Thermaltake UX100 ARGB Air CPU Cooler Review

Installation

As this is a push pin designed cooler, the mounting system (in theory) is very straight forward. As we mentioned earlier, this design allows for a minimal number of parts which is always a nice thing. Particularly if you’re new or inexperienced in cooler installations.

While the manual you are provided with is thin on written instructions, the diagrams are both clear and detailed.

So, when installing the first step (after unboxing it) is to get the mounting ring in place on your motherboard. While this isn’t difficult, having your motherboard flat will undoubtedly give you a huge advantage rather trying to do this upright.

Once in place, the first pushpin is inserted with the 2nd acting as a ‘locking mechanism’. Despite some concerns over prior designs like this we have seen in the past, it fitted well, easily and overall felt surprisingly secure. In addition, removing the pins also provides very little difficulty.

So far so good, but that doesn’t mean to say that this design is perfect. Having a good clearance around the processor makes this job a lot easier when it comes to mounting (or more accurately, clipping) the cooler into place. Our motherboard has a number of VRM banks surrounding the processor and this made things incredibly cramped! It’s equally an awkward job to remove (albeit a lot faster by just removing the push pins).

Overall Thoughts

So, from out of the box and onto our system, this cooler took us around 10 minutes to install. Pretty fast and unlike many others we have seen, the push-pin installation method is genuinely straight forward. As we noted above, however, the difficulty (and by proxy, time) will ultimately be determined by how much room you have to manoeuvre around your processor and particularly the VRM.

Once installed, however, we must admit that it looked pretty fantastic. Had it not been for the somewhat awkward size/manoeuvring issues, we may well have left this on there to act as our ‘when not testing a cooler’ cooler. In addition, we’re certain that the installation time would’ve been significantly less!

In terms of ‘easy installation’ (which Thermaltake claims the UX100 has), we would say that this is entirely dependant on your motherboard. That is the sole factor that’ll determine if you have this ready within 5 minutes or 15.

RGB in Action

We can’t stress enough just how excellent the ARGB features are on this cooler. With 15 led-lights, they provide an excellent effect which, we are more than sure, is some extension of their (top-notch) Riing fan designs.

The only downside is the manner in which the ARGB lighting is controlled. Without any manual option (such as a physical switch/controller) your only option to customise this is via a sync capable motherboard.

Referring to an earlier point with the Thermaltake logo being ‘cut’ into the side of the cooler, this really comes to life when the system is switched on and, again, adds another small (but highly impressive) level of aesthetics.

With 16.8 million colours available at your disposal (and all sync capable with a suitable motherboard) for such a low-cost cooler, this is some high-level customisation options!