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Titan Eagle


Date
: 01/8/06 – 04:28:15 PM

Author
:

Category
: Cooling

Page 1 : Index

Manufacturer:
Titan Computer Co., Ltd.

Price:
N/A

Titan has recently been one of the more popular companies here at Overclockers Online. This Taiwan-based company has almost 17 years of experience in the computer cooling industry. Sporting all sorts of cooling solutions from normal fans to cases with built-in watercooling and everything in between, Titan is a major player in the enthusiast market. The folks at Titan have a motto, "Running faster is the system's job, keeping them cooler is our business". This is exemplified by the fact that Titan releases new products every month or so to keep up with the faster and consequently hotter components that make up today's computer systems; one such offering from Titan is aimed at video cards: the Eagle.

You might have recently seen some banners on our homepage here at O² flaunting the elusive Titan Eagle Universal VGA Cooler. I had the pleasure of reviewing not one, but two different varieties of this mighty bird. In this article, we will be evaluating both the aluminum and copper versions of the Titan Eagle to find out whether this avian wonder can cool the furnaces that are modern video cards.

Page 2 : Package

The Titan Eagle landed safely all the way from China via DHL.

Opening up the cardboard package, we are greeted with two specimens of the Eagle wrapped in bubble-wrap.

Clearly visible on the hard blister package are the company name, product name, subtitle, and small inserts of features. Also, all the major parts of the product are visible, including eight memory heatsinks and a cooler in each package. The aluminum version is obviously silver-colored and has matching memory heatsinks. The copper version is gold-colored. It seems as though the fins, memory heatsinks, and top plate of both coolers are made of aluminum.

The only difference between the two coolers is the anodized color, and that one has an aluminum base and the other has a copper base. Therefore, we will only show one set of pictures, rather than two. The other parts are identical; so don't be alarmed if pictures are shown interchangeably as I will point out the differences.

The bottom of the front shows six image clips and subtitles: Low Noise, Excellent design, Easy installation, RAM heatsink, Nano grease thermal paste, and Universal application (ATI / NVIDIA).

The back of the package includes all the specifications and compatibility information, which we will delve further into in the next section. I think we can excuse Titan for their typographic error in which they rebranded GeForce to GeoForce!

There is also a short product overview in nine different languages. Below that, we find the model number; the copper version's is TTC-CSC82TB(DIY) while the aluminum version's is TTC-CSC81TZ(DIY).

We will continue to open the packages of both Eagles shortly but first let us take a quick look at the specifications.

Page 3 : Specifications

Titan's website has a plethora of information regarding the Titan Eagle. Here are the specifications taken directly from there; they are more or less identical to the ones on the package.

The Eagle is equipped with an 80mm fan pushing approximately 24CFM of air at 2000RPM. The noise level is low at 22dBA.

The VGA model compatibility list encompasses many ATI and NVIDIA cards. Cards not listed may or may not fit depending on the mounting hole distances of which there are three different lengths (54.8mm, 79.7mm, or 75.4mm). I will be formally testing the Eagles on a GeForce 6600GT, which is not explicitly listed but falls under the B type (79.7mm) mounting holes. Anyways, I was pleasantly surprised to see that the Eagle fits the latest GeForce 7 and Radeon X series while maintaining backwards compatibility with older models.

Now that we know the specifications, let's take a look at the package contents.

Page 4 : Package Contents

Opening the blister pack, we find all the contents in place. The cardboard that served as the specifications sheet doubles as a multilingual installation manual that is complete with images. The eight memory heatsinks, a tube of Titan's own Nano thermal compound, two nuts, two bolts, four washers, and the VGA cooler itself are present.

The underside of the cooler shows a multitude of fins connected through a plate onto a thick, circular aluminum block covered by a sticker for protection; this must be removed before installation as quoted on the sticker itself. The fan is powered by a three-pin connector via a sleeved wire of considerable length. The memory heatsinks have 3M adhesive thermal tape already on them; this tape is made for one-time use only and removal may damage your memory so they are as good as permanent.

Removing the protective covering from the base, I was surprised to see a mirror finish; most heatsinks these days come with a rough machined finish. Though there were minor scuff marks on the bases from handling, they were easily removed with a little bit of isopropyl alcohol.

I thought the eagle side of a quarter would be appropriate in this case to show the smoothness of the bases.

Here is a closer look at the bottom of the copper-base Eagle, showcasing all the anodized fins; minor scuff marks and scratches are present due to handling. The fins have ample spacing and will not restrict airflow. The fan is installed amidst the fins rather than over them, which is preferable in terms of airflow.

Let us proceed to install the Titan Eagles and test them.

Page 5 : Installation

For testing, I'll be installing the Eagle on my eVGA e-GeForce 6600GT PCI-Express graphics card. First, I will install the aluminum version and test it, followed by the copper version. The memory heatsinks are permanent so I will only be using the gold kind; since both kinds are aluminum, I doubt that the different color will affect performance in any way.

Following the instructions on the included manual, reprinted below, was relatively straightforward and easy.

I removed the stock cooler and cleaned off the old thermal compound using 91% isopropyl alcohol. Then, I applied some of the included Titan Nano thermal grease onto the core.

At this time, I also installed the copper-colored memory heatsinks by peeling off the tape's backing and gently pressing them onto the memory chips; they were slightly bigger than the memory chips but there were no problems whatsoever. As this card only has 128MB of memory (4 chips of 32MB each), I only needed to use four of the heatsinks. Though I don't have a 256MB card, I think it is nice of Titan to have included extra heatsinks for those who do. However, those with the 512MB beasts are out of luck and will be short several heatsinks.

In any case, I fixed the included bolts to the "B" type mounting holes. Then, I placed washers onto the bolts. Tilting the card upside down, I proceeded to place the cooler through the mounting holes, and secured them on the other side with the washer-mounted nuts. I had to use a screwdriver to tighten the nuts because of the springs that are built in to them.

As you can see, the cooler covers most of the video card; this is a good thing in that it will cool surrounding components including the onboard memory. If you look closely, you may notice that the video card's fan header is two-pin, meaning the Eagle's three-pin connector will not be able to plug in to it. This isn't a problem for me as I have extra fan headers on my motherboard but for those who don't, it might be a problem. On the other side of the argument, not all cards have onboard fan connectors so it is a moot point on whether it was good judgment on Titan's part for including a three-pin connector. The modders out there can modify the Eagle fan's three-pin connector to fit the video card's two-pin connector but you will lose the ability to monitor RPMs.

The cooler takes up two slots so it might affect your ability to place other expansion cards below it. I did not have the chance to try one of these in SLI but because of its large size, it might hamper the placement of another graphics card below it. Therefore, you might have to settle for using the stock cooler or another cooler on one of your cards.

Here is a shot showing the size of the copper cooler, when installed in the PCI-Express slot and also the backside of the video card showing the spring-loaded nuts. As you can see, I left some expansion slots open to allow for increased airflow.

The installation is identical for the copper-base version of the Eagle. Just to make sure the cooler really is capable of installing in virtually any video card, I installed it without a hitch on my GeForce2 MX, GeForce4 MX 440, and a Radeon 9000 Pro.

Anyway, let's see how these birds perform.

Page 6 : Performance and Testing

The testing process is three-fold. First, we will be measuring and comparing the idle and load temperatures of the Titan Eagles, both copper and aluminum, against the eVGA e-GeForce 6600GT's stock cooler. In addition, we will be comparing the overclockability to see whether the different coolers affect it. Thirdly, on a side note, we will be measuring the cooling power of the aforementioned coolers when used in conjunction with different thermal compounds.

Here is the test setup:

First, we have the run-of-the-mill temperature measurement tests. I installed each cooler one by one with the provided Titan Nano thermal compound. After installation, the computer was left on for 12 hours while running a 3DMark05 loop. Then, it was turned off for 6 hours to allow the thermal compound to cure. After that time, the computer was turned on and left on for 30 minutes before the idle GPU temperature was measured using NVIDIA Monitor. Then, 3DMark05 was run and the maximum load temperature was measured. Both temperatures were charted. Next, the overclockability was tested. This was done using the Forceware x64 81.98 drivers with the Coolbits registry hack that enables overclocking. The manual overclocking option was chosen and the maximum frequencies were determined by clicking the "Detect Optimal Frequencies" button. These processes were repeated for each cooler and for each thermal compound. The gold-colored memory sinks were left on throughout all the tests except for part of the overclockability test, read on for more details. The room temperature was kept at a constant 22°C (72°F) during the tests.

As the results show, the Eagles definitely show a major improvement over the stock cooler. The Eagles are evenly matched in the idle temperature measurement but under load, the copper-base Eagle runs 3°C cooler. Note that this test was run using the included Titan Nano compound; it was used on all the coolers.

The overclockability chart is next. Before installing the memory heatsinks, I had measured the overclockability of the memory to see if they made a difference; this was done with just the stock cooler. The memory heatsinks made no difference, probably because GDDR3 does not generate a great deal of heat; so I just left them on throughout all the tests.

There was no difference in the overclockability of the memory regardless of what cooler was used. However, the Titan Eagles allowed the GPU to be clocked higher than the stock cooler. Once again, the copper-base Eagle beats the aluminum-base, but only by 4MHz. The Eagles allowed the core to be clocked, on average, 26MHz higher than with the stock cooler. The maximum, 571MHz by the Titan Eagle copper, equates to approximately a 14% overclock, which is respectable.

Finally, I ran a series of 3DMark05 tests to see the effectiveness of the different thermal compounds. This was the most grueling part of the entire testing as it required a lot of time; however, I think it was worth the effort. Some of this data is from the Cooler Master NanoFusion review that I did earlier wherein I used PCMark05 instead of 3DMark05 but that should not make a difference as the maximum temperatures were taken in both cases.

The results show that the Titan Nano Silver is a relatively poor performer. Using a better thermal compound such as Arctic Silver 5 or Cooler Master NanoFusion should maximize the effectiveness of the Eagle coolers.

In all, the results were satisfactory and we have enough information to draw conclusions.

Page 7 : Conclusion

This truly universal VGA cooling solution from Titan has surely replaced my stock cooler on my 6600GT. By and large, the Eagle greatly outperforms the stock cooler. Whether or not the copper base makes a difference is subjective and whether you want to spend a little bit more for a slight drop in temperatures is up to you. Overclockers, I'm sure, will opt for the copper base for the increased performance. Normal users will be happy with just the aluminum version. Besides, quiet-cooling enthusiasts will be satisfied with the mere 22dBA of noise put out by the fan. The included memory heatsinks are an added plus, although they don't affect overclockability of the memory; it still can't hurt to have extra cooling for the memory. Also, the universal design of the Eagle is sure to satisfy everybody.

The only major disadvantage, apart from the scarcity of the product, is that the fan has a three-pin connector. Personally, I would have liked a converter that allows it to be plugged into the two-pin fan header found on many video cards. This would allow the motherboard three-pin header to be used for other fans. However, this is not a big deal as anyone with a soldering iron and an extra two-pin connector can make a modification, at the sacrifice of the ability to monitor the fan's RPM.

In any case, whether you choose the copper or the aluminum version, the Eagle is a welcome replacement for the ineffective stock coolers that modern furnaces, I mean, video cards possess. Now that we know Titan has yet another amazing product in its lineup, I am ready to see what they have in store for us next.

Advantages:

• Cools extremely well
• Comes with memory heatsinks
• Whisper-quiet
• Universal design fits almost all video cards

  Disadvantages:

• Bundled thermal compound sports bad performance
• Fan only has a three-pin connector (a converter to two-pin might be useful)
• Not readily available in North America

  Overclockers Online thanks Titan for providing the review samples of the Titan Eagle Universal VGA Cooler.