Socket 775 and AM2 heatsink roundup

Mike D. 11 Dec, 2007 at 1:00am ET Article published in Tech

Tuniq Tower 120

Tuniq is a division of a Sunbeamtech, a company that has been providing products to the PC modding and enthusiast community for some time. It is no secret that the Tuniq Tower 120 has become somewhat of a legend. It is a cooler frequently recommended across the web — even among our own members in the Icrontic forums. Tuniq was kind enough to provide us with one for the roundup and we look forward to pitting it against the others in the lab. There are two Tower 120 models and we’ll be looking at the original version. Tuniq also offers the Tower 120-LFB, which is identical to the original tower but with an included LED fan.

Image courtesy of Tuniq

They call it The Tower for a reason: It’s big. One of the most glaring differences between the Tuniq Tower and other “Tower” type heatsinks is that the fan is centrally mounted inside of the heatsink. The primary advantage to this design is a significantly reduced aerial footprint. Quite often, a tower type heatsink will fit just fine on a mainboard but it is not until the fan is mounted that RAM slots or some other important connector is obstructed. Although the tower is quite tall, it is not terribly wide compared to other heatsinks with side-mounted fans (like the Scythe Mugen and Ninja Mini for example). Because of this engineering, only fans sporting 25mm thickness are supported.

Tuniq Tower 120 Specifications

From: www.tuniq.com.tw

Dimensions: 131mm (W) x 108mm (H) x 153mm (D)
Weight: 798g (Fanless)
Material: Copper with Aluminium fins
Socket Support: Socket 478, LGA775, AMD 754/939/940/AM2
Included Fan Dimensions: 120mm (W) x 120mm (H) x 25mm (D)
Included Fan Speed:1000-2000RPM (Controller included)

The Tower 120 came well packaged in an attractive box. It has a bit of a minimalist appearance to it. Upon opening the box, the build quality of the Tower 120 is immediately apparent; the images don’t do it justice, it is extremely solid.

I removed the central fan cartridge and was left with a towering behemoth of copper and aluminium.

The fan is screwed into a cartridge of sorts and is loaded into the heatsink and four small screws secure it in place once inserted. It was not difficult to replace the included fan with our reference fan but I would caution buyers to be wary of metal shavings and particles that came loose when removing the screws. Make sure you install the fan away from your PC and be sure to brush away any metal debris before inserting the fan cartridge. The included fan uses both a regular 3-pin connector and a 2-pin for the included fan controller. I should mention that the Tower 120 caused a slight “Hum” with our reference fan due to the very close proximity of the fins to the fan blades. It is minor and likely would not be heard over the other system components.

The finish on the base of the sink was slightly rough. It is commonly misconceived that a mirror polish is perfection, however a flawlessly planar surface and a little thermal interface material is the ideal. While the Tower passed our glass pane test, our straight edge test revealed that the base is ever so slightly concave. I want to reiterate that this is very slight and will likely pose little to no performance degradation. The heatpipes make good contact with the base thanks to machined groves that are shaped for maximum contact.

Interestingly, there is a backplate included for socket LGA775, 478, 939 and 754 but the AM2 retention mechanism relies upon the OEM retention frame. Lastly, a small PCI controller card is included for a finishing touch.

Socket 775 Installation:

Installation on our Asus P5K-E was surprisingly easy. Although the Tower 120 utilizes a backplate, it is very well designed and avoids the busy VRM components. The backplate will likely be compatible with just about any LGA775 board. The thumbscrew mounting system is easy to use and is not obstructed. Once installed, the Tower 120 felt firmly secured. It can be rotated if enough force is applied, but the four-post “Screw through” mount provides plenty of pressure to make this a non-issue. The instruction manual from Tuniq instructed that the tape over the backplate should be removed to “stick” the backplate into position. This would certainly make installation easier but if you are like me and swap out heatsinks more frequently than you change your shirt, it can be left as-is.

I’ll admit that the angle of this shot makes it look much larger than it is, however it is still very impressive even from a less flattering angle. Weighing in at over 800g, I cannot more strongly emphasize the need for a strong mounting system, and Tuniq delivered on the Tower.

As you can see, clearance is tight as usual with the Asus P5K-E but due to the”Upright” stature of the Tower 120, the northbridge and other components are easily cleared. Thanks to the centrally mounted fan, there is plenty of RAM clearance. Clearly, a lot of thought went into the design of the Tower 120. Tuniq gets two big thumbs up from me concerning compatibility.

Socket AM2 Installation

I wish that I could say that the mounting hardware for socket AM2 was as high quality as the LGA775’s mechanisms, but this is not the case. AM2 was likely never part of the original design and the included clip an afterthought. It is a positive thing that AM2 is supported by the Tower 120, but it would have been nice to have included a backplate. The mounting simply doesn’t feel as sturdy.

The included two-piece AM2 clip was a little confusing to install and the pictures in the install guide were not very helpful due to their very small size and poor print quality. Once I had it mounted, I did not feel terribly comfortable with the security of the mount. The DFI Infinity does not have an OEM backplate included so the mainboard bent a fair bit due to the pressure applied by the clip on either side of the retention frame. Downward force on the CPU was pleasantly significant, as the pressure to snap the sink into place was notable.

Once mounted, I was pleased to see that there were no compatibility issues on the top side of the board. Even with the very close proximity of the DIMM slots, the Tower 120 cleared them just fine.

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Comments

16 Dec 2007 ~ 11:22pm shwaip hmm...the orders of the heatsinks on the graphs change...it's a little confusing. It would be easier to compare if the order was always the same, IMO.
16 Dec 2007 ~ 11:33pm Leonardo Thanks for well-done review. Information I can use. It was easy to read and digest.
17 Dec 2007 ~ 3:51am TheLostSwede Excellent review and ver well written Mike. I actually like the way you had the graphs written. The best one on top.
17 Dec 2007 ~ 6:04am Thelemech This article has perfect timing(in my world ), as it will help me to build my next machine. Great work Mike D and cheers for the editing Thrax!
17 Dec 2007 ~ 10:21am QCH Holy cow... that's one massive roundup. Very good job and I was amazed at the variety of the heatsink designs.

Also... where DID you get that fancy AMD heatsink.
17 Dec 2007 ~ 6:20pm lemonlime Thanks for the kind words all. It was a lot of work but I was pleased with the end result. I've already got two more heatsinks on the way that will be running through the same methodology.

QCH2002 wrote:

Also... where DID you get that fancy AMD heatsink.

Thanks again, Q!

Keebler wrote:

Also, big ups to brudda' Thrax for helping out with some serious editing business to get it marked up for the new CMS.

Thrax: Thanks very much for [strike]fixing my terrible grammar[/strike] tagging everything! really appreciate it.
17 Dec 2007 ~ 6:24pm lemonlime Also, didn't bother including this in the review but for anyone interested:

Ambient readings for all of the tests:
17 Dec 2007 ~ 7:18pm Leonardo Deviation from the mean ambient temperature did not exceed 0.5C. That's very good. I have nowhere in my house where I could accomplish that. I suppose I could in the garage on a sub-zero night if I were to open the garage doors and leave them open. But, I'd have to just leave my hands in my parka's pockets and just look at the computer parts, not actually doing anything with them.
18 Dec 2007 ~ 1:03am Garg That was one incredibly thorough and informative review, LL!

It was especially nice for me, since I stay comfortably behind the curve on hardware, and the SLK-900 was the last heatsink I used (before switching to equally antiquated water cooling systems, that is ).

Kudos! Great photography in tight places, too.
20 Dec 2007 ~ 1:56pm Snarkasm I've been meaning to ask: is the Mugen essentially just a rebrand of the Scythe Infinity, or is there some difference I'm not seeing? That's exactly what my Infinity looks like.
20 Dec 2007 ~ 4:17pm BuddyJ Same heatsink, different fans.
20 Dec 2007 ~ 7:10pm Snarkasm Thank you, sir. I replaced the fan anyway with a pair of higher-CFM ones. Great sink all the same.
20 Dec 2007 ~ 8:04pm Nightwolf Very helpful review!
23 Dec 2007 ~ 12:34am muddocktor Nice review, Mike. Too bad you didn't have an U-120 eXtreme and a regular U-120 to test too though as both of those are stellar performers, if you get them with a decent base. As for the Tuniq, you called it exactly right about the AM2 mount being an afterthought. Tuniq developed the TT120 before AM2 was on the market and the original versions (including mine) didn't have any way to mount to AM2 included at all. They cobbled together the AM2 mount some time after AM2 came to market. That's why the mounting for LGA775 and socket 754/939/940 is soooooo much better. BTW, try that TT120 out on a socket 939 Opty or X2 system and watch how well it works.
29 Dec 2007 ~ 8:39pm Ultra-Nexus Great article, specially the simple, but effective way of testing base flatness!
Thank you!
29 Dec 2007 ~ 9:53pm Leonardo Oh yes, I want to reiterate what Ultra stated about flatness testing. I used that test a week ago when I decided to lap CPUs and heatsinks. It saved me time, indicating which were not flat and which did not need servicing. As it turns out, the only truly flat heatsink base among my Q6600 rigs was the Zalman 9700 NT. BTW, the Zalman's base is nickel coated.