Thermalright TRUE Black 120 Heatsink Review

Mike D. (lemonlime) An in-depth look at Thermalright's latest—the TRUE Black 120 heatsink. The TRUE Black 120 is a special edition, black nickel plated version of the very popular Ultra 120 eXtreme. Not only has its appearance changed, but it comes bundled with some extras.

August 11, 2008 1:00 AM ET in Review,

The TRUE Black 120 was tested using our heatsink testing methodology that was developed for our recent EPIC heatsink roundup. We now have results for seventeen heatsinks included for comparison.

Wow. Just when I thought things couldn’t get much better than Sunbeam’s potent “Core-contact Freezer”, the TRUE knocks it out of first place by a very healthy margin. Very impressive, Thermalright!

We see a very similar trend with small FFT testing in Prime95. The TRUE Black 120 managed to best the Core-contact Freezer by an amazing 5 degree difference.

As expected, the TRUE Black 120 does not provide much cooling to motherboard components. This is an unfortunate disadvantage to tower style heatsinks. Down-draft models typically do not cool the CPU as well, but provide excellent cooling to VR components, memory and the chipset. Buyers of tower-based heatsinks should ensure that they have adequate case airflow to compensate for this.

The TRUE Black 120 does well on our AM2 platform, but is unable to take a large lead like it did on our LGA775 test system. Its performance is about at par with Noctua’s NH-U12P and the OCZ Vendetta 2.


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9 Comments:

  1. Gargoyle
    11 Aug '08, 3:22 pm

    That's pretty impressive. Looks great, too.

  2. MAGIC
    12 Aug '08, 6:04 pm

    ill just take a black sharpie to my current TRUE

  3. TvManPwns
    14 Aug '08, 1:24 am
    Quoting ][v][AGIC

    ill just take a black sharpie to my current TRUE

    Bet it still would look quite as hawt!

  4. PurplezArctic
    20 Aug '08, 5:36 pm

    Wow the performance and finish looks great!

    I love the Apple-esque sleekness that it has.

  5. Leonardo
    20 Aug '08, 8:19 pm

    I'm impressed that you got such good results without pressure modification to the mounting and without lapping the base. Did you get lucky or is Thermalright actually paying attention to their customers' feedback now?

    Don't get me wrong, I think TRUEs are excellent...if you are willing to spend a few hours in modifications. But apparently in this case, the base was quite flat.

  6. jared
    19 Oct '08, 3:06 pm

    Maybe I missed in the article, but what 120mm fan is recommended for the TRUE hs?

  7. Buddy J
    19 Oct '08, 4:14 pm

    I believe Thrax says it's 45-55 cfm that makes the TRUE really shine. Lots of people seem to recommend the Scythe fans.

  8. Thrax
    19 Oct '08, 4:19 pm

    I use a Thermalright A2029 on about 50% to max RPMs. I find that if I run the fan at full speed, temperatures are actually higher. I surmise that the force of a high CFM creates static pressure between the fins and produces dead air that acts as an insulator.

  9. jared
    19 Oct '08, 4:43 pm

    Danke. Thraxipedia at its finest.

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