I got 200$, what should i do - Page 2

I would also shy away from Thermaltake heatsinks. Thermaltake makes some of the worst CPU coolers on the market. Under your conditions with the same fan, im pretty sure any CPU cooler from Thermalright will wipe the floor with the Thermaltake.

Thermaltake has been slowly redeeming itself with it's recent fan controllers and cases, but they are still by far the company that makes the most riced up pieces of sh*t ever.

I could use 200. For food and a few dvds and games.

Links? Reviews? Something based on anything other than your opinion?

I researched many reviews and the Thermaltake Tower112 is as good as the XP-90 and any other air cooling solution.

Positive Review #1

Positive Review #2 See page 4 for side by side comparison to XP-90

Both of these reviews recommend Thermaltake silent fans. They don't use the tornado for their tests. If I was to run the Tornado at full power (and could stand the noise) I'd probably drop about 5° max.

*edit* I have the tornado hooked up to a fan controller and I can't bring it above 1/4 power without being annoyed by the sound.

OK, here are some details on why i think Thermaltake CPU coolers are crap. Firstly, ive yet to see a thermaltake CPU cooler with a smoothe base. All exhibit heavy machining marks. As a history, alot of Thermaltake CPU coolers were flops. The Volcano series sucked total balls on performance and the early volcanos were even worse than stock coolers, the Sparks were just retarted. They had slightly better than stock performance and they were immensly noisy. Thermaltake tends to make things with aesthetics that appeal to 12 yr olds and many ppl get suckered in by that.

As for yours, The first review didnt even compare it to anything on the same board which is imperitive if you are using a software probe on a motherboard. There was no mention of ambient temperatures (for all i know, he could be testing this on an open air rig with pedestal fan blowing over it outside in the middle of winter somewhere in canada). Not very professionally done at all.
The second review was more professional in their testing (motherboard probes are usually innacurately calibrated but the temperature difference is rarely wrong if it's a 1 degree drop, then it's a 1 degree drop). It was more or less equal in performance to the hyper 6, yes i give it that due to the facts given. In other reviews, the Hyper 6 beat the Thermalright SP-94 by a tiny margin, but it gets beaten by the XP-90.

Since there are no other reviews other than the one by OCIA which is pretty horrible by any rate, worse than the first one you linked to, i will draw some of my own conclusions comparing it to the XP-90.

1. Weight.
The Tower112 weighs in at 3lbs as said by ExtremeMHz or similar to the Hyper6 as said by PC Modding Malaysia, which is just over 1kg so between 1kg and 1.4kg in weight that's seriously heafty and can damage a motherboard if you're not careful. Heatsinks can come loose and bounce around in your case like a wrecking ball if you're transporting it and it puts undue stress on the motherboard.
The Thermalright XP-90 weighs in at 360g + a 110g fan, which is 470g at most. Less than HALF that of the Tower112.

2. Size.
There can be compatability issues, not with only motherboards, but also aftermarket Northbridge coolers and can make the case look more cluttered than normal. The XP-90 is still a big heatsink, but not nearly as big as the Tower112.

3. Price.
The Tower112 is being sold at $49.95, the XP-90 is being sold at $39.99 and there's even a sale on at SVC.com for $29.99.

4. Performance.
Summarized in the earlier section of this post and also in the second review. The XP-90 is better than the Tower112 in terms of performance.

In the end, after reading all that, Why the hell would u want to buy a Tower112 if you can buy an XP-90 ? The XP-90 destroys the Tower112 in every way.


Also, if you still dont beleive me on the subject of Thermaltake's dodgy past with it's CPU coolers, start reccomending Thermaltake coolers in large overclockers forums such as ocforums.com, OCAU, Rage3D, Guru3D and Procooling. I assure you someone will enlighten you there.

Well, since we've gone to personal opinions, I guess I'll throw mine in as well.

First off, I think both units are fine. They both cool equally as well (I don't consider a 1° to 5° difference to be that major. Well in a margin of error IMO).

Size/Weight: Yes, the Tower112 is huge. It's massive. But, that's also part of it's charm. It looks freak'n cool in my case, and with two lighted fans on, it looks spectacular. As far as compatibility issues, I had less of an issue with the Tower112 then I did with the stock Intel air cooler. I had to bend the design plate on my Northbridge fan to fit the Intel heat sink/fan. But the Tower112 cleared it nicely. The actual footprint of the Tower112 is smaller than you'd think. The only reason you'd have compatibility issues is if the width of your case couldn't support the height of the unit. I have a crappy $30 case and I cleared it with about half an inch to spare

Price: Yeah, you found a good sale price at SVC. However, in most places I've looked (Pricewatch & Newegg) the XP-90 is actually $10 more expensive (at Newegg) and $4 cheaper at Pricewatch. Pretty even pricing if you ask me.

It doesn't 'blow it away'. Your opinion of it may make it seem that way, but I see them both on pretty even ground. As do a lot of reviewers.

I'm not trying to argue about anything other than the Tower112. And yes, If I went to any OC forums right now most would say the XP-90 is one of, if not the, best air cooler heat sink. But those sites are also notorious for jumping on one item and saying 'it's the best' and dogging everything else out. However, even the guys over at extremeoverclocking.com said the Tower112 was a good solution.

I'll say this. Show me someone getting much better cooling performance on their processor with an XP-90 than I am with my Tower112 (standard setup, no freaky nitrous oxide crap) on a Prescott and I'll be glad to say you are right. My largest drop in temps was about 25° under load. I'd bet if I put the second fan on the Tower112 I could get up to 30° drop in load temperature. And I have crappy cable management and extremely crappy airflow.

Other than a quote about the aesthetics of Thermaltake units, since when did i throw a personal opinion?

Why would you settle for second best when you can have the best for, as you say "Pretty even pricing"

If you think it looks nice, i would leave u to your opinion, but i have already mentioned the disadvantages of too much weight in my earlier post and you havent managed to counter that yet. Also, the Tower112 compounds the problem by having the centre of mass so much further away from the motherboard, applying much more torque on the motherboard as a leaver would. As for your problem with the stock cooler. If that NB sink was the standard HS/Fan on your motherboard, then the motherboard manufacturer was stupid and put out a defective design product as most of the users of the motherboard would have a stock intel heatsink/fan. If it's an aftermarket heatsink/fan then that's also a defective design. The stock intel cooler fits exactly in it's allocated space, marked by the 4 holes without overhanging the rest of the motherboard, but if your northbridge fan managed to get into the way, it's either a custom job you made (to which i have no comment) yourself by crazy gluing a fan to a passive sink or the sink ends up overhanging the CPU area which is incredibly stupid. Ive seen alot of aftermarket NB coolers in my day and they all have one thing in common. They have approximately the same footprint as the stock NB cooler they were supposed to replace, but most of them are much taller than the stock sink, meaning that if a CPU cooler were to be tall as well, spill out onto the area around the heatsink retention area and overhang the motherboard, that's when u will have problems.
If what you are saying about your stock sink not fitting, please snap a few pics for us.

The XP-90 has had no compatability issues with anything i have heard so far.

If you got the impression that it 'blows it away' then i leave you to your opinion because what i have stated in my earlier post is purely objective, outlining the faults of the Tower112 very clearly, in an objective way. If you drew that conclusion from my post, then sure, go ahead.
As for "a lot of reviewers", ive seen what, 3 reviews of it? (OCIA, ExtremeMHz and PCModding Mayalsia) The tone of the reviewer cannot be taken into account, only the cold hard facts that you get from each review, such as the specifications of the cooler, pictures and the performance testing as well as the method of testing to verify that these numbers are actually correct. Ive seen very few reviews which speak badly of a product, unless the product is so bad that it's not even worth looking at. Reviewers want to promote their site and if they speak badly of a product, they may lose the favor of the company supplying that product and not get any further products to review.


But thermaltake's previous reputation does not do it any favors either and obviously their trademark 'quality' has carried onto the Tower112 with it's crappy base.

How many 'guys' where there and post count? Anyway, i see alot of the forum boards i reguarly frequent are pretty open minded about things. Sure, they may draw a few opinions based on pre release pictures, but we base our conclusions on facts and they see a crappy cooler when they see one. Ive seen them reccomend alot of things such as the Hyper6, Zalman CNPS7700 coolers, Zalman CNPS7000, most thermalright products and a few coolermaster CPU heatsinks. They're all fine in my books for their day. Go post it up, there's no harm in doing so.


At this level of air cooling, there isnt much room to go any further (WTF with the nitrous oxide crap? that stuff is used in cars for speed boosts, please stick to the topic in computer Air cooling), sure, if you compare a cheap $20 heatsink with an XP-90 or even the Tower112, there's going to be a huge temeprature difference in excess of 10 degrees celcius, but at this high end of air cooling, 1 to 5 degrees is already as good as you can get. If you can get a 5 degree difference from two high end coolers consistantly, then that's already in itself pretty awesome. Im not telling you to buy the XP-90 since you already have a high end cooler that you seem to like alot and protect with all your life, but im convincing other people reading this argument to get the XP-90 since, personal opinions aside on aesthetics, the XP-90 IS the better performer as well as being the safer heatsink. As you say, it's priced similarly so price is not an influence when deciding between these two. So again, why other than a liking of it's aesthetics and a desire to snap your motherboard in half or go play wrecking ball with your PC parts, why would you want a Tower112 when there's an XP-90?

LOL! I'm assuming you don't remember writing:
If 'destroying' something when refering to how good an item is in comparison to another can't be equated to 'blowing something away', I think you're just trying to troll now.

See the above 'destroys' comment. 1° to 2° degrees is not 'destroying anything. That's personal opinion my friend.

First, the mainboard I own is clearly marked in my signature. And I'm not about to go through 2 and a 1/2 hours of removing my Tower112, and putting back on the stock cooler just to take a pic of it hitting the northbridge cooling heatsink/fan when it's a very minute point. However, if you want to see the little emblem cut thingy on it you can see an image here. You can see on the part of the cpu cooler clamp closest to the northbridge cooler the clamp that goes to the outside of the brace pushed into the little z emblem thing.

As far as the weight of the unit, I've never seen anyone actually break a mainboard, or seen pictures of the unit damaging a mainboard with it's weight. As securely as the bracketing system is on the Tower112 I fail to see how it could damage it. It's weight is evenly distributed over a large area and my mainboard is securely fastened to my case.

It's not for everyone. You like the XP-90. Fine. So do a lot of other people. Hell, I like it too. But, I also like the Tower112. It's not really your lot in life to try and save us from the terrible Thermaltake monster. So, enjoy your XP-90, and I'll enjoy my Tower112. Both are excellent units IMO.

Whats the best fan and heatsink for oc'n a winchester 3200 on an Asus Sli

Two questions..I am currently running a p4 2.4 GHz 533 MHz FSB...it is a Gateway I bought 3 years ago. Anywho, I am looking at two heatsinks..the thermaltake pipe 101 cooler and the Zalman CNPS7000B-Cu LED. I have heard good things about both. I also have never bought an aftermarket heatsink, so any advice would be really helpful. Oh yeah, and since my computer is a Gateway, I can't overclock, so I don't really need an extreme heatsink, but I want something that does a better job than the intel factory job, besides, I need more cooling in my case....there is an 80 mm fan on the heatsink and a 90 mm fan on the psu. Thus, I am looking for better cooling solutions than the two fans I have now and keeping the side door of my case off..I swear it can be 30 degrees outside and my room is nice and toasty due to just my computer! Oh yeah...for my other question...do any of you recommend aftermarket northbridge coolers? I am considering the Thermalright NB-1 or NB-2..what do ya'll think?

Give it to a homeless guy on the street but keep enough for a bottle of single malt, head home and drink the night away

GEt yourself a girl and take her to the telly 3 times!!

do you have ANY experience to back that up? sounds to me like you've never even touched any thermalright product.

PS: i use and XP90 and i agree that Tt makes crap products.

As for the destroying it in every way, i stand by my comment.

If you read the entire of my post, I said, at this level of high end air cooling, the difference between high end air coolers IS several degrees and it wasnt only 1 or 2 degrees it was 1 - 5. And If the thermalright can beat the thermaltake by several degrees, then in this round, thermaltake took it up the ass from thermalright.
This is comparable with the rest of computer technology. eg. You can buy an X800XT or X800XT PE. The X800XT PE is US$100 odd more expensive than the plain XT, but the performance difference is tiny.

As for not having any problems with the large heatsink, well, yes, ive seen a wrecking ball heatsink before. A friend of mine works at a computer repair shop and apparently, one of his clients bought a comptuer in to him. A friend of that guy's put on a Thermaltake Silent tower heatsink for him because his prescott was constantly overheating and thermal throttling itself. Apparently, the guy said that his computer didnt turn on when he pressed the power button and he heard a large clunking inside his case. When my friend opened up his case, apparently, the Thermaltake cooler ripped itself free of it's bracket and started throwing itself around inside the case when the guy was moving house. The FX5600 graphics card he had was fractured in 2 places, it took the top left chunk of the motherboard off and snapped one piece of ram as well as misc dents everywhere inside the case and extensive pitting to his motherboard.
Apparently, his optical drives, hard drives and PSU were salvagable, though the PSU and lower optical drive was slightly dented.
Though this guy's case used the cheap plastic standoffs, i think this should be a warning to anyone moving a computer with a heavy heatsink.

And in the end, i still dont see how that emblem would get in the way of the stock heatsink. It dosnt overhang the CPU bracket and the CPU cooler keeps itself inside the confines of the bracket.

Also, if it takes u 2 1/2 hrs to get a heatsink out of your case and replace it with a stock cooler, you're either terribly slow or doing something wrong because the last time i removed my Thermalright SP-94 and replaced it with a DangerDen RBX, it only took me 20 - 30 minutes, including seating it back in the case.

The cooler doesn't keep itself inside the bracket. The actual cpu cooler had latches that went on the oudside of the bracket mounted to the mainboard. Going from the bottom part that latched to the lowest part mounted to the mainboard it angled toward the top of the heat sink at about a 40° angle. At the top, it pushed into the Z emblem and bent it.

I have no idea specifically how long it would take me to remove the Tower112 and all of it's mounting brackets, remove everything from my case including the mainboard, FIND the mounting bracket and old heat stock heatsink/fan combo, remount it, take a picture, resize the picture for internet viewing, upload it to the internet, remove the stock heatsink/fan combo and mounting break, and remount the tower112 bracket system, re-thermal paste, and assure a good solid mounting, remount the mainboard, reseat all expansion cards and cables. If it took me less than 2 1/2 hours I'd be surprised, but not amazed.

Well, I was trying not to be so nitpicky about the entire thing, but since you want to be so anal about it, look at the below image:



The only difference between the two units IS 1 to 2 degrees, and I quote from the review: While loosing to the XP-90 on idle tests, the Tower112 was as good as the XP-90 during load tests with a 92mm fan installed. We found the best way to setup the Tower112 is to use a 92mm fan instead of 80mm fan.

Blown away indeed. I don't know about you, but being 'blown away 2° in idle ins't much of a concern of mine. Equally matching under load means, IMO, both are still equally as good.

I agree wholeheartedly. I also would like to mention anyone moving their PC should be extremely careful. They are fragile machines and not meant to be moved much. If I moved my computer alot, I would seek alt alternet ways to make sure the unit could not move. The Tower112 is definately a DIY product and can require creativity if you are going to be moving your system around. Personally, there are 6 prongs sticking out the top of it and I would definately run a couple of pieces of wire from the top of the unit to the top of your case just to be safe. If you are going to be moving your PC a lot I would not recommend this cooler. Of course, I wouldn't recommend a water cooling unit either if you were going to be moving the system that much.

Yes, I'm not a fan of Thermaltake's power supplies, nor any of their other cpu cooling products. Every once in a while a company notorious for bad products comes up with a gem.

the tower 112 may be equal to the xp90 in temps, but its so big and heavy, its too dangerous for your average motherboard.

the hyper6 from CM would outperform it and i think they are the same weight.

Nope, pretty much the same temps.

where are these benches from, i want links...

http://lp.pcmoddingmy.com/albums/use...ower112/c1.jpg

right click the piccy and select properties

My post on page two of this thread has the link.

those are 2 good reviews from sites ive never even heard of, has anyone else heard of these sites?

find a review from a decent site like overclockersclub or hardOCP.