Enzotech Ultra-X: If Looks Could Chill
by Wesley Fink on June 27, 2007 3:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
It is not likely that Enzotech will be a name familiar to computer enthusiasts. However, some IT professionals will probably recognize the name as a manufacturer of highly respected cooling solutions for servers. While Enzotech has been manufacturing cooling solutions since 1982, the Ultra-X is their first venture into an air-cooling solution for desktop computers.
Located in Walnut, California, Enzotech continues to manufacture server cooling components. There are even several 1U cooler designs available to the general public that can be seen at the Enzotech website. The main items that will likely be of interest to AT readers will be the full line of passive cooling solutions for the Northbridge, VGA card and memory. The subject of this review, the Enzotech Ultra-X, is also generating interest among computer enthusiasts.
Many readers asked us to take a closer look at the Ultra-X cooler, and it is clear why they have been impressed with the Ultra-X. The cooler is beautifully finished and clearly made with careful attention to quality. Many have also claimed this to be the best performing air cooler on the market.
If indeed this is the best air cooler you can buy the Enzotech would also break a pattern we have seen in recent cooler reviews. The Ultra-X is a down-facing fan heatpipe cantilever. That class of coolers has not performed quite as well as our top heatpipe towers in our cooling tests.
If the Enzotech does top our cooling charts then it will certainly prove the down-facing coolers can perform at top levels. On the other hand, if the Enzotech performs similarly to other down-facers like the Thermaltake Big Typhoon VX, the Scythe Andy Samurai, the Thermaltake MaxOrb, and the Cooler Master GeminII it will simply further the evidence suggesting such designs are not quite as efficient.
Located in Walnut, California, Enzotech continues to manufacture server cooling components. There are even several 1U cooler designs available to the general public that can be seen at the Enzotech website. The main items that will likely be of interest to AT readers will be the full line of passive cooling solutions for the Northbridge, VGA card and memory. The subject of this review, the Enzotech Ultra-X, is also generating interest among computer enthusiasts.
Many readers asked us to take a closer look at the Ultra-X cooler, and it is clear why they have been impressed with the Ultra-X. The cooler is beautifully finished and clearly made with careful attention to quality. Many have also claimed this to be the best performing air cooler on the market.
If indeed this is the best air cooler you can buy the Enzotech would also break a pattern we have seen in recent cooler reviews. The Ultra-X is a down-facing fan heatpipe cantilever. That class of coolers has not performed quite as well as our top heatpipe towers in our cooling tests.
If the Enzotech does top our cooling charts then it will certainly prove the down-facing coolers can perform at top levels. On the other hand, if the Enzotech performs similarly to other down-facers like the Thermaltake Big Typhoon VX, the Scythe Andy Samurai, the Thermaltake MaxOrb, and the Cooler Master GeminII it will simply further the evidence suggesting such designs are not quite as efficient.
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homonaut - Wednesday, June 27, 2007 - link
I was contemplating getting one of these after stumbling onto this 'review': http://www.coolaler.com/modules/news/article.php?s...">http://www.coolaler.com/modules/news/article.php?s... but now I don't know. How can the results be so different!?SilthDraeth - Wednesday, June 27, 2007 - link
Since I don't speak Chinese or Korean, etc, all I could do was look at the pictures. It is unclear what temps are load or not.Also, they use different processors. Anand uses a 6800 vs a 6600.
They both post a 43 degree celcius temp, on Anand thats a load temp at stock speed, so that might be load on the coolaler site. and the lower temps might be idel temps for the 6600.
idle temp might have been taken at a different time frame for how long the processor was running before the temperature was taken, etc.
The temps do not look to be a huge disparity though imo.
Wesley Fink - Wednesday, June 27, 2007 - link
The Enzotech could boot as high as 3.90 GHz, which is as good as any of the best coolers tested except the Ultra-120 eXtrme which reaches a stable 3.94GHz. All was fine at idle at 3.9GHz, but as soon as we began our stress testing with the game that is about 80% CPU load the system would fail with the Enzothec. This was with the fan on high, near 90 cfm at a pretty loud noise level. We could not even make it through one loop of the game demo, and our stress test procedure runs the game loop for 30 minutes to test load stability.We also tried adding a high output case can as some readers have suggested. This DID lower the CPU temperature, particularly at stock speed strangely enough, however it did not extend overclocking ability at all.