KitGuru KitGuru.net – Tech News | Hardware News | Hardware Reviews | IOS | Mobile | Gaming | Graphics Cards
Many of you might not have heard of Titan, however they have over 20 years experience with cooling technology. Their headquarters are in Taiwan and they have an office in Germany. Titan are no small player either, with 500 employees and the capability of producing over 2 million coolers every month. They also focus a lot of their attention on research and development, mainly within the thermal sector.
Today we are looking at their Titan Hati Cooler which is marketed as a mid range performance cooler priced under £30. This particular cooler has three 8mm heatpipes and is based around a tower shaped heatsink with support for dual 120mm fans. The Hati is actually a smaller version of the Fenrir CPU cooler, a formidable design from Titan.
Specifications.
- 3x8mm heat pipes with heat direct contact technology
- PWM function fan
- 12cm Kukri shaped fan
- includes 4 vibration reducing mounting rubber bolts and has the option for more than one fan
- compatible with Intel LGA 1366/1156/1155/775/& AMD AM3/AM2+/AMD2
The cooler arrives in a fairly bland tower shaped box with a picture of the product on the front, as well as a list of specifications.
The bundle includes a manual, fan and all the mounting brackets and screws needed for installation across the Intel and AMD platforms. They even include a tube of good quality thermal paste.
The bundle includes a 120mm fan, although the cooler can accept two fans for improved air flow performance. This is a nine blade design with full PWM support.
The Hati uses a tried and tested cooling methodology, based around three heatpipes which lead into a series of aluminum fins. The heatsink is quite narrow, and it is designed to create a high airflow between the fins.
The engineering quality is surprisingly high throughout, with a very smooth, direct contact base.
We are using an AMD 990FX ASUS motherboard for installation today. The Hati is supplied with a backplate for improved clamping pressure.
Four threaded screws are fed in to hold the backplate in position, a simple procedure.
A mounting clip is used over the cooler base which then attaches to the motherboard. This can only be fed in from one axis.
As can be seen above, the clips then connect to the screws underneath, although we ran into one issue during fitting.
With the heatsink mounted in this position, the two closest memory slots are covered by the fins above.
To avoid the ram slots would mean rotating the heatsink 90 degrees. In theory easy enough, however when rotated the mounting clip won't line up with the screws (see image above). We flagged this problem with Titan and they said there is already a new clip for the cooler.
Connecting the fan(s) is straightforward. Titan have supplied 8 rubber clips which hold the fan(s) in place. The added benefit of these rubber clips is that the fans are isolated from the fins, keeping noise emissions to a minimum.
Above, the cooler installed. The Crucial Ballistix DDR3 memory had no fitting issues when used with this cooler. However once fitted, it can still be awkward getting memory out of the motherboard as the cooler fins overhang the first two slots.
Today we are using the latest Intel Core i7 990x Extreme Edition processor which we reviewed a short while ago. This is the current mainstream flagship processor from Intel.
While we could use an open test bench, we like to try and mirror more ‘realistic’ conditions, so we have built the system inside an Antec Twelve Hundred chassis. Room ambient temperatures are maintained at a steady 18c throughout testing. We use diodes to measure core temperatures.
Intel System:
Processor: Intel Core i7 990x
Motherboard: Asus Rampage III Black Edition
Thermal Paste: Noctua NT H1
Power Supply: Corsair TX850W
Chassis: Antec Twelve Hundred
Memory: GSkill RipJaws DDR3 2000mhz 6GB 7-8-7
Graphics Card: Sapphire HD5670 Ultimate Edition
Comparison coolers:
Antec KÜHLER H₂O 920
Antec KÜHLER H₂O 620
Corsair H50
Corsair H70
Coolit ECO A.L.C.
Coolit Vantage A.L.C.
Noctua NH D14
All coolers were set to their default fan speeds for this section of the review – we haven't added any extra fans to any of the coolers – what you buy is what we tested. We used Noctua NT H1 thermal material on all coolers, as it is higher quality than any of the supplied paste.
Testing these coolers at reference voltage and speeds does not highlight the ultimate performance, but it gives us a good reference point to start from.
We are overclocking the Intel 990x to 4.8 ghz on this board with the core voltage set to 1.475, extremely high levels and a quick way to judge ultimate overclocked cooling performance.
Performance from the Titan Hati is fairly good, peaking at 81c under load, a single degree behind the Corsair H50. It is worth bearing in mind that the coolers in this matchup are some of the finest ‘all in one' units on the market today. We added another cooler to the Hati … a quality 12cm Noctua fan, and temperatures dropped to 78.6c under load.
Recently we have changed our method of measuring noise levels. Ambient noise in the room is around 20dBa. We measure from a distance of around 1 meter from the chassis and 4 foot from the ground with our Extech digital sound level meter to mirror a real world situation.
KitGuru noise guide
10dBA – Normal Breathing/Rustling Leaves
20-25dBA – Whisper
30dBA – High Quality Computer fan
40dBA – A Bubbling Brook, or a Refridgerator
50dBA – Normal Conversation
60dBA – Laughter
70dBA – Vacuum Cleaner or Hairdryer
80dBA – City Traffic or a Garbage Disposal
90dBA – Motorcycle or Lawnmower
100dBA – MP3 player at maximum output
110dBA – Orchestra
120dBA – Front row rock concert/Jet Engine
130dBA – Threshold of Pain
140dBA – Military Jet takeoff/Gunshot (close range)
160dBA – Instant Perforation of eardrum
Generally noise was around 38 dBa, but under full load with our overclocked 990x, the fan was working overtime to help maintain sensible temperatures. We recorded around 45 dBa from the single fan. Personally I would remove this fan and add two quality 120mm units from Noctua.
The Titan Hati cooler might not look like anything out of the ordinary but it is an effective, maintenance free cooler which is ideal for a reasonably high end gaming system. We wouldn't say it was an ideal partner for an overclocked 990x, but we used one of the hottest running processors available today to better ascertain overall cooling performance.
We compared the Hati against some of the leading coolers we have tested in recent months, and it certainly didn't mount a serious challenge against the leaders, such as the Antec H20 920, or the Noctua NH D14.
To be realistic however, the Hati is available for only £27.90 from Scan in the UK. This puts it firmly in the ‘mid range' enthusiastic sector and we feel it offers good value for money while delivering high levels of cooling performance. At under £30 the Hati is in the top 10% of performance coolers.
My only gripe against this product would be the fan they have supplied, which while reasonable, is not close to the best I have used in recent months. If I bought this cooler I would prefer a barebones ‘no fan' option so I could add my own, or the option for a ‘deluxe' model with two high quality fans, even if it cost £5 more. In overclocked high voltage situations, one of these fans struggles to maintain a good thermal envelope and just increases the speed to try and compensate, leaving the end user with a somewhat uncomfortable level of noise pollution. If you are running at more modest settings it might not be an issue, but I would still opt for an additional fan.
Pros:
- good cooling performance
- engineering quality is very high
- fan attachment system is very good
- good size and weight
- price to performance ratio is strong
Cons:
- supplied fan isn't great
- fan can get noisy under high load
- it needs two fans for ultimate performance
KitGuru says: For £27.90 it certainly deserves a ‘worth buying' award. There are better alternatives, but most of them are at least £10 more.
price is good and built quality looks equally as impressive. ideal for most people.
Nice polished finish on the base. better than some of the bigger players ive seen.
Its a pretty standard and slightly boring design however. but price is good and it will certainly suit a big audience of system builders who want something much better than a reference cooler
Good deal. think id pay extra for the frio however, it has t wo fans. even if they are crap
Seems like a good buy to me, but id spend another 10 for the Antec 620
Yeah, fair review, quite like the appearance, but im more interested in all in water liquid coolers now. they are so compact, quiet and high performing.
I also want to see a review of the upcoming d14 beater from noctua