Titan RTNV TTC-HD90 Hdd Cooler
Testing
Published: 14th March 2008 | Source: Titan | Price: £26.00 (Aprox) |
Testing
To really put the RTNV though it paces I installed (as you saw on the previous page) a Western Digital 150GB Raptor into its tight grip. I felt that this 10,000 RPM drive would be best suited to test the cooler as, due to the extra speed it possess over a regular 7200RPM drive, it kicks out a fair bit of heat. The second reason for choosing this drive is to test the RTNV was the noise output. Again due to its extra speed this drive is loud to say the least. The other bits and pieces used in the review were:
Intel E4300
IP35-Pro
8800GTS 640MB
Lian Li PC-70
Temperatures
Obviously, the most important aspect of any product that advertises itself as a cooler is, simply, how good it is at cooling. So to test this aspect I started by mounting my WD Raptor into a spare 3.5" bay of the PC-70 (the intake fans that blow over the drives were off for the testing).
Unfortunately at this point i hit a bit of a wall. While testing other coolers here at OC3D we've been able to conjure up fantastic graphs depicting Idle and load temperatures, accurately portraying how the cooler in question handles the chip its intended to cool. Unfortunately there's no real way to load up a hard drive that makes a significant change to the temperature. After trying several methods of achieving this, it became obvious that I'd just have to measure the temperature over a time.
In light of this I started the drive from cold, allowed the test system to boot into windows and opened with a long HD tach run. I then allowed the drive 30 minutes to warm up as far as it would it that time, while doing everyday activities on the computer. After this 30 minutes the temperature was recorded.
As you can see the RTNV did exactly what its intended to, and quite successfully at that. achieving roughly a 25% drop in temperature the cooler certainly out performed my expectations.
Noise
Unfortunately I posses no such testing equipment as to provide figures to portray the noise levels of the drive. So you will have to rely on my ear for this test.
The Raptor is a loud drive by anyone standards and coupled into the PC-70s normal 3.5" by it made a constant racket. To make things worse the nose was amplified by the vibrations being transferred to the case.
The RTNV did a fairly good job of quieting the drive down. The constant whirring noise of the drive spinning was lost almost totally and there was no amplification throughout the case. The unit didn't totally silence the drive, as during hard pressed seek times the slight grinding could be made out above the fans. The noise levels emitted from the drive, while not totally silent, were definitely lower. And keeping in mind that the Raptor is extremely loud to start with, I feel that the RTNV could being a normal drive to almost dead silence.
Flip the page for the final conclusion...
Most Recent Comments
Wow, nice review, just had a quick skim through as its not my type of thing but you got cool running drives there. Myn used to hit 50 degrees with a 120mm fan to the side (which mostly air hits the cage) and now i have one going over them as well and its keeps them under 40...
Heh, cheers for getting that up kemp 
.
.NP's dude, good review
Really good review, esp. page 4!
Not worth the £ imo
Not worth the £ imo
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Check out the Titan RTNV
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Review by Ham