The flat finish creates very good contact with the CPU
The base of the heatsink uses the now popular Core Contact approach. The past few products we have reviewed using this technology have had great success so it is no surprise to see Tuniq using it here. In fact, Tuniq's parent company, Sunbeam, were one of the pioneers of this method with the Sunbeam Core Contact Freezer. Attached to the base is the fixed mounting bracket to help installation. Again this is compatible with the Alpenföhn Nordwand's mounting kit and I have tried this myself.
I can see this feature becoming very popular in the future
Another interesting feature shared with the Alpenföhn Nordwand is the small heat sink on top of the base. The Tuniq one is nickel plated to match the finish of the cooler, creating a very attractive product. The heatsink helps dissipate some heat immediately from the point of contact, keeping the base cooler so that the heat pipe work more efficiently. While it seems like a simple idea, it's very clever and proved very useful on the Nordwand.
By having the fan in the middle, the heatsink itself does end up rather large but it should fit most motherboards, check Tuniq's website for more details
The top plate labelled "Tuniq" can be unscrewed to reveal where the fan goes. The design is very similar to the old Tower 120 and in effect, the one fan acts as both a push and a pull fan, thus removing the limit experienced on other heatsinks. Rather than having one fan pushing air through the whole heatsink or one having to pull air through all the fins, the Tower 120 extreme is built in such a way that the resistance experienced by the one fan pulling and pushing the air is reduced. So, instead of requiring two fans for an optimized, as is the case for many tower heatsinks, the Tower 120 extreme only requires one fan.
The clear plastic fan has blue LEDs to further raise the appeal of this cooler
The top plate also acts as a bracket holding the 120mm fan. The fan is held on by screws so replacing it is not an issue. The connection is a 3pin header and an additional fan controller is provided should you wish to adjust the fan speed. I highly recommend using the fan controller for quieter operation, not that the full fan speed is excessively noisy...
Thankfully the light is subtle rather than overpowering
And the final action shot. It is hard to determine the actual orientation of the airflow because the fan blades are barely visible through the fins. In this case, the Tower 120 Extreme is oriented so that each hook on the fins face downwards, and the airflow is towards the back through the exhaust fan. The blue glowing is mesmerizing to say the least, an absolute stunner.
