It happens almost daily, someone posts a question in the PC Apex forums asking, "What CPU cooler should I buy?". And time and again since 2001 one of the most common answers to that question has been Thermalright. In the last 5 years Thermalright has been at or near the top of the cooler charts and their latest bid for dominance comes to us in the form of the Ultra-120 CPU cooler. Thanks to our friends at CrazyPC, I’ve got a chance to check one out.

Right out of the box we can see advantages and disadvantages to this design. On the plus side, it is a very large heatsink requiring a 120 mm fan which bodes well for both performance and noise levels. On the minus side, it is a very large heatsink that will have problems fitting in many cases and could have problems on some motherboards as well. Take note of the dimensions and take a few measurements before you even consider the Ultra-120.