followed up later this month with Android... Google’s mobile OS. I suspect a full fledge computer OS is in the works.

 

[iluvgillgill]

im waiting google to come out so i can get a reduced price iPhone.haha

 

[spaztic7]

I think I will jump on the Android.. err.. HTC Dream when it comes out.