A Closer Look
As I mentioned, the Tuniq Tower 120 Extreme has a very unique look. Yeah, it is a square tower cooler, but the “wave” shaped fins give it a look unlike anything I’ve seen. On top of that, the entire cooler, excepting the plate on the top, is covered in a black nickel plate. It is actually a gunmetal color.
Normally, here I would show the back side of the cooler.but both sides look exactly alike. Look mom.no fan! Actually, if you look closely, the fan is in the center of the cooler nearly totally hidden by the radiator.
The top plate is flat black with a stamped Tuniq logo. It is cut in the same wave shape as the fins.
From the side, the cooler looks a little more normal with its crimped sides.
The base is aluminum with the heatpipes directly touching the CPU. Tuniq calls their version of this technology “Core-Contact”. The benefit of this technology is to be able to use an aluminum base, which is lighter and less expensive than copper. The heatpipes touch the CPU directly, giving the cooler the benefit of the superior heat transfer properties of copper.
If you will notice, the base also has an array of pin-fins on top. Additional cooling on the base is something fairly new, this is the third cooler I’ve had with it. Both of the other coolers had exceptional cooling, so I have high hopes that the Tower 120 Extreme will perform well.
The cooler has five heatpipes. Here is another new twist, the heatpipes are two different sizes. The outer two and center heatpipes are 8mm, the other two are 6mm. The five heatpipes give a lot of surface area to touch the CPU. If the radiator’s wave fins do a good job, this should be an excellent cooler.
The hardware is contained in its own padded box, and includes hardware for Intel’s LGA 1366 and LGA 775, and all AMD CPUs from AM3 back to Socket 939.
Included with the Tower 120 Extreme is a fan controller. I wouldn’t expect any less, remember, this cooler comes from Sunbeamtech, one of the early companies building PC mod supplies and gadgets, and the builder of the finest CCFLs available.
The Tower 120 Extreme has a pretty wild baseplate. The single baseplate accommodates all supported CPUs, both Intel and AMD.
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