Thermalright Spitfire – Review

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May 4, 2010 at 07:13pm EDT

If there was ever an awe inspiring sight in the realm of video card coolers it has to the Thermalright spitfire. As you read the review you’ll find out that this is one product that you just want to love, but might just give out in aggravation

Thermalright is well known for its CPU coolers. They also manufacture fans, thermal paste, chipset coolers and VGA coolers. Like all Thermalright designs, their VGA coolers are “interesting”. When I say interesting I mean they employ out of the box design techniques to get the most out of their products. The Spitfire is probably the best example of this. I am sure Thermalright (TR) nomenclature has more to do with the product “spitting” fire, rather than the traditional meaning of the phrase (a quick tempered, emotional girl!). I’d like of think of this as an equalent of the venerable World War II fighter, the Supermarine Spitfire.

PACKAGING

I recently looked at the new TR CPU cooler the Venomous-X. Its packaging was a departure from “traditional” card board brown that company employed for most of its products of yesteryears. The spitfire, however, fails to break the tradition and ships in a large brown box.

The box (at its most descriptive) simply says Thermalright Spitfire VGA cooler and provides the company’s URL. As most computer components are purchased from on-line stores, catchy boxes aren’t really necessary. They do add some eye-candy but eventually they are stored in the attic, thrown away or utilized as makeshift dustbins. I am sure the creative among you can probably employ them for other uses, but in all honesty a box is a box no matter how you look at it!

Inside the box lies the Spitfire heat sink, in the usual foam shroud. At the side is a white accessories box. With it comes the usual installation leaflet (you will want to hang on to this) and a TR sticker.

THE SPITFIRE COOLER –Wow.

The minute I saw the box I knew this has to contain something gigantic. But I really wasn’t expecting anything as big as this! The first phrase that came to me after I took it out of its protective shroud was “Wow, what were TR engineers thinking when they designed this”.

The cooler is simply humongous. It is the largest GPU cooler I have seen in my life! It is also the first GPU cooler I have seen that comes in a peculiar two part design bent at right angles. The heat sink base is oriented perpendicular to the heat plates. This is to accommodate the mammoth in a computer case. It is nigh on impossible to fit it in parallel to the graphics card. The easiest solution was to make it hang at right angle to the card. This, as you will see, leads to many of the frustrations involved with the cooler’s installation.
The cooler measures 147mm x 123mm x 154mm (LxWxH) and weighs in a hefty 550 grams. The cooler consists of six heat pipes that leave and consequently enter the heat plates in line while taking a 90 degree turn. This is so that the cooler can hang over or beyond the video card (either way i.e. over the card and over the CPU cooler or over the expansion slots).
Cooling Tower

The cooling tower consists of 300 cooling plates arranged in 6 columns of 50 plates each. The tower is made up of six columns of heat plates that are separated from one another. Each column gets its own heat pipe. Why was this “odd” design chosen? Probably to reduce the weight without unduly compromising the cooling efficiency. The cooling tower is not symmetrical in its surface topology. The side facing the heat sink base is flat, while the other side is not. This is because the heat plates are of different orientation. The heat plate columns at the extreme (2) and the center (2) are oriented vertically, while the remaining two are oriented horizontally. All the heat plates are of equal size (2.8mm x 1.9mm). Despite its size the cooling plates provide only about 240 cm2 of heat dissipation area. The plates have a flat edge design.
Heat Pipes

The cooler has 6 Nickel plated Copper heat pipes with a 4mm diameter. They are bent at right angles as they enter the cooling tower which gives the cooler its shape. The heat pipes emerge in line from the heat sink base and enter the cooling in line as well. As noted before one heat pipe enter one column of heat plates, thus 6 pipes for 6 columns. The heat pipes are “cleanly” soldered to the heat plates as well as the heat sink base.
Heat Sink Base

Both sides of the heat sink base can be used to transfer heart from the GPU. This is because the cooler is designed to either hang over the video card (and thus the processor cooler), or over the expansion slots. The change in orientation necessitates that both sides of the base must be polished and finished so that they can be used to exchange heat.
The base is very typical of TR coolers. It has a matte finish, which only contrasts with the recent Venomous-X cooler (which had a shiny base). Both sides of the heat sink are exactly the same.
Impressions
As I said before, seeing this cooler for the first time is certainly a sight to behold. It is very, very big and as you will see, TR had to develop special mounting system to accommodate its dimensions. As far as the quality goes, this is TR we are talking about folks! The solders are clean; the finish is top notch as is the workman ship. The design is a departure from the usual TR VGA coolers of late. Most of the design elements reflect TR’s intention: They wanted a Cooler that can do what the standard cooler does without any fans and do much, much better with one and with much less noise. What remains to be seen is how its size and installation weighs in on its performance (and I fear it’ll weigh on quiet a lot, pun intended!)

The cooler comes with two sets of accessories. One set helps to mount the cooler on the GPU and helps cool its other components (memory, VRMs etc). The other set helps support the cooler in the chassis. The dimensions of the cooler demand so!
A. Mounting system
The mounting system is very simple. It consists of a back plate that goes on the backside of the GPU, a bracket to secure the heatsink base to the back plate and four screws and washers to fit everything together. It also includes a plastic stick on for the back plate to prevent it from short circuiting onboard components.
The thermal paste provided is the latest Chill Factor in its 3rd iteration.
B. Heat Sinks
The unit comes with a bucket load of small heat sinks. There are 24 of these in 3 different sizes. The different sizes are necessitated as the heat pipes travel over some of the RAM chips and thus the large sized heatsinks can’t be used on them. Some of the heatsinks also double as VRM heatsinks. TR though has a list of video cards where it cautions against the use of these traditional heatsinks on VRMs. TR sells specially designed VRM modules depending on the video card being used. This in my opinion is a good idea as the heat sink itself can be used for a number of video cards. If a user upgrades their card, he (or she) only needs to buy a VRM module to match the new card rather than purchasing a new cooler. I will be testing this cooler on an ATi 4870. I’ll also use TR’s specially designed VRM heatsink the VRM-2 (described a little later in this section).
The heat sinks come with a pre-applied thermal tape. My experience with thermal tape based heat sinks have been less than stellar. They tend to fall off especially with continued exposure to heat. Thermalright should have bundled the cooler with a tube of adhesive paste rather than using thermal tape.
C. Fan Mounting System
The cooler can work passively, with a 120mm or a 140mm fan. As usual none is bundled with the cooler. 2 pairs of wire clips are provided to affix a 120 or 140mm fan. There are no anti-vibration strips included in the package.
D. The Case Securing System
The rest of the accessories are included to hold the cooler in the case. As the cooler hangs over or beyond the card (either way) it tends to make the card sag (because of its weight). The package includes a set of accessories to secure the cooler so it doesn’t sag. This consists of two threaded metal rods which can either take the place of the screws that fix the motherboard to the case tray, or occupy any empty holes for motherboard supports (incase you have a E-ATX case, or a m-ATX board in a ATX case). A support bar goes over the rods to complete the “stand” which secures the card. Another support bar helps connect the cooler to the stand.
As you will see later, that installation the securing system can be very frustrating. Thermalright provides alternates if one method doesn’t work. Unfortunately I ended up in a situation where none of the methods would work as they are designed to.
E. VRM-R2 VRM Heatsink (4870/4890)

Though sold separately, technically speaking the VRM heatsink is not a separate product. It needs to be used in conjunction with a GPU heatsink. Thus it is mentioned here rather than being reviewed on its own.
The VRM (for those of you who have been wonder just what the heck is a VRM, it is an acronym for Voltage Regulator Module. They help convert +12V or +5V voltage into whatever the processor requires) heatsink comes in a traditional brown box.

Inside the box is the VRM heatsink, mounting accessories and instruction.

The VRM heatsink consists of two elements: the heatsink base and the cooling tower. The two are connected by two heat pipes.

The heatsink base itself also has “fins” which help dissipate heat.

The heat pipes that exit the base turn to enter the cooling tower, which is again perpendicular to the base (just like the spitfire). The cooling tower can be fixed with an 80mm fan for added cooling using the provided clips. The tower has a perforated design to improve cooling.
The accessories include two wire clips for an 80mm fan, two rubber pads that act as thermal interface and two screws (plus washers) to fix the heatsink to the video card.
Note: There is another version of VRM heatsink for the 4870 (and -90) called the VRM-R1. The difference is not in the performance but the orientation of the heat sink.
The heat sink in VRM-R1 faces the side panel, while in –R2 it faces the front of the case. This is shown in the figures below (taken from TR’s Website):

As you can see if you have a side panel fan which opposes the position of the heat sink you should opt for –R1, otherwise get the –R2. Thermalright is covering its basis. Unfortunately if you later decide to change your case, or you order the wrong product, you’ll end up either having to buy the other version, trade with a friend (who might happen to have what you need), or try and work out an exchange with your dealer.

OFFICIAL SPECS & ONLINE RESOURCES

Specs & Features of Spitfire (from TR’s Website)

Specs & Features of VRM-R2 (from TR’s Website)

ONLINE RESOURCES
Thermalright has dedicated pages for both the spitfire and VRM-R2/R1. Both have the usual pictures, review links, features, downloadable manuals and a FAQ. It is the last bit which really needs a lot of work.
For spitfire the FAQ lists video cards that can be used with the cooler. This will also include the newest GeForce 4xx series cards (not to be confused with the 4xxx cards, which were released nearly a decade ago). The list also mentions if a separate VRM module is required.
Unfortunately the list doesn’t mention a list of compatible cases (you’ll see later in the installation section why this is important). It also fails to mention that Thermalright recommends that this cooler be used in conjunction with a low profile top-down CPU cooler. This is not mentioned anywhere on the website except the below the performance figure. This is an essential piece of information and really should be shown prominently on the website.
The installation pictures are really well done, showing each step of the way.
The VRM-R2/R1 page is also similarly arranged. The FAQ section covers how the –R1 and –R2 versions differ. As this is not a standalone product, the page also mentions Thermalright products (read: GPU coolers) that this is compatible with. Strangely spitfire is not on the list (as of the writing of this review).

I would recommend Thermalright to include a list of compatible cases and mention the bit about conflicts with aftermarket tower coolers for processor more prominently.

The installation will be covered in two sections. The first will deal with the installation of the cooler and VRM heatsinks. The second section will deal with securing the card in the computer chassis.
INSTALLATION ON THE CARD

The weapon of choice is an ATi 4870 from XFX. This is the standard version with the traditional cooler. The default cooler was removed to expose the card.

The center of the card is occupied by the 4870 GPU.

This is surrounded by 8 GDDR5 memory chips. The voltage regulator modules are located towards the right of the card. The large chip next to the VRMs is the Vitec inductor chip. The spitfire itself includes a heatsink for the Vitec chip, which can’t be used in conjunction with the VRM-2. The VRM-2’s heatsink doesn’t cover the vitec chip.

The installation begins with the memory modules. The protective tab is removed from the two sided tape and the heatsinks are simply stuck on the memory modules. As the modules located towards the top of the GPU will have the heat pipes running over them, small form factor heat sinks are used on them.

Larger heatsinks are placed over the memory towards the right of the GPU. The memory heatsinks are well designed, but they have do have a major flaw: The two sided thermal tape. Even during installation a couple of the larger memory heatsinks fell off! If you have an adhesive thermal paste, use that. If you don’t, do yourself a favor and buy it. Otherwise you’ll end up with some really hot memory chips.

Once that was done the, GPU cooler (spitfire) installation begins. And this is where most of the problems start.

I had two cases to try the spitfire in: A Cooler Master Stacker 830 and HAF 922. The former had a large tower cooler installed over the CPU. Thus the only possibility was to install the spitfire pointing downwards (beyond the card). This however wasn’t possible as the heatsink would just not fit in the case (i.e. it was too long). The ends of the heat pipe did not clear the bottom of the case. I never thought I’d live to see the day when something wouldn’t fit inside a Stacker!

The next case I used was a HAF 922. This had a traditional Intel top-down Heat-sink fan cooler. Thus it should have been possible to install the cooler both ways. Unfortunately this was not possible either. The cooler would not fit hanging over the expansion slots (pointing downwards) as this time the power supply unit got in the way! It was only possible to orient it so that it over hangs the processor cooler.

This is why I would strongly recommend Thermalright to come up with a list of possible conflicts arising out of the cooler’s fitting. I know it is difficult to test all the popular cases, but they can at least add some clearance numbers. I spent a good part of an hour trying to get this cooler into any of my test cases, but as you will see later this was not the end of my travails

A thin layer of The Chill Factor III was applied on the GPU.

The heat sink was affixed using the mounting mechanism. My initial idea, which did not quiet work out (see rant above) was to install the cooler so that it over hangs the expansion slots (as none of them were occupied). This was done to allow testing with the default tower cooler on the processor. The bracket mount was threaded with four screws and placed on the heatsink. The heatsink was placed on the GPU, with the bracket going on it. The card was reversed and the heatsink secured with the back plate, after application of the safety padding.

It is recommended to balance the card on the edge of the box if you don’t happen to have a friend around to hold the card while mounting the heatsink. This is another use for the brown box.

This is how the cooler appears when seen from the front

The heatsink base makes good contact with the ATi GPU

The next to go on is the VRM heat sink. The thermal pad is applied on the heat sink.

The heatsink is positioned over the VRMs.

The screw holes are aligned (between the card and VRM). The heatsink is secured with the provided screws. It is easier to keep the card on its side, balance on the GPU heatsink on an antistatic surface, while installing the VRM heatsink.

The VRM-R2 heatsink is oriented parallel to the front of the case when installed.

INSTALLATION OF THE SECURING SYSTEM IN THE CASE
Once the GPU and the VRM heatsinks are installed, it is time to turn the attention towards securing the card in the case. For this a system of vertical rods and securing bars is provided.
My only option was to install the card in a HAF 922, which takes a maximum of ATX sized board.

To install the securing system I had to take the motherboard mounting screws on either side of the memory slots out and install the vertical rods. And again my luck ran out.

The mounting hole where the vertical rod is supposed to be fixed is right below the video card! As this is an ATX only case, I did not have the option to use the E-ATX mounting holes. (They were present in the Stacker, but that presented its own set of challenges as mentioned in the rant above).

I decided to install the securing system using only one of the vertical rods.

Finally a 120mm Thermalright 2000 rpm fan and an 80mm fan were installed on the GPU and VRM heatsink respectively.
INSTALLATION TIPS

You must really do your homework prior to even beginning the installation process of this cooler. It is a very good idea to use a top-down cooler. If you have any other expansion cards, the only possibility is to install the cooler overhanging the card (i.e. spitfire over the CPU cooler). It will only fit this way if you have a low profile top down cooler. The GPU heatsink is recommended to be run in passive mode in this orientation as the CPU heatsink-fan will aid in removing hot air from the GPU heatsink as well. And just any CPU cooler will do if you want the spitfire to run passively –an aftermarket top-down cooler (low profile) is highly recommended.

Due to the constraints posed by the cooler size and securing mechanism, a secondary system was used to test the system (the first choice system had a core i7 processor). This was not necessarily a bad thing as the test was to assess the efficiency of the cooler, not the prowess of the system. Regardless, the system specs are given below

The following programs (synthetic benchmark and games) were used to test the cooling performance

For all tests the resolution was set to 1280x1024. In game settings were turned to their maximal possible (for graphics). As different games have different settings a “universal” list of features activated is not possible to create. For 3D Mark –Vantage the default test was run.
GPU-Z (–V.4.2) was used to monitor the video card parameters. The measured parameters included:
1. GPU temperature (GPU Temp)
2. GPU Shader Core (GPU SC)
3. GPU Memory IO (GPU M)
4. GPU Display IO (GPU D)
5. VRM temperatures (3 phase control)
a. VDDC 1 (VDDC 1)
b. VDDC 2 (VDDC 2)
c. VDDC 3 (VDDC 3)
*spitfire+ includes the spitfire GPU cooler and VRM-R2 heatsink
The VRM-R2 was also tested without the 80mm while running 3DMark Vantage (as this proved to be the only benchmark that pushed temperatures north of 100°C). The final comparison was between the stock cooler at 75% and the spitfire while running 3DMark Vantage

RESULTS

1. 3DMARK VANTAGE
3DMark Vantage generated the most heat; it was the only program that heated all the voltage regulators to 100°C! The GPU temperature was also at their highest when testing with Vantage.

There is a very significant difference between the two solutions (i.e. stock and spitfire+ vrm-r2). In all cases the difference is more than 30%.
2. ALIEN VS PREDATOR
The Jungle Level was chosen (with the Marine as the selected player).

The temperatures continue to fall like 9 pins using the spitfire. There is again a substantial difference between it and the stock cooler. The game, however doesn’t heat the GPU or the VRMs like 3DMark Vantage did.
3. METRO 2033
Metro 2033 is the latest game from the Russian developer 4A games, utilizing their own 4A Engine. They broke off from the group developing STALKER. The similarities between the two engines are uncanny, though 4play insist that theirs is a very different engine from the one that powers STALKER (X-ray Engine).

The game again shows how well spitfire works as compared to the stock cooler
4. VRM-R2 80mm FAN VS PASSIVE COOLING

Addition of an 80mm fan adds about 9°C of cooling. This is in my opinion a substantial gain.

Note: As I was not able to use a standard “tower” CPU cooler, the efficiency of the VRM-R2 in passive mode was reduced. A small factor tower cooler with a front facing fan can potentially draw hot air away from the VRM-R2 improving its temperatures. But as TR recommends the use of a top down CPU cooler in conjunction with the spitfire this argument is probably redundant, and is only mentioned here to keep the facts “straight”.

5. STOCK COOLER @ 75% FAN SPEED
Finally the test that will really prove the worth of the cooler especially in terms of noise reduction. As the fan speed of the stock cooler ramps up, its efficiency does increase respectably.

The stock cooler does much better here, but it is still no match for the gigantic spitfire. The difference, while less spectacular is still significant. The noise levels are much more significant. At 75% the stock cooler sounds like an aircraft preparing to take off, while the spitfire is sounds like a Lexus at idle.

PRICE/ PERFORMANCE

The age old adage; “you get what you pay for” is very relevant here. The total cost of the cooler with the VRM module is above US$ 100. This is a very significant amount of money. But as I said you have to look at what those 100 dollars get you.
For your money you get the absolute best GPU air cooler that money can buy. You get the absolute best performance out of an air cooler for a GPU. You get this performance at a very bearable noise level, in fact over the case fan and the processor cooler fan it was difficult to discern the noise coming out of the Thermalright fan on the spitfire.
This is an absolute heaven for those that are bothered by noise. For those that are not bothered about noise and are willing to increase the speed of the stock cooler they still have something to look towards –better performance. But this performance (for this crowd) does come at a very high price. The consolation for you, my friends, is that this cooler (minus the VRM-R2) can be used with the latest Nvidia GTX480 video cards. As they generate heat like rabbit generate babies, you will definitely get your money’s worth once you plan to upgrade. You will need to buy a new VRM cooler, but that expense is less as compared to that of the spitfire (US$ 25).
The price performance apparently might look high, but if you think in terms of long term investment, the cooler will certainly pay off dividends.

CONCLUSION

This is one product that I really wanted to like, but the frustration surrounding the installation put me off more than once. Once you get things going the cooler really shows what it can do for you. Is the headache in the end worth it? In my opinion yes. I knew the cooler was going to do better, but not by the margin the benchmarking showed. Yes it is a pain to install and has very specific requirements. The most damning is that it won’t work with most CPU tower coolers, unless you are willing to sacrifice (almost) all of your expansion slots. Another issue that will arise is for those with dual video cards, or a video card with dual GPU. For the former it might be possible to orient two spitfires differently (one overhanging, the other over the expansion slots). Arrangement of VRM modules for the two cards is going to be tricky or nigh on impossible. For the latter it might be possible to again orient two spitfires differently on the same card. Again cooling the VRMs will be a cause for concern.
Again as I said, I really wanted to like the spitfire, in the end we ended the relationship on a sweet-sour note. The performance was great, but getting there has too many ropes attached to it. (Analogy: The sex was great, but it came at too high a price)

About the author: Bitten by the technology bug before most people even knew what computers were, I have never recovered from chronic obsession with computing technology since that fateful day way back in 1983

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Thermalright Spitfire – Review

PACKAGING

THE SPITFIRE COOLER –Wow.

OFFICIAL SPECS & ONLINE RESOURCES

RESULTS

PRICE/ PERFORMANCE

CONCLUSION

Further Reading

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