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Home » Thermaltake TMG IA1 CPU Cooler Review

Thermaltake TMG IA1 CPU Cooler Review

[nextpage title=”Introduction”]

Continuing our series of CPU cooler reviews, today we tested Thermaltake TMG IA1, which uses the now classical tower design with U-shaped heatpipes, using a fancy shape on the heatsink fins. Will this design be translated into higher performance? Check it out!

TMG IA1 box looks quite alike BigTyp 14Pro box, with a transparent window that allows you to see part of the cooler.

Thermaltake TMG IA1Figure 1: Box.

Inside the box we found the cooler itself, user manuals, installation hardware, a small bag of thermal paste and a sticker for your case.

Thermaltake TMG IA1Figure 2: Box contents.

The cooler is big and heavy. The fins are very firm and the general aspect is of a very well-made cooler.

Thermaltake TMG IA1Figure 3: Thermaltake TMG IA1.

TMG IA1 fan has 120 mm in diameter and is made of transparent plastic. In the base of the fan there are three blue LEDs. An interesting detail is the fact the fan has no frame, which is not good in most cases because the airflow tends to spread, but with this cooler this seems to be a good idea because the heatsink fins involve the fan.

Thermaltake TMG IA1Figure 4: Front view.

[nextpage title=”Introduction (Cont’d)”]

In Figure 5, you can see the top view of TMG IA1 and have an idea of the shape of the heatsink fins. At first look it seems like the front tabs are a good idea because, as we said on last page, these tabs "involve" the fan, but the rear shape seems to be of more an aesthetic effect than of a performance-increasing system.

Thermaltake TMG IA1Figure 5: Top view.

The power connector is a three-pin micro type, without the speed control pin (PWM). However, the fan speed can be adjusted through a little potentiometer attached to the fan. The cable from this potentiometer is very short and thus you cannot adjust the fan speed without opening the case. A pity.

Thermaltake TMG IA1Figure 6: Base, potentiometer and power connector.

TMG IA1 base is made of well-polished copper, resulting in a mirror finishing that you can see in Figure 7. You can also see that the four copper heatpipes do not touch directly the CPU, being connected to the base.

Thermaltake TMG IA1Figure 7: Mirror-like base surface.

[nextpage title=”Installation”]

TMG IA1 comes with a clip that allows you to install it on AMD CPUs with socket AM3, AM2+, AM2, 939 and 754. With those processors installation is very simple: you only need to put the cooler over the CPU and fasten the clip on the motherboard retention mechanism.

Thermaltake TMG IA1Figure 8: Clip for AMD processors.

In order to use it with Intel socket LGA775 processors, however, you need to first attach the two clips shown in Figure 9 to the base of the cooler.

Thermaltake TMG IA1Figure 9: Clips for socket LGA775 processors.

After that, the retention mechanism is identical to the one used on Intel stock coolers. So, there is no need to remove your motherboard from the case in order to install TMG IA1.

Thermaltake TMG IA1Figure 10: Clips in place.

In Figure 11, you can see how the cooler looks like after installed. Besides its size, the installation was easy. The only detail was that we cut our hands on the heatsink fins when installing the memory modules, so watch out!

Thermaltake TMG IA1Figure 11: Installed in our case.

In Figure 12, you can see how the blue LEDs glow when the cooler is working.

Thermaltake TMG IA1Figure 12: LEDs glowing.

[nextpage title=”How We Tested”]

We are adopting the following metodology on our CPU cooler reviews.

First, we chose the CPU with the highest TDP (Thermal Design Power) we had available, a Core 2 Extreme QX6850, which has a 130 W TDP. The choice for a CPU with a high TDP is obvious: as we want to measure how efficient is the tested cooler, we need a processor that gets very hot. This CPU works by default at 3.0 GHz, but we overclocked it to 3.33 GHz, in order to heat it as much as possible.

We took noise and temperature measurements with the CPU idle and under full load. In order to achieve 100% CPU load on the four processing cores we ran at the same time Prime95 in "In-place Large FFTs" option and three instances of StressCPU program.

We also compared the reviewed cooler to Intel stock cooler (with copper base), which comes with the processor we used, and also with some other coolers we have tested using the same methodology.

Temperature measurements were taken with a digital thermometer, with the sensor touching the base of the cooler, and also with the core temperature reading (given by the CPU the
rmal sensor) from SpeedFan program. For this measurement we used an arithmetic average of the four core temperature readings.

The sound pressure level (SPL) was measured with a digital noise meter, with its sensor placed 4" (10 cm) from the fan. We turned off the video board cooler so it wouldn’t interfere with the results, but this measurement is only for comparative purposes, because a precise SPL measurement needs to be done inside an acoustically insulated room with no other noise sources, what we do not have.

Hardware Configuration

  • Processor: Core 2 Extreme QX6850
  • Motherboard: Gigabyte EP45-UD3L
  • Memory: 2 GB Corsair XMS2 DHX TWIN2X2048-6400C4DHX G (DDR2-800/PC2-6400 with timings 4-4-4-12), running at 800 MHz
  • Hard drive: 500 GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 (ST3500320AS, SATA-300, 7200 rpm, 32 MB buffer)
  • Video card: PNY Verto Geforce 9600 GT
  • Video resolution: 1680×1050
  • Video monitor: Samsung Syncmaster 2232BW Plus
  • Power supply required: Seventeam ST-550P-AM

Software Configuration

  • Windows XP Professional installed on FAT32 partition
  • Service Pack 3
  • Intel Inf driver version: 8.3.1.1009
  • NVIDIA video driver version: 182.08

Software Used

  • Prime95
  • StressCPU
  • SpeedFan

Error Margin

We adopted a 2 °C error margin, i.e., temperature differences below 2 °C are considered irrelevant.

[nextpage title=”Our Tests”]

On the tables below you can see our results. We ran the same tests with Intel stock cooler, BigTyp 14Pro, Akasa Nero, Cooler Master V10 and Thermaltake TMG IA1. Each test was made with the CPU idle and then with the CPU fully loaded. Keep in mind that with Thermaltake BigTyp 14Pro and TMG IA1 we ran the test with the fan at minimum speed and then at full rotation. With the other coolers the motherboard controls the fan speed based on CPU load level and temperature.

CPU Idle

Cooler Room Temp. Noise Fan Speed Base Temp. Core Temp.
Intel stock 14 °C 44 dBA 1000 rpm 31 °C 42 °C
BigTyp 14Pro (min. speed) 17 °C 47 dBA 880 rpm 29 °C 36 °C
BigTyp 14Pro (max. speed) 17 °C 59 dBA 1500 rpm 26 °C 34 °C
Akasa Nero 18 °C 41 dBA 500 rpm 26 °C 35 oC
Cooler Master V10 14 °C 44 dBA 1200 rpm 21 °C 26 °C
TMG IA1 (min. speed) 16 °C 47 dBA 1500 rpm 22 °C 30 °C
TMG IA1 (máx. speed) 16 °C 57 dBA 2250 rpm 21 °C 30 °C

CPU Fully Loaded

Cooler Room Temp.

Noise

Fan Speed Base Temp. Core Temp.
Intel stock 14 °C 48 dBA 1740 rpm 42 °C 100 °C
BigTyp 14Pro (min. speed) 17 °C 47 dBA 880 rpm 43 °C 77 °C
BigTyp 14Pro (max. speed) 17 °C 59 dBA 1500 rpm 35 °C 70 °C
Akasa Nero 18 °C 48 dBA 1500 rpm 34 °C 68 °C
Cooler Master V10 14 °C 54 dBA 1900 rpm 24 °C 52 °C
TMG IA1 (min. speed) 16 °C 47 dBA 1500 rpm 27 °C 63 °C
TMG IA1 (máx. speed) 16 °C 57 dBA 2250 rpm 25 °C 60 °C

On the graph below you can see the temperature difference between the cooler base and the room temperature with the CPU idle and fully loaded. Values shown are in Celsius degrees. Remember that the lower the number the better is cooling performance.

Thermaltake TMG IA1

On the next graph you can have an idea on how many Celsius degrees was CPU core hotter than room temperature during the tests.

 Thermaltake TMG IA1

[nextpage title=”Main Specifications”]Thermaltake TMG IA1 main features are:

  • Application: Socket LGA775, AM3, AM2+, AM2 and 939 processors.
  • Fins: Aluminum.
  • Base: Copper.
  • Heat-pipes: Four U-shaped copper heatpipes.
  • Fan: 120 mm.
  • Fan speed: from 1,300 to 2,100 rpm.
  • Fan air flow: 70,28 cfm maximum.
  • Maximum power: 6.6 W
  • Nominal noise level: above 20 dBA.
  • Weight: 1.5 lbs (684 g).
  • More information: https://www.thermaltakeusa.com
  • Average price in the US*: USD 40.00

* Researched at Newegg.com on the day we published this review.[nextpage title=”Conclusions”]

Before starting our tests we were not expecting much from TMG IA1: we thought it would perform worst than its "big brother", Thermaltake BigTyp 14Pro. Its fancy design seemed to us just a cosmetic feature. Its looks and ease of installation, however, made us to like it.

But when duty time arrived, it really impressed us: TMG IA1 performs better than BigTyp 14Pro and Akasa Nero, cooling our CPU almost like Cooler Master V10.

With its fan in low speed it was very quiet and even then its performance was excellent in our tests. We only didn’t like the fan speed potentiometer, with its short wires requiring you to put your hand in the computer "guts" when you need to adjust fan speed. A fan with automatic speed control (by the motherboard PWM pin) could be a better choice.

Another potential problem with this cooler is the absence of socket LGA1366 clips. Probably Thermaltake will sell these brackets, but if you have a Core i7 processor or intend to buy one soon maybe looking for another cooler is a good idea.

Because of its great looks, nice price and excellent performance, we are giving Thermaltake TMG IA1 the Hardware Secrets Golden Award seal.

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