Thermalright Ultra-120 Extreme CPU Heatsink

Pros: Great cooling. Dropped my idle temps by 5 degrees C. Upgrade from my coolmaster GemenII. Running 2 Scythe S-FLEX fans, super quiet.

Cons: Tight fit, had to revert back to my non-120cm fan door on my Armor case. Came incredibly warped, took a LOT of lapping to correct. Only one set of mounting brackets included, but 2-4 paper clips can be used to mount a second fan.

Overall Review: Don't buy this unless you plan to lap it. Aside from the warping, great product. Not as heavy as I expected, it's not warping my mobo or anything like that (Mounted vertically in a tower).

Pros: Seems to cool my Q6600 2.4Ghz (Not overclocked) sufficiently. The Q6600 is not overclocked, neither my CPU nor the Ultra-120 Extreme have been lapped, and I used AS-5 instead of the Thermalright supplied thermal compound. The 4 cores run between 39-42 degrees idle, and 42-55 degrees under load as reported by CoreTemp (Ambient temp around 27). The Ultra-120 Extreme/S-Flex fan combo seems to work very well and quiet.

Cons: This thing is heavy...really heavy. It seems that a small percentage of Ultra-120 users have a problem with the weight of the thing overloading the mounting system they supply, and causing it to sag on the motherboard. I had this problem. It was sagging enough to cause the CPU not to seat properly and shutting down the machine. It took myself, and many others, a long time to track this problem down to the sagging of this heavy cooler. Once the problem was found, fashioning a velcro suspension strap, supported by the case, to take some of the weight off of the cooler solved the problem. I've only heard of others experiencing this a few times, so
it seems that its a very small minority. Once this problem was addressed, the cooler worked terrific. The fan clips are a little tricky to attach and seem a bit of an 'afterthought' solution to attaching the fan to the device. The physical bulk of the cooler will cause it to simply NOT fit in some cases.

Overall Review: Should you choose to use the popular S-Flex fan along with the Ultra-120 Extreme, the unit becomes a bit more expensive than other solutions. If the cheap 'fan clip' device that they use to attach the fan keeps the price down, then great! However, they should have included MUCH better documentation. I think people would have been less frustrated with the clips if better documentation was provided. Check your motherboard layout (As the size of the Ultra-120 may interfere with heat pipes on some boards), and check the dimensions of the case this will go in. My CoolerMaster Stacker 830 Evo is just over 8" wide and the Ultra-120 fits with about an inch to spare from the side panel. I wouldn't bump, move, or jostle a system with an Ultra-120 on it, as the stiffness of the springs on the mounting system SEEMS to want to let the device sag. Once installed, check for sagging and if you start getting mysterious shutdowns that look like a PSU problem, you might want to check for 'sag'.