Thermalright Venomous X CPU Cooler Tested On S1366 and S775
 

According to our test, Venomous X outperformed its brother U120E Rev.C by 2℃ at 800/1200/1500RPM, while Prolimatech Megahalems had a comparatively poor performance at low fan speed. The gap between Megahalems with Venomous X narrowed as the fan speed improves, but still kept at least 3 degrees.


On the other side, Venomous X and U120E Rev.C worked more steadily than Megahalems at different speeds on LGA1366 platform. However, Neither Venomous X nor U120E Rev.C was capable of competing against Megahalems on LGA775 platform.


Venomous X seems to be an updated version of U120E – a larger heatsink coverage area, a wider fin gap distance, better heatpipe arrangement, more advanced mounting system, and mirror-polished copper base. All of this does bring a small rise in cooling performance, but nothing much else. The development of air cooler might have reached a limit, at least for now.

http://en.expreview.com/2010/01/06/t...form/6323.html

this is the main thing to take away from this review; the latest and greatest of Thermalright is "at best" 3~4°C better than its main rival, which is a negligible difference to say the least. Take into account that testing accuracy is ~3°C and end-user experience with any of these 3 heatsinks will be identical.