Thermalright vs Zerotherm: Cooler Faceoff

Results Table

Conclusions and Value

At around £35 (inc. VAT), the Thermalright is without doubt an expensive heatsink once you consider the extra cost of a fan too, although many places sell it for £40-45 which we don't feel is worth the money at all. Once you factor in a decent fan like the Noctua we used in our testing, or my personal favourite, the Panasonic Fluid Bearing 120-L1A, you're talking upwards of £45. That's a serious investment in terms of CPU cooling, but I suppose if you want the best you have to pay for it and a watercooling investment worth making starts well into the hundreds of pounds.

The Zerotherm Nirvana NV120 can be bought from the sole UK stockist, QuietPC, for "just" £33, which puts it slightly on the expensive end of most other coolers around the same size and performance – like the Thermaltake V1, for example. It may only be £2 less than the Thermalright Ultra 120 eXtreme, but it already comes with a fan and regulator out the box.

Final Thoughts

The Zerotherm Nirvana NV120 is a fantastic cooler that outperforms much of the competition between the very quiet to silent fan lower speeds. And, although it is technically the best performing heatsink we have seen to date, we’d never recommend using it at full speed.

On the other hand, the Thermalright Ultra 120 eXtreme is a product that really does deserve its eXtreme branding and the hype surrounding this product is deserved. Without a doubt, it is the CPU cooler to own at the moment and it’s the next best thing you’re going to get without plunging into the realms of watercooling – even though it’s very expensive for an air cooler, it's still good value in the grand scheme of things. But a 3˚C difference over that of the next best cooler we’d buy might not be worth the significant extra investment to some people.

Its installation might be awkward and the fan mounting it just atrocious, but once that momentary stress is passed it doesn't matter because its build quality is fantastic and you'll have a truly silent setup that can handle just about anything you’ll throw at it. If you’re looking for the ultimate CPU cooler, make it your mission to own the Thermalright Ultra 120 eXtreme.

• Performance
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• 10/10

• Features
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• x
• -
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• 8/10

• Value
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• -
• -
• 8/10

• Overall
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• -
• 9/10

• Performance
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• x
• x
• x
• -
• 9/10

• Features
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• x
• x
• x
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• x
• -
• -
• 8/10

• Value
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• -
• -
• -
• 7/10

• Overall
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• -
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• 8/10

What do these scores mean?