Thermaltake TOUGHLIQUID Ultra 240 AIO CPU Cooler Review

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Conclusion

Today we looked at the performance of the Thermaltake TOUGHLIQUID Ultra 240 Cooler and stacked it up against various competitors that we’ve previously reviewed to see how it would perform with its 18 cores clocked to 4.7GHz dumping 500w of heat into it. We’ll recap the performance below and see how the Thermaltake TOUGHLIQUID Ultra 240 stood up to the heat in our kitchen!

Summary of Temperatures

From a temperature performance perspective, when the fans were at or above 1500 RPM, the Thermaltake TOUGHLIQUID Ultra 240 did a reasonable job keeping our Intel 10980XE in check at stock clocks. Moving up to a mild overclock (representing about 350W of power), the Thermaltake TOUGHLIQUID Ultra 240 struggled to keep its cool, especially when compared to the other comparison coolers.

As the fan speeds drop on the Thermaltake TOUGHLIQUID Ultra 240, its thermal performance drops off a cliff very quickly (and especially below 1500 RPM). For maximum cooling, you’ll want to set your fan curves a bit more aggressively, however, as you’ll see next, it won’t really hurt you from a sound profile perspective.

Summary of Sound Levels

The Thermaltake TOUGHLIQUID Ultra 240 was the quietest AIO in the lineup by a significant margin at the higher fan speeds. It did not contribute to the noise profile of the room except when it was running at full blast, but of course, there’s a bit of a thermal trade off to consider.

Overall, your ears won’t notice if you’re running the Thermaltake TOUGHLIQUID Ultra 240 in the 1500-2500 RPM range which gives it a great intersection between performance and sound levels.

Final Points

Looking at the charts, there’s a bit to unpack here with the Thermaltake TOUGHLIQUID Ultra 240‘s performance. From a pure thermal performance perspective, it is rather terrible compared to the other 240mm AIOs it was up against. However, when you factor in the sound performance compared to the others, it is simply the best in class.

Our ideal is to have a cooling solution that will be both silent and highly effective, but as we all know, you can’t always have both. The Thermaltake TOUGHLIQUID Ultra 240 firmly stands in the realm of a quiet performer but the thermal crown gets away like a duck in Duck Hunt.

The other thing to consider with the Thermaltake TOUGHLIQUID Ultra 240 is that it is fairly unique in that it does not come with any RGB bling on the fans, but does include a highly customizable LCD screen that could end up being more useful.

With all this considered, we’ve got an interesting product with the Thermaltake TOUGHLIQUID Ultra 240 as it is a quiet AIO that delivers average thermals while looking good with a customizable LCD screen. At about $200 in e-tail, it comes in a bit under the ASUS Ryujin 240 while having a larger screen. If you’re in the market for a quiet 240mm AIO then the Thermaltake TOUGHLIQUID Ultra 240 should certainly be on your consideration list.

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David Schroth
David is a computer hardware enthusiast that has been tinkering with computer hardware for the past 25 years and writing reviews for more than ten years. He's the Founder and Editor in Chief of The FPS Review.

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