TEC technology has been around for quite some time but it really hasn’t just been a feasible solution to cooling a hot CPU due to the energy requirements and the actual cooling per watt ratio just isn’t really worth it. With CPUs just running hotter and hotter there is a need for something to cool them, and sometimes people just don’t want to take the dive into water cooling. Titan has come up with a nice solution to some of these problems with their new Amanda TEC CPU cooler, that is what I have for review today. I can can tell you that it performs very well even when the CPU is overclocked by over 1000Mhz, you’ll have to read on to learn some more about the Titan Amanda…
Titan Amanda TEC CPU Cooler (Intel 775)
Reviewed by: Kristofer Brozio AkA Dracos
Sponsor: Titan
Tech Specs,Features or the Basic Info:
Titan Amanda TEC CPU Cooler for Intel 775
Model: TTC-NP04TZ (RB) for Intel LGA 775 (socket 775)
Features:
– Newest cooling design by combining TEC (Thermo-Electric Cooler) and heatpipe solution
– Smart cooling to maintain optimal temperatures for the CPU without condensation issues
– International patents, including USA, Germany, China, etc.
– Extremely low thermal resistance provides utmost cooling performance
– Super silent cooling operation
– Safety alarm system in case of the unlikely situation of the cooler malfunction
Notice:
Please note that the Amanda TEC cooler is especially designed for overclocking and high power consumption CPUs which produce a lot of heat, and it’s able to cool the CPU temperature significantly. For some low power consumption CPUs, the temperature difference will not be so significant when using the Amanda TEC cooler.
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Specifications:
Cooler Dimension 140 x 95 x 170mm
Thermoelectric Chip 40 x40 mm / 12V DC
Power Consumption:
0% Loading / 5w
50% Loading / 28w
100% Loading / 50w
Heat Sink Material: 4 heatpipes,Aluminium Fins & Copper Base
Heat Sink Dimension: 90 x 90 x 160mm (D x W x H)
Fan Dimension: 92 x 92 x 32mm
Fan Voltage Rating: 12V DC
Fan Speed & Noise Level: 1500RPM / <20 dBA
Weight: 1035g (with tow Fans)
Thermal Resistance: 0.12 -0.15(C/W)
Control Interface System: PCI Card
TEC Temperature Response Time: < 1 second
Power Input: 12V DC / 5A
Controller Dimensions: 136 x 121 x 21 mm ( D x W x H )
Weight: 50g
LED Indicators on PCI Card:
Orange Light: It means the Thermoelectric Chip is working. (When the temperature is over 25c, the TEC is working)
Red Light: When the CPU temperature is over 70c or less than 15c, the red LED light will blink and system will send the alarm.
Green Light: It means system power has already been started.
A Better Look at Things
:
I’m very impressed by the packaging, it is very professional, and well designed. Titan even included a nice built in carry handle. On the front there is a nice window so you can see the Amanda logo and anime girl through it.
The back and sides have tech specs and lots of information regarding the Titan Amanda TEC CPU Cooler.
The Amanda is packaged very well,when you first open the box you are greeted with another little box that contains the installation parts, under that is the Amanda itself.
Taking the Amanda out of the box my first thought was about just how large this CPU cooler is, here is a picture I took of the Amanda next to the stock Intel CPU cooler to give you an idea of how immense the Amanda is.
The Amanda is basically a finned heatpipe CPU cooler with a shroud over it with fans attached on both sides creating a push-pull effect with the air to cool more effectively. This setup is utilized by many liquid coolers with their radiators to increase the performance, I myself have done it this way as well so I can attest to the performance increase you get with the push-pull setup.
A Better Look at Things
Continued:
The shroud on the Amanda is metal which further adds to the overall weight of this CPU cooler, plastic might have been a better choice, but structurally I can see why they would use metal.
The fans are nice looking 80mm fans with chrome styled blades, they both run at 1500 RPMs, which can be loud in some configurations but according to the specs they run at a mere 20 dBA.
The base of the Amanda is where you will find the TEC, it is essentially between two heatsinks. You’ll notice from this picture that the Amanda is really made up of two heatpipe CPU coolers, one is to help draw heat from the CPU, the other is to draw heat from the hot side of the TEC.
Here is another close up shot of the TEC itself and the system of heatpipes used to cool everything, along with all the wires required for operations.
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A Better Look at Things
Continued:
The actual base of the Titan Amanda that touches your CPU is fairly well finished, some fine machining marks are seen, but overall it is not bad.
Here’s a couple overview shots of the Titan Amanda before we move into what was in the accessory box.
There were lots of things in the accessory box, including the instruction manual.
Titan included an interesting support system to help hold the weight of the Amanda, it is essentially an adjustable cabling system that attached to the Amanda and a free part of your case.
Included also is a heavyweight motherboard backplate, Titan Nano Grease thermal compound, mounting screws and power cables.
A Better Look at Things
Continued:
The last thing we will look at before we get into the installation is the PCI slot card, that is essentially the power source for the Amanda TEC. The PCI card does connect into a PCI slot so you have to have a free one available to use the Amanda. On the card we find three power connectors, a standard Molex, and two that are specific to the Amanda that use the cables you saw earlier.
The Amanda has a built in speaker for the alarm should something malfunction, it will alert you audibly.
There are three LEDs on the PCI card, green, red and orange. Green means power, red means the CPU is over 70C or below 15C, and orange means the TEC chip is working.
I have to admit I was a bit excited about getting this for review, I have had a bit of experience with TECs in the past but I wasn’t very impressed by what I saw. Of course I really hadn’t designed a CPU cooler around the TEC wither so that could be part of the reason.
The Titan Amanda is impressive to look at, not only its’ size but just how it is designed. You can really tell by looking at it that a lot of work went into the design process, and the manufacturing as well.
Installation, Testing and Comparison
Ok, onto the fun part, honestly I always hate having to take the motherboard out of the case to install a CPU cooler, it just requires so much more work and time, but there are times like these that it is just something that has to be done. I’m not going to say the installation process for the Amanda is easy, but it wasn’t quite as hard as I though it was going to be. You’ll notice in the picture that I did not use the extra cables for mounting the Amanda, it felt very stable to me and I did not feel like they were needed, but others may want to use them, it all depends on the motherboard I guess.
Using the PCI Card adds extra wires to your system, there isn’t much of a way to hide them either, you just have to re-route them in some way or another.
The Amanda to so tall that I came across no clearance issues with the components on the motherboard, but if there had been a side case fan, as lots of cases have, that would have been a problem as the Amanda comes very close to the side panel.
in the following picture you can see just how close the Titan Amanda comes to the 80mm exhaust fan that I have installed, close but still more than enough room.
Installation, Testing and Comparison Continued:
Ok, now for Testing of the Titan Amanda. Since this is an Intel 775 CPU cooler I will be using my ASUS P5WD2-E motherboard with my Intel P4 Cedar Mill CPU. I also have one hard drive, one dvd/rw drive and a PowerColor X1300 PCIE video card installed along with 1 gig of Corsair XMS2, and two case fans.
To get the temps for idle I let the system just sit doing basically nothing for 30 minutes, to get the temps for load I ran Prime95 for the same amount of time. The ambient temperature during testing was approximately 27C. I also wanted to check and see what the wattages were as well for the system while the Amanda was in there, I used a Seasonic Power Angel to get the measurement, without the Amanda in my system it pulled about 185watts at idle.
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While the Amanda was in my system at stock of 3.0Ghz the system was pulling 255Watts, when I overclocked to 4.0Ghz the Power Angel reported my system was pulling about 290Watts. According to the specs we saw earlier, the Amanda is only supposed to be pulling about 5 watts at 0% load, 28Watts at 50% load and 50Watts at 100% load.
Let’s see 290-185=105 watts. Hmm, but that is with the system overclocked and overvoltaged as well. If we go back and look at the system running in stock mode the Amanda was pulling 70Watts, so something is a bit off here. The Titan Amanda was pulling 70Watts at essentially 0% load, where it was supposed to be pulling only 5Watts. What exactly Titan considers load I don’t quite know that either. Very curious as to just how they came up with those wattage figures when mine are so far off, as far as I know my Seasonic Power Angel is very accurate, or at least it can’t be THAT inaccurate.
Well that aside let’s check out how it performs, I’ve included some other CPU coolers, air and water, as well for comparison, and I was able to achieve a stable overclock of 1200Mhz with the Titan Amanda TEC Cooler.
We can see from the results of my testing that the Amanda evens beats the Thermaltake Rhythm water cooling setup, and is the best over all at stock cooling. Even when pushing the CPU and taking the voltage from 1.275 up to 1.425 to get the system stable at over 4Ghz the Amanda does a great job of cooling the CPU.
To note is that the Amanda is a bit on the loud side, at least louder than I like my system to be, others may not care as much as me, but I like silence.
Summary:
The performance of the Titan Amanda is excellent but it is at a cost, with my system overclocked it was pulling 105 watts, granted some of that is from the overclocking process but I have to belive that the Amanda is pulling more wattage than the specs say it should. Pulling an extra 105 watts on my system is not that bad, but if you have a high end system with high power demands that extra 105 watts just could make or break your system. Even having the system at idle with everything at stock with essentially 0% load on the CPU the Amanda my system was pulling 70 more watts than without the Amanda installed. The high wattage is also to be expected from a TEC, so there is not much of a surprise here, the Amanda could have gotten a perfect score were it not for such high power demands.
DragonSteelMods gives the Titan Amanda TEC CPU Cooler a 4 out of 5 score.
Pros:
-Excellent cooling
-Great for overclocking
-Impressive overall
Cons:
-Massive
-Pulls a lot of power
I would like to thank Titan for the chance to review their products.
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