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Appeared on: Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Titan Cool-Idol

1. Features
Manufacturer
Titan
Model
Price 

$59
Category
Power users

Titan has introduced a new CPU fan for the Intel/AMD sockets, featuring "easy" installation and addressed to power users, as it is also suggested by its relatively high $59 retail price for a CPU cooler. The Titan Cool-idol has a 120mm fan and its size is big enough to cover the entire space inside your mini/midi PC case. The cooler looks impressive and we hope that it will be also effective in the tests that will follow.

The TTC-NK75ZT "Cool Idol" is a universal Heatpipe Solution. You can use this cooler on Intel and AMD motherboard which support PWM function. (Usually the universal cooler do not support PWM function). On an AMD motherboard with NO PWM function, you can use the included speed controller. Titan has also included the "Royal Grease" product in the retail package and suggests using it with only the specific "Cool-Idol" product, for better performance.

- Features

- Specifications

Outline Dimension 163x142.5x125 mm
Fan Dimension 120x120x25 mm
Rated Voltage 12V DC
Rated Current 0.32A
Power Consumption 3.84W
Rated Speed 800~2200 RPM ±10%
Airflow 33.2~78.41CFM
Static Pressure 0.02~ 0.11 InchH2O
Noise Level <17.2~ <39dBA
Rotation Direction Clockwise
No. of Pole 4 Pole
Bearing Type Z-axis Bearing
Life Time 60,000 HOURS
2. Retail package

The Titan Cool-Idol comes in a big box and much information is provided on it. The CPU cooler retails for 59 as Titan states in their website.

Inside the box you will find a retention holder for the Intel P4/Socket 775 processors, another clip for the AMD K8 platform, various screws for the corresponding processor platform, a PCI speed fan controller and of course the Titan Royal Grease compound.

The cooler itself is made of both aluminum and copper. Three aluminum fins are joined to the full copper base with six (6) copper heatpipes. Over the top there is a 120mm PWM (power management) fan with four rubber absorbing pads that should reduce the overall noise of the cooler. It's overall weight is 850 grams, which is high enough for a CPU cooler.

The aluminum fins are massive and the U-shaped copper heatpipes passing through them. The 120mm fan directs the essential air flow through them in order to cool down the whole system.

The base is made of full copper and it has a very good finish as you can see in the picture below. The mounting mechanism has four (4) holes that will secure the backplate.

3. Installation

In order to install the Titan Cool Idol CPU cooler you will have to remove your motherboard from the PC case first. While this may take some extra time, it should not be considered as a drawback. The included backplates are compatible with both Intel and AMD platforms.

First, you have to o apply the thermal compound on the CPU's top surface. Then you have to place the cooler on a stable surface (desk) and gently place the motherboard above it and carefully move to the proper position, ready to accept the backplate and the included screws that will secure the whole structure.

The Titan Cool-idol can be installed in a vertical or horizontal position, although installing it the way we did (photo below) would save you some space inside your PC case.

Strangely enough, the cooler leans from one side by design..

As you can see in the picture below, the massive cooler covers a large area on your motherboard once it is installed, almost reaching the memory banks. Titan says that this specific design expands the cooling area of the device allowing the air flow to reach the memory modules.

Despite its big size, we didn't have any problems fitting it inside our Thermaltake Soprano PC case.

4. Test Methodology

We have chosen to to test the cooler inside a computer case, since this is the scenario that matches a typical real life use. The cooler was installed on a motherboard that has many heatpipes. This allowed us to identify whether the size of the cooler could be an issue during installation. A quick look at the available motherboards in our labs and we chose the Blitz Extreme.

The testbed configuration is the following:

In the following page we compare the cooling performance of the new Titan Cool-Idol with other CPU coolers we have tested in the past.

For our tests, we produced the highest possible temperature using the OCCT v2.0.1 software. Our previous reviews included Intel's Thermal Analysis Tool (TAT) that offered higher thermal production, but unfortunately it doesn't work with the latest processors.

We left both cores of our CPU running at full load for about 30 minutes. All temperatures were logged via CoreTemp 0.99.3 and the software itself. In order to get realistic numbers, we followed two overclocking scenarios:

We measured the produced noise of all the coolers with the Precision Gold N09AQ Environment Meter. We decided to measure the noise with two system 120mm fans installed (by Thermaltake) and of course the noise that the power supply produces. All measurements were made just outside the case, mostly near the side and the front sides of the PC case. Remember that higher rpm means more noise, so we lowered the rpm either via the BIOS smartfan or via the 3pin controller. This way we tested all the coolers either at full or low rpm speeds.

For all the coolers we used the same thermal compound from Tuniq, the TX-2. We tried to apply the same amount of thermal paste in the same way in all the coolers. All in all we tried to have the exactly same environment conditions for all the tested coolers. Due to Vdroop (Vcore variations), a difference of 1-2 degrees Celsius in performance may be reported among PC different systems.

Finally, all tests were performed with the front PC panel closed, which is the worst case scenario in terms of internal air flow and ventilation.

5. Results

In the following charts you can see the results if the various CPU coolers. The Titan Cool-Idol has to compete with many other models from various vendors, different price range and features.

Getting the first series of tests, the Titan Cool-Idol performed adequately. We got an average of 56 degrees Celsius, and share the fourth place in the ranking, joined by many other CPU coolers:

Pushing the Intel E8600 even higher (4.30GHz, 1.4875V) made things a little bit more difficult for all the CPU coolers. This time, the Titan Cool Idol had a rather poor performance and the CPU reached the 79 degrees Celsius. We expected a more efficient cooling by the Cool-Idol under overclocking.

What about the noise? Well, with the 120mm fan to rotate at 2.500rpm (full speed), the noise levels are very high. Lowering the RPM through the the included PCI slot fan controller works but the cooling performance is significantly drops.

We lowered the fan speed and obviously things were much more silent:

Last but not least, the retail price of each tested product is presented below. The Titan Cool-Idol is among the mid to average priced solutions with $59.

6. Final words

At a first glance, the Titan Cool-Idol CPU cooler looks very promising, due to its massive size, its interesting design and the 120mm fan. Provided that the cooler is addressed to power users as its price also indicates ($59), we were really anxious to start using it and take some measurements.

However, the cooler showed an underhelming performance, in terms of cooling efficiency and noise. We can assume that the cooler's design finally didn't help much since the produced hot air coming from the wide area the CPU fan covers could not easily escape our PC case, despite the fact that two additional PC case fans were operating. Perhaps the performance would be better in full tower case.

The installation process would take some time and requires you to remove your motherboard from your PC case. This could trouble amateur users. If we look at the numbers, the cooler was performing well as long as the cooling requirements are not extreme, under heavy overclocking. After that point, the cooler was unable to compete with the some of rest coolers of our test, even at full speed. Speaking of the included fan, its rather noisy at full speed so you may need to use the included PCI bracket to slow it down. The included Titan Royal Grease seems to work well although the Tuniq TX-2 thermal paste we sued gave slightly better results.

To sum up, we can say that overclockers should look for other less noisy and more powerful products. Today you can buy higher performers with less money so we expect Titan to either reduce its retail price or make the proper adjustments in order to reach top performers like the Titan Amanda Tech :-)

Retail package
Design
Motherboard compatibility
Installation time
Copper Base quality

Pros:

+ Very good retail package
+ Works with both AMD/Intel platforms
+ Includes Titan Royal Grease thermal paste
+ Despite its large size its easily movable
+ Aluminum fins placed high enough to maintain compatibility with most boards
- Full copper base

Cons:

- Performance numbers doesn't justify its retail price ($59)
- Fan produces high noise at full speed



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