After many years of producing some of the top-performing CPU heatsinks in the world, Thermalright has entered the video card cooling arena. The manufacturer has previously released the V1 and V1-Ultra, designed to handle the latest pixel-crunchers form nVidia and ATI.
Companies like Zalman and ThermalTake have been conquering the PC enthusiast market with innovative products to conquer the flaming beast in the newest graphics cards. ThermalRight has introduced their ThermalRight V1-Ultra heatsink to stake a claim in this territory.
| features | 80mm fan cooler (optional two fans) |
| Soldered fins to copper base to make effective contact | |
| Compatibility across multiple platforms (ATI & NVIDIA) | |
| Heat sink (base,front) | L30xW24xH2 (mm) |
| Heat sink (body,front) | L80xW80xH20 (mm) |
| Heat sink (body, rear/with fan) | L80xW80*H28.5 |
| Rear heat sink to VGA card | 6 mm |
| Weight | 310g (heat sink only) |
| Fan Manufacturer | OEM |
| Fan Size | 80x 80x 15 (mm) |
| Fan Bearing | Two Balls |
| Fan Voltage | 12V |
| Fan Speed | 2500 rpm |
| Air Flow | 24.84CFM |
| Noise Level | 31.3 dBA |
Compatibility
ATI: Radeon 9800, X700*, X800*, X850 (*: Check for details)
NVIDIA: GeForce 6600*, 6600 GT*, 6800, 6800GT, 6800 Ultra, 7800GT, 7800 GTX (*: Check for details)
Note: The new V1 Ultra GPU Cooler is designed for the newer chipsets in VGA cards in the likes of ATI’s 9800, X700, X800 and Nvidia’s 6600, 6800, 7800.
The V1-Ultra is similar to the SI-120 CPU heatsink in terms of design and technology, using a combination of aluminum and copper joined by heatpipes. The main base is all copper, but is coated with nickel so it matches the aluminum and chromed heatpipes. The base contact point is beautifully lapped and mirror smooth, providing optimal surface coneact with the graphics core. A slim, 80mm fan silently moves air through the aluminum fins, and mounting for an additional 80mm fan increases the possible cooling power.
The V1-Ultra is packaged in ThermalRight’s classic brown paper packaging. The packing foam is cut to snugly fit the unusual shape of the heatsink and its accessories. The heatsink is wrapped in a thick clear plastic bag and the box of accessories is in a plain white box.
The main heatsink is connected to the a thin radiator by three shiny heatpipes, which are meant to wrap around the video card’s top edge. Because of the low-profile of the front heatsink, there is not enough clearance for capacitors and other components that may get in the way.
A thin 80mm fan is attached to Thermalright’s trademark thin radiator grill, which provides lots of surface area for heat dissipation. The drawback to this thin design is that it collects dust like a trap and should be air-blasted regularly to maintain performance, probably once every 3 months.
The memory sinks must be mounted before installing the main heatsink, and is a fairly straightforward process… just peel off the protective adhesive backing and stick on your ram. They fit nicely over the most card’s square RAM chips, but will not completely cover the memory on cards that use older or cheaper memory (like a value edition Radeon 9800). Thermalright includes 8 ram-sinks, although 6 are going to be used for most installations (the other 2 ram chips are overshadowed by the heatsink, and require thermal padding to connect the RAM to the main heatsink).
The back fan is slim enough to not get in the way of components that may be behind the video card, but it will block the SLI connector of some PCI Express cards (your mileage may vary). This cooler was too tall to fit in our SilverStone LC10 HTPC case (which has the same dimentions as a standard desktop case), so this cooler is only recommended for a case with more height, such as a mid-tower case.
The heatsink is not very flexible in terms of its reusability. Once you take the time to install this heatsink, you better keep it on forever. The main heatsink just comes too close to the memory units above the GPU, which forces you to use one or more ineffective thermal pads to bridge the gap between the heatsink and some of the memory modules. You keep adding layers of thermal padding until the gap is completely filled. Where are you going to find more of this thermal padding if you decide to install this heatsink on another video card? Let’s face it… if you’re buying an expensive third-party heatsink then you’re probably going to use it when you upgrade to the next generation video card.
There are lots of little pieces to lose, which is easily done on a black work surface like mine. I was in the middle of installing the sink when I realized that some of the tiny installation hardware was missing! I had to pull the white box out of the garbage and found the hardware tucked at the bottom of the long dark tube. Once installed the heatsink can pivot slightly, and the extra length of the heatsink becomes an effective lever to test such pivoting.
The mounting base hardware is secured using adjustable arms, which must be adjusted, and can take some working to achieve the right fit. Once the positioning is correct, the screws are tightened to secure the black metal mounting frame to the GPU. You may have to use an included silicon shim to protect the GPU.
With the mounting hardware installed, we can attach the actual heatsink. We prepared the card with some thermal paste on the GPU. We took off excess and rubbed it into the contact surface on the actual heatsink. The heatsink, pipes and radiators are fully assembled and cannot be taken apart, so the heatsink must be slid into position. Since thermal padding must be installed on the memory before actual mounting, there is extra height that must be cleared, and this padding is very effective at smearing thermal compound all over the card as the sink slips past searching for the mounting mechanism.
With the sink positioned we can now secure it to the mounting base with included screws. This is the time you will discover if you installed the mounting hardware correctly. If you over-tighten the arms, then the mounting base will warp and be out of reach for all of the heatsink’s corners. Therefore mounting the heatsink is a trial-and-error process until the mounting mechanism is “just so”. Once the sink is installed correctly it feels very sturdy and has a more techno-industrial look to it. Depending on how tight you mounted the base, the sink will wobble slightly with a little pressure.
Asus’ 6800GT-based V9999 would have rendering and video problems with the stock heatsink. Although it was copper, there was not enough of it to really make a difference. A thermal probe was used to gather GPU core temperature, as the Asus V9999 has the temperature sensor disabled (or at least cannot be identified by nVidia’s OEM drivers). Our benchmark applications consist of 3dMark 2001 SE, 3dMark 2005 and AquaMark. We ran the card throughout the entire test sequence and recorded the highest sustained temperature, measured in Celcius. We were able to overclock our 6800 GT chip from the stock 350 MHz to 380 without a problem, at the cost of higher temperatures. Our test bed consisted of the following:
- Asus V9999 (Geforce 6800GT AGP)
- AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+
- Chaintech Zenith VNF4 Ultra motherboard
- Thermax Tech thermal compound
- SilverStone LC10 HTPC case
- Lian Li V1000 mid-tower case
The V1-Ultra performed very well against Asus’ stock 6800 GT cooler, taming the GPU from a dangerous 84 degrees to a much safer 61 degrees, which provides some headroom for overclocking. The V-1 Ultra was far less noisy than the high-pitched hurricane produced from the OEM fan.
Thermalright has led the way for high performance, and the V1-Ultra VGA cooler does continue this performance trend. Unfortunately, it is difficult to install and will not fit in all cases. Other heatsink manufacturers, namely Zalman and Arctic Cooling, provide similar performance with vastly superior installation and longevity. The Thermalright V1-Ultra VGA cooler does perform well, but is hard to justify the high price for all its drawbacks.
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