Thermalright Venomous X - The Return of the King

[AFQ]

Thermalright Venomous X
The Return of the King

Introduction:
Thermalright is the name any hardware techie must have heard of. They are the makers of enthusiast grade high quality PC cooling products like CPU and GPU Coolers.

Today, in my hands, I have their new flagship CPU Cooler named "Venomous X". It is the successor of the old king cooler Thermalright Ultra 120 Extreme slanged as TRUE120. TRUE120 is well known among overlcockers for its design, performance and quality but it had some flaws. To overcome these flaws overlcokers used to lap it or put in a bigger washer to increase pressure but engineers at thermaltight made a perfect heatsink by removing these flaws. As a result, Venomous X comes with mirror finish base and variable pressure feature (we will talk about it later).

Package and the Cooler:
Unlike, the plain recycled box used for most the thermalright products; Venomous X is packed in a classy dark gray box. It gives you the first glimpse of the thermalright's quality and reminds you that you have made a good choice. Box features "Venomous X' written on its top in golden letters. Beneath these golden letters supported sockets are mentioned.

In our case, it supports all the latest Intel Sockets i.e. 775, 1156, 1366. Newer batches of this cooler are also shipped with AMD retention kits.

Opening the Box will reveal another black box which contains all the accessories. This box includes all the accessories you need.

This box contains following accessories:

- Multiple support backplate x1
- Anchoring bracket mount x1
- Pressure adjustable mounting plate x1
- Screw Pillar x4
- Thumbscrew cap x4
- Backplate cap for 775 platform x1
- Angled Wrench x1
- 12cm fan wire clip x4
- Anti-Vibration Strip x4
- A tube of Chill Factor III
- White plastic washers x4
- A couple of user manuals

Like TRUE120, this cooler doesn’t ship with a fan. You have to buy one yourself.

Beneath this accessory box you'll see your new cooler wrapped in a plastic bag and placed safely in thermopole. Being secured in such a way these is no chance of cooler being damaged during shipping.

The Cooler Itself:
I placed the packaging aside and now in my hands, i have the Venomous X itself. The cooler is pretty big and heavy weighing 775g without fans and mounting mechanism. It is made up of high quality materials and is finished to stand proudly among other coolers. As most the high end cooler it features the most successful tower design. Tower design is proved to be the most efficient one.

Venomous X has different fin deign as compared to TRUE120. Fins on Venomous X have; lateral cuts and pointed, its helps in improving airflow while cause noise and turbulence to its minimum level. There are 47 fins on the Venomous X; the Ultra 120 had 52. Thermalright also increased the spacing between fins as compared to TRUE 120 to keep the air flow maximum.

Thermal transfer point is the most crucial part of a cooler and I am happy to report that Venomous-X possesses the same superb build quality we’ve come to expect from Thermalright. Venomous X inherited the 6mm sintered heat pipe design, with soldered contact points with the fins and heatsink base to ensure effective heat transfer. It has 6 heatpipes in total. Heatsink is all nickel plated to ensure maximum performance, best quality and longevity.

Let’s talk about one the best features of Venomous X, its mirror finish base. Venomous X has a nickel plated base which is as good as a mirror but it’s not flat. Almost all the Thermalright coolers have concave base. According to engineers at Thermalright, it’s the best way to make contact with processor and transfer heat efficiently.

Mounting:
The biggest change made in Venomous X is mounting mechanism. It differs a lot from TRUE120. It’s been completely redesigned. New mounting mechanism is very easy, fast and almost tool less. Only tool required is angled wrench which is already included in the package.
A new better back plate is added to hold the 775g cooler firmly in place. It is now adjustable to suit LGA775, LGA 1156 and LGA1366.
There’s an excellent flash animation on Thermalright’s website which explains the process very well.
I’ll be mounting it on an LGA775 motherboard.
For LGA775, you need to install back plate cap into its place in multiple support back plate (For other sockets, there is no need to install back plate cap). It is secured on the back of motherboard with the help of screw pillars. They can be easily tightened with thumbs.

Then we have to place anchoring bracket mount on the top of pillar screws, and then tighten the 4 pillars with the help of thumb screw caps.

After that, I applied thermal paste. I place a small pea size drop of Chill Factor III TIM which is included in package. It will automatically spread with the pressure of heat sink.

After applying TIM, I secured heat sink onto its place with the help of adjustable mounting plate. Don’t use force to over-turn the hexagonal screw; you have to stop once they reach their natural stop.

You can add extra pressure by tightening the pressure adjustable nob with the help of angled wrench included.

Now it’s time to mount fans, Venomous X supports 120mm fans (120x120x25mm). You can secure them into their place by the help of fan wire clips. Don’t forget to apply anti-vibration strips to each side of heat sink to dump the vibrations produced by fans.
This is how it looks with everything mounted:

Venomous X has a normal size and don’t touches with rams or heat sinks on motherboard even with fans mounted. I am using XMS2 rams with DHX heatsinks, even then I had enough space to mount thicker 120mm fans (120x120x35mm).

Testing:

Following hardware was used to test the performance of Venomous X:
-Intel Dual Core E6300
-MSI P43 NEO3-F
-Corsair XMS2 DHX 1GB x2
-Sliverstone Zeus 650W PSU
-Cooler Master CM690 Case
-Creative Audigy 2ZS Gold Edition

I also included Cooler Master V8 in this test for a comparison. V8 is also a well-known cooler. Here are some pictures comparing the size of both coolers:

Fans used to test Venomous X were Thermalright FDB-12-1600. Thermalright was generous enough to ship them for this review. They produce 63.7cfm at1600RPM producing 28dBA.

Cooler Master V8 is tested using its stock 120mm fan producing 86cfm at 2000RPM.

Load Temperatures were taken by loading by loading CPU for 20minutes with Prime96 (Blend). Real Temp 3.4 was used to note core temperatures.

Single Fan test:
This test was done with only one fan mounted on Venomous X pushing air towards heatsink.

Venomous X beats V8, by 4C degrees on CPU loaded in stock voltage and 7C on 1.4v. That’s a big difference between both coolers.
Let’s move on to double fan test now.

Dual Fan Test:
Two fans can be easily mounted on Venomous X to increase its cooling performance. Push/Pull system is only tested at 1.4v.

Here, we see a whooping decrease of 4C in load temperatures and the lead over V8 comes out to be 11C.

Variable Pressure Test:
Pressure can be increased by a single twist on Venomous X. We can adjust pressures between 40lbs and 70lbs with the help of angled wrench. In this test we will see how helpful it is.
We used push/pull system and 1.4v for variable pressure test.

Variable pressure didn’t perform up to my expectations but still it shaves of 1C from load temperature. I was expecting at least 3-5C decrease in load temperature. It might work better with processors not having flat base.


Final Words:
Thermalright did a great job with this cooler. It's diverse, will mount on pretty much any Intel processor and definitely is capable of dealing with a hot and sweaty processor alright! Its costs around 60USD-70USD, it totally justifies its price in terms of performance but at-least a fan should be added in package. That price puts it in the list of some of the most expensive CPU coolers in the world. If we 15USD for two fans, the total comes out to be 85USD, now that is expensive for a CPU Cooler but hey! Best quality and performance don’t come cheap.
Mounting mechanism is very wisely designed and is easily to install. The pressure bracket system is a trivial though. I just do not see the added value in that other than it being a marketing gimmick at best but still It don’t change the fact that Venomous X is one serious CPU Cooler.
It cuts of almost 12C from load temperatures when compared to Cooler Master V8. It’s defiantly outrageous.
I can certainly recommend the Thermalright Venomous-X for any hardware enthusiasts that likes to get a little extra from his hardware. It’s a kickass CPU cooler you'll enjoy very much.

Pros:
-Great mounting mechanism
-Dual fan capable design
-Improved fin design
-Variable pressure mounting
-Low chances of motherboard & ram compatibility issues
-Easy installation
-Awesome mirror finish base
-Includes hardware for two fans

Cons:
-Expensive
-No fans added in retail package

Thermalright Venomous X will be soon available at pcXtremists. To view other products please click here!

[HMS1193]

AHO AHO , Great review AFQ..



But still 4-5C less for a cooler that costs more ,hmm..

[AFQ]

Thanks man, its not 4-5C.
Its almost 11C with 40lbs and 12C with 70lbs plus smaller size.

[Voodoo]

Congratulation brother on this excellent purchase
please tell the below:-

1- Temp. during this test
2- Which software/utility you used for testing?
3- your processor at stock speed?
4- RPM of fans?
5- side cover of your casing was open?

[AFQ]

Congratulation brother on this excellent purchase
please tell the below:-

1- Temp. during this test
2- Which software/utility you used for testing?
3- your processor at stock speed?
4- RPM of fans?
5- side cover of your casing was open?

Everything mentioned in review above but if you still dont want to read it, i can mention
1- Didnt have a thermometer but it must be somewhere near 25-30C.
2- prime 95(blend) for 20min and Real temp 3.40
3- 1.27v
4- 1600RPM, 63.7CFM
5- No, it was closed.

[Waris Arsh]

Congrats man
its cool

[iameXtreme]

nicely done afaq. only thing you need now is a proper camera and a proper photoshoot i like that you tested with variable pressures as well.

[Pleasant]

Nice review
did u oced the procesor or just pumped the vcore

Btw very crappy camera u had :s u shud have borrowed from someone for the review

And some corrections u wrote the pcxtremists website is wrong
and u wrote i had some flaws
where its need to be written it had some flaws

Goodluck for the future reviews

---------- Post added at 07:50 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:46 PM ----------

One more thing it would have been great if u cud test the thor hammer as well with v8 and venemous x

[AFQ]

Nice review
did u oced the procesor or just pumped the vcore

Btw very crappy camera u had :s u shud have borrowed from someone for the review

And some corrections u wrote the pcxtremists website is wrong
and u wrote i had some flaws
where its need to be written it had some flaws

Goodluck for the future reviews

---------- Post added at 07:50 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:46 PM ----------

One more thing it would have been great if u cud test the thor hammer as well with v8 and venemous x

Thanks bro.

I am glad that you read it throughly.
Mistakes are corrected.

I only had V8 so included it in test.

[Pleasant]

When i have time i read the reviews thoroughly
For the thor hammer review i would say u should try asking alienware if he is intrested in doing its review u shud borrow from him and test all three different coolers at ur place but this time with proper photography
Proper photography makes it bit more professional