Conclusion

There's not much to say here. We really expected the RVT-9225 to perform better than it did, particularly with a 120mm case fan exhausting the air directly behind it. Overclocking performance is equivalent to a unit half the price (the Alpine 7) at orders of magnitude more noise than that heatsink.

We can't recommend this product over its competitors, and can only hope that the 120mm variants in this line put up more of a fight. Even worse is that we wouldn't even recommend this cooler over the "free" Intel retail cooler. It does post slightly better scores in a few areas, but the noise outweighs the slight wins. Even if you have $30 burning a hole in your pocket, there are clearly better ways to spend it.

Overclocking and Performance Scaling
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  • ImmortalZ - Wednesday, July 16, 2008 - link

    The new king IS the Thermalright IFX-14. Two Ultra120s in a single package.
  • Noya - Wednesday, July 16, 2008 - link

    A retail passive cooler will never beat 120mm tower coolers.
  • Mgz - Wednesday, July 16, 2008 - link

    the base of the heatsink/heatpipe needs a good lapping, it was in such a terrible shape :(
  • icingdeath88 - Wednesday, July 16, 2008 - link

    What's that about the spoiler? Seriously? What purpose could it possibly serve?
  • Bieszczad - Wednesday, July 16, 2008 - link

    It is supposed to deflect some airflow down towards the power regulators behind the heatsink. With a cooler that blows air down, the power regulators do get sufficient airflow, but when you use a tower heatsing with a side/front mounted-fan, the MOSFETs do not get enough air and the spoiler is supposed to fix it. Not sure if it works, though, because mine was loose and I ended up taking it off lest it falls out and shorts the motherboard.
  • zebrax2 - Wednesday, July 16, 2008 - link

    those results are terrible
  • mmntech - Wednesday, July 16, 2008 - link

    First of all, the cooler isn't properly lapped. It looks like somebody took coarse sandpaper over the bottom of it. Could be a bad installation too.
  • strikeback03 - Wednesday, July 16, 2008 - link

    Not exactly the reviewers fault that the bottom of the cooler is the way it is. IIRC they have tested all coolers in as-received condition.
  • Clauzii - Thursday, July 17, 2008 - link

    With a 'plate' like that, one could mount a Antinov Turbopropeller - probably wouldn't help..
  • Wesley Fink - Wednesday, July 16, 2008 - link

    As a policy we don't lap coolers we test at AnandTech. Buyers should not be required to do after-purchase grinding and sanding of a cooler to match our test results. Also the curve on many cooler plates (the better ones normally) is curved (not flat) by design and lapping can actually make performance poorer. Our philosophy is to test the cooler as received from the manufacturer as much as possible.

    Yes we have lapped a few units and compared performance to the unlapped cooler. We may even comment on those lapped results, but test results for comparison are reported for the cooler as received.

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