Assembly and Installation Tips

To ensure that the fan sits “softly” on the cooler heatsink, this solution is bundled with two rubber strips that should be stuck to both sides of the heatsink before fan installation:

Although the heatsink is completely symmetrical and could accommodate two fans, there is only one set of fan retentions and vibration absorbing strips included.

Thermalright Ultima-90I can work with one or two 92 x 92 x 25mm fans. This is what it will look like:

However, the remarkable thing is that Thermalright engineers also ensured that you will be able to install one 120 x 120 x 25mm fan that is why they included two long wire clips:

Here we have to say, though, that about 30% of this fan’s potential will go to waste, because it will send the airflow above the cooler heatsink. Unfortunately, the uniquely shaped wire clips will not allow you to lower the fan, so that it could at least cool the components in the area around the processor socket. Moreover, the heatsinks installed on the voltage regulator components may also be in the way in this case.

Thermalright Ultima-90I is installed onto a mainboard in exactly the same way as Thermalright SI-128 SE. the cooler is pressed with a metal plate that is attached with spring screws to the spindles inserted into PCB retention holes:

I have to say that this is a very reliable retention mechanism ensuring pretty secure contact between the cooler base and the processor heat-spreader. I only have to add that the distance from the mainboard PCB to the lowest heatsink plate measures 42mm.

This is what Thermalright Ultima-90I looks like inside a system case (with a Noctua NH-U9B fan attached):

You can turn the cooler facing any of the four directions on LGA775 mainboards, because the retention holes there are symmetrical. However, mainboards for AMD K8 and K10 processors only allow two choices, which is actually traditional for CPU sockets of this type.

The cooler we have just discussed is priced at $60, which is comparable to the price on the best air coolers out there these days. Our tests will show if this price point is too high or absolutely justified. However, before we move over to the benchmarks, let’s discuss the third testing participant.