Your Guide to Noob-dom

Introduction

Thermalright Ultra 120 Extreme has been one of the most renowned CPU coolers since it made debut in April 2007. There’re some coolers which have tried to challenge its dominance, but none of them have actually beaten it.

The root cause is the cooling solution technique has been stagnating – the engineers can just improve the performance by adding more heatpipes or making cooling size larger. Actually, the coolers on par with U120E are already enough to cool down the processors, so it becomes more crucial to design a lightweight and equally efficient cooler.

U120E vs. True Spirit

They look quite similar, though True Spirit is known as a different name. In April Thermalright announced the new brand COGAGE which stands for Computer and Gaming Gear, targeting entry-level segment.

To be honest, it’s really hard to get excited about True Spirit at first sight. But you know, appearances can be deceitful sometimes.

True Spirit Overview

U120E vs. True Spirit

True Spirit measures 133×156x38mm and weighs 415g (excluding fan), which is much lighter than U120E.

Cogage True Spirit

True Spirit has inherited much of its design from the U120E, but it’s been designed in a more simple way to cut cost.

The heatsink fins feature proprietary bent winglet design to minimize airflow resistance, and the four 6mm heatpipes are smartly positioned to pick up the heat from the CPU.

Equipped with 48 pieces of aluminum cooling fins, True Spirit has a heatsink coverage of around 5100cm², which is much smaller than 7400cm² on U120E.

Just like U120E, the copper base of True Spirit is a bit raised – this is specially designed for the Intel processors, according to Thermalright.

True Spirit only includes brackets for Socket 1366 processors, and the installation was quite easy. But the plastic brackets make the installation not very solid.

True Spirit also comes with a PWM control fan measuring 120×120x25mm (1000-1500RPM)±15%, but the maximum speed reached 1700RPM according to our test.

True Spirit specs

Benchmark & Settings

Intel Core i7-920 D0 CPU was chosen for our test. We overclocked it to 3.8GHz, improved the core voltage to 1.15V, and shut all energy-saving functions. In order to give you a better idea of its cooling performance, we used Thermalright Ultra 120 Extreme for comparison.

When the cooler operates at 1700RPM, we used the stock fan; while the cooler runs at 1200RPM, we chose the Scythe S-FLEX SFF21E with standard speed of 1200RPM.

The chassis we chosen was Casetek CK-1022-5, and the room temperature was keeping around 24℃.

Cooling Performance Test

When the test was finished, we could hardly believe our eyes. In order to make sure the result was correct, we did the test for several times on two different platforms, and got the same result.

When the cooler operates at 1700RPM, True Spirit and U120E were evenly matched. But when it runs at 1200RPM, True Spirit actually outperformed U120E!

Final thoughts

COGAGE True Spirit is really praiseworthy – it’s lighter, smaller, and equally powerful.

We’re not sure how the cooler manages it, so we asked the engineers from Thermalright. However, it seems they’re unwilling to disclose more details other than claiming they have made a breakthrough in manufacturing technique to convey the heat more efficiently.

Last but not least, True Spirit is cheaper than U120E. In China, True Spirit has a MSRP of RMB350, while U120E (including fan) is sold at RMB500. As to the plastic brackets, Thermalright says they will consider replacing them with metal ones for later batches.

If you’re looking for a small and efficient cooler, Cogage True Spirit is something which is going to come up to your expectation. And its emergence is very likely to bring down the price of many other high-end coolers.

Who would be the next to challenge True Spirit? Let’s wait and see!

source: expreview

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