Introduction:

How do you reduce noise and increase performance when sticking to air cooling your CPU? You can either start increasing the heatsink’s size in height like Cooler Master did with their Hyper6, or design a radial heatsink to maximize the cooling efficiency while using a fan in the center like Zalman’s 7000 series does. The third option is to increase the size of your heatsink to make it compatible with larger fans. When going for the best performance/noise ratio this is an excellent solution.

Not satisfied with the 92mm fan support on the SP-94, Thermalright decided to go one step further, the XP-120, as the name suggests, is made solely for 120mm fans. These fans have big blades and don’t need to spin fast to create enough airflow. This reduces noise while keeping performance up. At least that’s what Thermalright had in mind when they designed the XP-120. Bacata in France send us our evaluation sample which comes packaged in a cardboard box featuring the Thermalright logo on top.

What is inside the box?

Thermalright XP-120

2 metal fan-clips

Thermal grease

K8 installation bracket (*only with P4/K8 version, absent in the vanilla P4 version)

One A4 page installation guide

A Thermalright promotional sticker

Specifications:

120mm Recommended fan for maximum cooling capability

Multiple heatpipes for well spread heat around aluminum fins

Soldered fins to copper base (nickel plated) to make effective contact

Light weight and easy installation

Compatibility across multiple platforms (socket 478/754/939/940)

Measurements:

L110 x W125 x H63 (mm) heatsink only, the base is rather small however L54 x W50 w H5 (mm). The heatpipes stick out approx 30mm into "obstructive" zone on some motherboards. Thermalright is aware of this and has created a growing list with motherboard compatibility info for AMD K8 and Intel S478.

One of the most remarkable specifications of this heatsink, beside its size, is the weight at only 360 gram (without fan) it comes very close to that of a default aluminum P4 heatsink.

Let’s take a closer look at the XP-120 ->

There no denying that this heatsink is huge, with a 120mm on top it looks daunting.



The heatsink is made mostly from aluminum, only the nickel plated copper base differs from the rest. The base is very smooth and no lapping is needed. The top part of the XP-120 hangs over the normal P4 mounting area and will help cool down the surrounding area when the 120mm fan is up and running. Five heatpipes joined at the base provide heat transfer to the collection of small fins, very effective as was proven with the SP-94.



Click the thumbnails for a larger version

The give you a better idea of the size here’s the XP-120 pictured with its older brother, the aforementioned SP-94.



The base of the XP-120 is remarkably smaller but that’s about the only area where its older brother has the “upper” hand, size-wise.


Click the thumbnails for a larger version

Let’s get it installed and see how it performs ->

Installation

First and foremost, before considering this heatsink you need to verify if it fits your motherboard, as mentioned in the introduction, Thermalright did some in-house testing for AMD K8 and Intel S478 compatibility, if yours is not listed then send of an email to Thermalright’s support.

There are two version of the XP-120 for sale, one will fit both P4/K8, the other only P4. The addition to the K8 package is this custom bracket which also allows you to install pretty much any other P4 heatsink which uses the default Intel bracket, onto your A64 setup:



I’m using an Asus P4C800 in this test which is listed with remarks: * caps mechanically obstruct pipe slightly, cap tilting necessary , so that’s what I did and ended up with this:


Click the thumbnails for a larger version

A tight fit but it works. The 2nd area of concern is the northbridge; if your motherboard has a tall heatsink on there it might obstruct the XP-120’s fins. On the Asus P4C800 there is still some room left:


Click the thumbnails for a larger version

If you look closer at the 2nd picture you’ll see two blue plastic stripes, they reduce fan vibration noise, they don’t come preinstalled but are very easy to put in place

For the installation of the heatsink it is best that you remove the motherboard from the case, or if you have a removable mobo-tray, that you make good use of it! Using a long screwdriver and some maneuvering it’s quite easy to make the 4 clips go over the 4 corners of the bracket.

The fan is secured in place using Thermalright’s popular method of metal clips, they make fan installation a breeze.

Update! 08/11/2005: I was informed by an attentive reader (thanks Bill!) that fans with bridged or webbed mounting holes (Nexus 120mm, Sanyo Denkis) are incompatible with the standard fan clips. However additions fan clips can be ordered (for a low ~$1) which allow you to fit these fans. The owner of Jab-Tech.com clued us in.



Test Setup

The Swiftech MCX478-V reviewed here (vs the SP-94 and Zalman 7000) is also aimed at silent PC operation and I thought it might serve well as a comparison for this test.

JMke's Test Setup
CPU	Intel P4 2.4 "C" @ 3 Ghz - 1.65v vcore
Mainboard	Asus P4C800
Cooling	* Thermalright XP-120 * Swiftech MCX478-V
Memory	1 * 256Mb PC3200 Mushkin Level II
Video	ATI R9000 Passive Cooling

Room temperature was 23.5-24°C during test

Setup was installed in a case less environment

Fans used in this test:

Coolink 80mm at high/low speeds on the Swiftech MCX478-V, specs of that fan here

PAPST 120mm 4412 F/2GLL (pic) rated at 18dBA at max speed it delivers ~40CFM. Was run at max speed ~1250rpm and at ~850rpm, more specs here.

YS-Tech 120mm FD1212257B-2I (pic) , rated at 45dBA at max speed (~2600rpm), more specs here. Was tested at 12/9/7/5v. At 5v it's still louder then the Papst at maximum speed.


Test results

All fans are set to blow air down onto the heatsink in our first test:



The XP-120 obtains very impressive results, even with the 120mm Papst fan running at its slowest setting it equals the competition which needs a very noisy 80mm to keep up. No matter what speed setting is used with the tested 120mm fans, the performance is breath taking. Silence and performance come together with this product. For those seeking extremely high overclocks you can slap on the highest rated 120mm fan and enjoy load temperatures which are normally only seen with water cooling!

Test results: suck vs blow

Our second test consists of comparing the impact of fan blowing direction on performance. I’ve included the northbridge temperature as this seemed relevant for this test:



Depending on your case fan setup you might obtain different results, in an open air setup the fan direction does not change performance, although the motherboard temperature takes a dip when air is sucked away from the heatsink. I suggest you try both ways to see which proves best for your case fan setup!

After these tests I clocked the P4 down to 1.8Ghz (150Mhz FSB) with 1.5v vcore (minimum this motherboard allows) and left the CPUBurn running after I unplugged the fan. The PC was stable for ~5 minutes before it hit critical temperatures and the system shut down.

Please check out our Heatsink Roundups results here including the XP-120 and many others

Onto our conclusion ->

Is the king back? Does Thermalright reclaim the thrown of best P4 air cooling solution? All results point towards it. The final verdict will come soon when we complete our roundup of 12 P4 heatsinks including the current champ, the Cooler Master Hyper6.

Update: Our Intel P4 roundup is finished and can be read here.

Our testing today showed you the great potential of having a heatsink which natively supports a 120mm fan. Combined with the popular heatpipe technology it makes the XP-120 a killer thermal solution. The only obvious downside is compatibility. With its large footprint it can cause installation problems on some motherboards.

Weight is no issue thanks to the use of aluminum; installation is easy and straightforward although motherboard removable is recommended. Thermalright leaves it up to end user to choose his favorite fan, although they do recommend a Panaflo model which produces ~70CFM at 30dBA, expect performance between the Papst & YS-Tech tested here.



We can heartily recommend the XP-120 if you are looking for a high performance heatsink which also allows silent operation at the same time. Priced near $50 it won’t burn a whole in your pocket!

We would like to thank JC from Bacata for sending the XP-120 our way.

Questions/Comments: forum thread