Tuniq Tower 120: Air Cooling to the Max
by Wesley Fink on January 15, 2007 12:01 AM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
Final Words
Effective CPU cooling means lowering the processor temperature compared to the Intel retail HSF which comes with most Intel processors. If an after market cooling solution does not perform better than the kit heatsink, there is no real reason to buy it. A cooler CPU could result in a longer CPU life, but most users upgrade cooling to overclock even further than is possible with a stock HSF. The second characteristic of effective cooling, then, is that it allows a better overclock than the stock HSF.The Intel Core 2 Duo is unarguably the most overclockable CPU in the current market. It is therefore the logical processor for evaluating the effectiveness of cooling solutions. There is a problem, however, in that the stock Intel retail HSF is really very good at cooling and very quiet. Intel seems to have learned a lot about cooling in working with the incredibly hot Pentium 4 NetBurst processors and they have applied what they learned to cooling the Core 2 Duo, which is not nearly as demanding. This is just to put in perspective the fact that the average heatsink/fan is likely to have a difficult time outperforming the Intel retail HSF. It is a very good kit HSF.
Having said that, it is clear the Tuniq Tower 120 is definitely up to the task. At the highest stressed speeds we could reach with the Tuniq, it still performed better, under demanding gaming conditions, than the Intel HSF at idle. That is certainly not faint praise.
In the second part of our definition, the Tuniq Tower 120 allowed a 200MHz greater overclock than the Intel HSF with the top-line Core 2 Duo X6800. The final overclock with the X6800/Tuniq Tower 120 was a stable 3.90GHz - a 1000MHz boost over the 2.93GHz stock speed. This is with the fastest Core 2 Duo, and we know from other testing that you can get overclocks much higher than 1000MHz with lower C2D processors because your starting point is a lower CPU speed.
For those who also consider lack of noise at least as important as performance we can only say you will also find the Tuniq Tower 120 satisfying. At the lowest 1000RPM measured noise remained below the system floor all the way to the highest overclock of 3.9Ghz. In fact, measured noise generally remained below the system noise floor as long as the fan speed was kept below 1600 RPM. You can squeeze out a few more degrees of cooling at the highest and noisier 2100 RPM, and with some CPUs that will also translate into a higher overclock. Silence is in your control with the Tuniq, since the fan is only manually adjustable, and the kit comes with a slot mounted fan speed rheostat.
From both our criteria for effective cooling the Tuniq Tower 120 is an outstanding CPU cooler. It does what a cooler should do with exceptional performance at all tested levels. Our noise measurements also confirmed Sunbeam's claim that the Tuniq Tower 120 is an "Ultra Silent CPU cooler" - at least at the lower fan speeds.
The performance of this air cooler is beyond reproach, but we did find installation was often not much fun. You have to use a bottom plate for attaching the Tuniq through the Socket 775 mounting holes. This means the motherboard must be removed from the case to install the Tuniq. We wish Sunbeam could find a better way to mount, but we do prefer secure mounting of this large and heavy cooler to an easier solution that might be less secure.
The other issue is the top mounting plate, which must be mated to a pin on the back of the copper CPU mount. It requires a lot of maneuvering to line up those parts and the sharp cooling fins are ready to cut or slice your hand if you're not careful. We suggest you take your time and stop a while if you find you are getting frustrated. Once properly mounted you will be rewarded with some of the best air cooling performance you can find.
Last, many enthusiasts will tell you the smoother the contact surface the better the cooling. Frankly they will not be happy with the relatively rough copper bottom of the Tuniq. If that matters to you, then you will probably want to do a little surface polishing before mounting the Tuniq. An even better solution would be for Sunbeam to provide a more polished mounting surface on future Tuniq Tower 120s.
We have seen comments that claim the Tuniq is the best air cooler you can buy. Others have said the cooling is as effective as many water cooling solutions. We have more testing to do before we can support either of these claims. However, we can say with certainly that the Tuniq Tower 120 is one of the best cooling solutions we have ever tested. When you consider the cost is about $50 the Tuniq also has to be considered an incredible value. We can't think of many other products that cost $50 that will do as much for system performance as the Tuniq Tower 120.
We extend our sincere thanks to Frozen CPU for providing the Tuniq Tower 120 for review. Sunbeam has delivered a deceptively simple product that does what it is designed to do - provide exceptional cooling performance for a wide range of current processors and motherboards.
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LoneWolf15 - Monday, January 15, 2007 - link
Thanks Wesley, for the review.I'd love to see a complete "cooling tower" review. There are a lot of similar products out there, such as the Sycthe Ninja/Scythe Infinity family, a couple by Noctua, the CoolerMaster Hyper 6+, Arctic's Freezer Pro line, and (sort of similar) Zalman's 9500/9700 line. A lot of us would like to know how they stack up against each other on both Intel and AMD platforms, with the following notes:
Weight of each cooler (lighter being better if it doesn't sacrifice performance)
Ease of mounting on both AMD and Intel systems (with a key to whether the heatsink can be mounted properly for fan exhaust direction, regardless of socket orientation on the mainboard)
Noise level
Cooling effectiveness
Smoothness of CPU mating surface
I've been tempted to buy a tower heatsink/fan unit, as I think it will cool better than my good, but aging Swiftech MCX64-V, since if chosen correctly, a new model should blow air straight to the 120mm exhaust fan at the back of the case. However, I haven't seen a good side-by-side comparison yet that tells me everything I'd wish to know. I hope Anandtech will look into this. Thanks!
AlabamaMan - Monday, January 15, 2007 - link
More pictures would have been very helpfull. I have an e680i mobo and Lian-Li A10 case I still can't fiure out if I can put in the Tower without hitting the top-mounted 120mm case fan.Wesley Fink - Monday, January 15, 2007 - link
If the fan is really at the top, and not at the side of the case (in a tower design) the concerns are different. Considering dimensions toward the physical top (long dimension or height of a tower case), the Tuniq width in that direction is 110mm or 4.3". You can measure from the center of the socket 775 to see if you have 55mm (2.165") clearance to your fan from the center of the socket to the edge of the fan. Just for info the top of the Tuniq is 110mm x 128mm (4.3" x 5").Wesley Fink - Monday, January 15, 2007 - link
The Tuniq Tower dimentions are on page 3. A normal case is 19cm (7.5") deep in the cooler dimension, while the Tuniq is 15.5cm (6.1") tall. I can tell you for a fact the Tuniq clears all components on the 680i baord and can even be used with tall memory mounted (Corsair Diminator for example). You will need to determine if 1.4" is enough clearnace for you fan. Also since the fan would be blowing down on the solid top of the Tuniq, it likely will accomplish nothing as far as cooling is concerned and should be removed.Additional information about the size of the Tuniq can be found at www.tuniq.com
mackintire - Monday, January 15, 2007 - link
I m pretty sure the Tuniq Tower 120 is the best air cooled heatsink.I have a Intel Core 2 Quad QX6700. I do have a Scythe Ninja on it with a scythe 1600rpm S-fan. Running 2 instances of Orthos on all four cores gave me a full load temp of 74C and I know I have too much artic silver 5 on it. So realistically my load temps should be 73-72C.
I just purchased a Noctua NH-U12F which I believe to be really close to the performance of the Tuniq Tower 120.
I think we definately need the Noctua NH-U12F in the best cooler roundup.
The ninja need to be there for reference. And the Scythe Infinity would be a good idea too.
Another item of note is that these larger heavier CPU's show a different delta when loaded up with super hot CPUs.
My quad core running at 3.2 produces mega heat that few heatsinks can deal with.
The reason I switched to the NH-U12F was that it dropped my temp by 8C at stock speeds. 2 C of that I blame on properly application of artic silver.
Either way, this heatsink was well worth the money to me.
mackintire - Monday, January 15, 2007 - link
I changed over to the Noctura this past weekend. Just clearing up my previous post.The Ninja is an excellent heatsink, but I think that there is a limit as to how much heat a heatsink can deal with. I have noticed more recently with the current round of newer solutions that the coolers with more mass tend to deal with larger heat loads better. This is not an exact trend, I m just saying that I haven t found any 300g heatsinks that can perform as well as the better 700g heatsinks under heavy heat loads.
baronzemo78 - Monday, January 15, 2007 - link
Does anyone know how the thermal grease that comes with the Tuniq compares to Arctic Silver 5? Also I would love to see an Andantech article about lapping. I have seen some articles that say that lapping doesn't really improve your temps that much.http://www.overclockers.com/tips458/">http://www.overclockers.com/tips458/
Araemo - Monday, January 15, 2007 - link
Lapping was much more important on Pentium 3s and Athlons that had an exposed CPU Die, and no heat spreader.On modern Intel and AMD CPUs with a heat spreader, the thermal transfer point that needs the highest efficiency is between the heat spreader and the die - you can't do anything about that. The heat spreader gives you much more surface area to transfer the heat with, so the small increase from lapping isn't nearly as important as it used to be.
Perhaps if you're using a Tuniq Tower w/ a super high speed fan and an AC unit blowing at your case inputs and you're trying to break 4Ghz.. it might help. But for us real people, I'd say you're better off spending the time/money on a case with better airflow dynamics or just tying your cables out of the way to maximise airflow.
I have lapped a couple heatsinks, one I did a real half-assed job on, and temps were disappointing(lower than OEM heatsink, but higher than I would have liked).. my last one was used to overclock an AthlonXP mobile from 1.8 to 2.4, and I daresay it helped, but as I mentioned, those AthlonXPs had exposed CPU dies, so you had to transfer the full 60W or whatever using .5 square centimeters of surface area, so improving the transfer rate in any way possible helped.
mino - Monday, January 15, 2007 - link
Please consider doing the tests on Quad CPU(Kentsfield) as well as on a Duo CPU.Many coolers while beeing great for C2D perform poorly on Quad and vice versa.
Avalon - Monday, January 15, 2007 - link
I'd like to see the Coolermaster Hyper TX included if possible!Good review!