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Thermalright IFX-14 CPU Cooler Review

Cooling/CPU Cooling by jmke @ 2008-02-11

CPU coolers keep growing in size, this monster from Thermalright is proof of that. The Inferno Fire eXtinguisher is a heatsink large enough to accommodate up to three 140mm fans! Furthermore it comes with a separate smaller heatsink which sole purpose is to keep the backside of the CPU socket cool. Will this powerhouse CPU cooler grab first spot in our performance charts? Time to find out!

Installation

Installation

Thermalright redesigned their universal mounting system for the IFX-14, to give you the possibility to turn the heatsink in steps of 90° as to align the airflow with the rear exhaust of the case.

The installation requires motherboard removal and a good 10 minutes total of your time. We got our first experience with this mounting kit back in June 2007, when we installed the SI-128 SE, the mounting pressure was increased quite a bit, and performance of the SI-128 SE was increased by a few percentage, impressive!

Here’s a refresher of the mounting kit:

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The bracket , back plate and springs in the middle are used for both platforms, the material on the right is for Intel S775, on the left for AMD AM2.

The backside cooler is attached with double sided thermal tape to the back plate, in the photo below you can also see that the two heat pipes are covered by a layer of thick transparent tape, to prevent electrical shortcuts at the backside of the motherboard.

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The IFX-10 (the small heatsink) can be installed in two different directions, depending on your case layout, either let it stick out on the top, or next to the RAM slots; for our smaller Antec case, we had to opt for the first.

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Back to the CPU mounting, one of the brackets provides for a tight fit on this Asrock motherboard:

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Installed on the motherboard, the IFX-14 takes up almost 50% of the ATX space:

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Test Setup and Fan Options next ->

Comment from Rutar @ 2008/02/11

A Q6600 at 1.6V above 3 Ghz would be bette to test, 138W isn't that much for todays quadcore standards. I like those passive results tought.

Comment from geoffrey @ 2008/02/11

Jmke has been using Prescott all the way, it's not easy repeating every test, again and again, whenever a new generation of CPU's hit your local retailer. The Prescott is off the older generation Prescott CPU's and does produce quite an amount of heat for heatsinks to deal with, heck the high differences in our chart. Why would you want to use 1,6V with your air cooled Q6600, do you really want that extra clock in favor of such high voltage?

Comment from jmke @ 2008/02/11

what's the TDP of Intel's highest end Quad Core?

Comment from Rutar @ 2008/02/11

Quote:

Originally Posted by jmke

what's the TDP of Intel's highest end Quad Core?

125W stock, Overclocked and overvoltet, a lot more is possible.

Comment from jmke @ 2008/02/11

125W for Q6600? the QX6750 scores lower? what about QX9750 and QX9770 ?

Comment from Rutar @ 2008/02/11

Quote:

Originally Posted by jmke

125W for Q6600? the QX6750 scores lower? what about QX9750 and QX9770 ?

http://www.golem.de/0710/55669.html

130W

Comment from Faiakes @ 2008/02/11

Nice!
But I think if one has the Ultra 120 Extreme there is no real need to upgrade to the IFX, is there?

Comment from jmke @ 2008/02/11

will be testing the Ultra-120 eXtreme soon, not sure if the IFX-14 is an upgrade

Comment from Kougar @ 2008/02/12

Argh, was thinking that was the Extreme in those results. Was a shocking difference between the regular and the Extreme versions, so I suspect the IFX-14 isn't going to last very long at the top of those results....

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