SXRguyinMA
03-22-2010, 01:48 PM
Today I'm reviewing the Thermaltake Big Typhoon Pro 14 (http://thermaltakeusa.com/Product.aspx?C=1148&ID=1833).
I purchased this from Performance-PCs (http://www.performance-pcs.com/catalog/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=46_185_533&products_id=26105), and as usual, the product was packaged and shipped VERY quickly. It arrived at my house about 3 1/2 days after I clicked the order button, which is very speedy. They are located in FL, I am in MA.
The Big Typhoon Pro 14 is the successor to the highly acclaimed Big Typhoon (http://www.thermaltakeusa.com/Product.aspx?S=1135&ID=1554). The Pro 14 upgrades you to 6 extra long heatpipes connected to 2 separate aluminum finned coolers. This is covered by a translucent black fan shroud complete with 140mm variable seed fan, and also come with what seems to be now-standard blue LEDs. The heatpipes are arranged n a 6x2 stacked pattern, theoretically increasing surface area, while making the cooler more narrow. Also, its 2 separate coolers now instead of one big one, this is supposed to cool more efficiently.
Specs from Thermaltake's website:
Strong Cooling Structure
- with mirror coating copper base, 6 copper heatpipes,supports up to TDP 130W
14cm Giant Fan with Blue LED
- the downward flow big fan covers more area to help system cooling not only for CPU
VR™ Fan Function
- allows you to adjust the fan speed for your need
Completely Silent
- 14cm fan could make good cooling effect at only low fan speed and generate minimum noise at the same moment
Universal Clip
– for the mainstream PC platforms such as LGA775 and AM2 sockets
Here is a diagram from TT on the airflow and sizing of this unit:
http://thermaltakeusa.com/ProductHtml/image/CL-P0456/cl-p0456_operationdiagram.gif
http://thermaltakeusa.com/ProductHtml/image/CL-P0456/cl-p0456_dimension.gif
Specifications are as follows:
Compatibility:
Intel® Core 2 Extreme (Socket LGA775)
Intel® Core 2 Quad (Socket LGA775)
Intel® Core 2 Duo (Socket LGA775)
Intel® Pentium D (Socket LGA775)
Intel® Pentium 4 (Socket LGA 775)
Intel® Celeron D (Socket LGA775)
Intel® Celeron (Socket LGA775)
AMD® Phenom II X4/X3/X2 (Socket AM3/AM2+)
AMD® Phenom X4/X3 (Socket AM3/AM2+)
AMD® Athlon 64 FX (Socket AM2/939)
AMD® Athlon 64 X2 (Socket AM2/939)
AMD® Athlon 64 (Socket AM2/939/754)
AMD® Sempron (Socket AM2/754)
Heatsink Dimension: 156 (L) x 155 (W) x 128 (H) mm
6.14 (L) x 6.1 (W) x 5.04 (H) inch
Heatsink Material: Aluminum Fins w/ Copper Heatpipes & Base
Heatpipe: Ø 6 mm x 12
Fan Dimension: Ø 140 x 30 mm
Fan Speed: 1000 ~ 1600 RPM
Bearing Type: ----
Noise Level: 16 ~ 24 dBA
Max. Air Flow: 85.76 CFM
Max. Air Pressure: 1.60 mmH2O
LED Fan: Blue LED
Power Connector: 3 Pin
Rated Voltage: 12 V
Started Voltage: 7 V
Rated Current: 0.32 A
Power Input: 3.84 W
MTBF: 50,000 Hours
Weight: 800 g
Here is how it arrived to me. The box itself was huge!
http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l11/sportrider12584/Big%20Tyhoon%20Pro%2014%20Review/1.jpg
http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l11/sportrider12584/Big%20Tyhoon%20Pro%2014%20Review/2.jpg
Open the box and we find the cooler and its contents nicely packaged inside a plastic housing that simply snaps apart.
http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l11/sportrider12584/Big%20Tyhoon%20Pro%2014%20Review/3.jpg
http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l11/sportrider12584/Big%20Tyhoon%20Pro%2014%20Review/4.jpg
Here is the cooler removed from the plastic. The white box includes all the hardware, paperwork etc.
http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l11/sportrider12584/Big%20Tyhoon%20Pro%2014%20Review/5.jpg
Here is the contents of the white box. The fact that this cooler some with mounting brackets for several different sockets makes it very appealing. It's pretty much the norm with most mainstream coolers you'll find these days though.
http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l11/sportrider12584/Big%20Tyhoon%20Pro%2014%20Review/7.jpg
Here is a shot of the fan speed controller that comes with the fan. They say you can mount it externally, but the leads for it are rather short IMHO. More on that later.
http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l11/sportrider12584/Big%20Tyhoon%20Pro%2014%20Review/6.jpg
The base is highly polished and comes with a protective film applied. Once the film is removed you get this:
http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l11/sportrider12584/Big%20Tyhoon%20Pro%2014%20Review/8.jpg
My board uses socket 775, so I used the 775 brackets that came in the hardware kit. There are 2 C-shaped brackets that get screwed to the base of the cooler, then those go through the motherboard. The only issue I found with this is that the 4 screw holes in the brackets are not precise. You have to loosely mount them, then mount the cooler to your board to get the screws to line up with the holes in your board, then go back and tighten the bracket screws. It takes some fiddling to get right, and an extra pair of hands makes things a LOT easier. Once you get it mounted it looks like this:
http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l11/sportrider12584/Big%20Tyhoon%20Pro%2014%20Review/9.jpg
http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l11/sportrider12584/Big%20Tyhoon%20Pro%2014%20Review/10.jpg
http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l11/sportrider12584/Big%20Tyhoon%20Pro%2014%20Review/11.jpg
Yea, its pretty big. But on the other hand, if it were a vertical style 140mm cooler it would be a lot taller, albeit more narrow. The orientation of the unit allows for air passing through the heatsink to also cool you NB/SN coolers and memory as well, which is a nice feature.
http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l11/sportrider12584/Big%20Tyhoon%20Pro%2014%20Review/12.jpg
This shot shows just how close it came to one of the factory coolers on my motherboard:
http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l11/sportrider12584/Big%20Tyhoon%20Pro%2014%20Review/13.jpg
Here is another shot of the fan VR control. Notice how short the pigtail is on this. It'd be hard to mount it anywhere externally, meaning you need to pop off your side panel to adjust the fan speed. Or unplug it altogether and use a 3rd party fan controller like I did. (unplugging the VR control defaults to cooler to max RPM.)
http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l11/sportrider12584/Big%20Tyhoon%20Pro%2014%20Review/14.jpg
Another annoyance (for those of us that don't have MB trays with cutouts for cooler mountings) is that its hard to get the the top two motherboard screws when installing the motherboard back into the case. I ended up using a stubby screwdriver to get in to the rear one, but it was tight.
http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l11/sportrider12584/Big%20Tyhoon%20Pro%2014%20Review/16.jpg
Now luckily I had a large case that this got installed in, I use the Thermaltake Armor (the original one, before the 250m side panel fan.)
Here are some shots showing how close it is to inner fan mountings. The fans shown are standard 120mm fans.
Mounted with no rear panel fan:
http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l11/sportrider12584/Big%20Tyhoon%20Pro%2014%20Review/15.jpg
Tight clearance between it and a rear fan:
http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l11/sportrider12584/Big%20Tyhoon%20Pro%2014%20Review/17.jpg
And looking from the front of the case shows the clearance between it and a 120mm side panel fan I put in this case myself.
http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l11/sportrider12584/Big%20Tyhoon%20Pro%2014%20Review/18.jpg
http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l11/sportrider12584/Big%20Tyhoon%20Pro%2014%20Review/19.jpg
Now that its installed, lets test it! On low the cooler is nearly silent. On high it makes some noise, but not nearly as much as the VR 120mm fan that was on my radiator did on high.
I replaced my water cooling system with this cooler, and ran the latest version of OCCT on normal, mixed mode for 30 mins. I ran it with the radiator fan on its lowest setting, then on its highest (sounded like a small jet engine in my case!) I then did the same with the Big Typhoon Pro, but fan speed was adjusted from 40% to 100% with my NZXT Sentry 2 Fan controller (http://www.performance-pcs.com/catalog/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=26057). Fan speed on the 120mm rad fan was controlled with the built-in PCI bracket controller that came with it.
Test System:
Abit AW9D-MAX (http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Abit/AW9D-MAX)
Pentium D 930, no overclock
2x Radeon HD3870x2 in Crossfire
6GB PNY DDR2-800 (2x2GB, 2x1GB)
Thermaltake Armor case
Ultra X3 800 (http://www.overclockersclub.com/reviews/ultra_x3_800watt_modular/)-watt modular power supply
Water cooling system:
Radiator, fan and waterblock from Thermaltake Bigwater 735 (http://www.thermaltakeusa.com/Product.aspx?C=1160&ID=1618)
Thermaltake P500 Pump (http://www.thermaltakeusa.com/Product.aspx?C=1162&ID=1639), no speed control, 12V only
Thermaltake Aquabay M1, M3 and M5
1/4" Thermaltake compression fittings and 1/4" Thermaltake UV tubing
Watercooling, fan on low:
http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l11/sportrider12584/Big%20Tyhoon%20Pro%2014%20Review/21.png
Watercooling, fan on high:
http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l11/sportrider12584/Big%20Tyhoon%20Pro%2014%20Review/20.png
Big Typhoon Pro 14 on low (40% according to NZXT Sentry 2)
http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l11/sportrider12584/Big%20Tyhoon%20Pro%2014%20Review/22.png
Big Typhoon Pro 14 on high (100% according to NZXT Sentry 2)
http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l11/sportrider12584/Big%20Tyhoon%20Pro%2014%20Review/23.png
It seems to perform almost as well as my watercooling setup did. The difference between low and high didn't seem to make much of a difference though. They both maxed out @ approx. 47ºC, but with the fan on low it stayed there more, and with it on high it seemed to fluctuate more.
It matched the performance of the watercooling on low, but got beat by it on high (not that anyone would really be running that watercooling fan on high all the time, unless the computer was in a different room or they had the sound cranked up.)
This cooler can be found in the $60-$70 range depending on retailer and shipping.
Looks - 5/5
Performance - 5/5
Installation - 3/5
Price - 5/5
Overall I give it a 4 out of 5.
I would have given it 5/5 if the mounting brackets were easier to mount, and if the VR fan leads were long enough to either reach a PCI slot or front panel.
Looks gets a 5 because it is one nice looking cooler.
Performance gets a 5 because it equaled the performance of my water cooling system. Although I haven't tested many other air coolers to compare this to.
Price gets a 5 because for the $65 I paid for it from Performance-PCs, its far cheaper than the watercooling system I had, and yielded the same results.
I purchased this from Performance-PCs (http://www.performance-pcs.com/catalog/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=46_185_533&products_id=26105), and as usual, the product was packaged and shipped VERY quickly. It arrived at my house about 3 1/2 days after I clicked the order button, which is very speedy. They are located in FL, I am in MA.
The Big Typhoon Pro 14 is the successor to the highly acclaimed Big Typhoon (http://www.thermaltakeusa.com/Product.aspx?S=1135&ID=1554). The Pro 14 upgrades you to 6 extra long heatpipes connected to 2 separate aluminum finned coolers. This is covered by a translucent black fan shroud complete with 140mm variable seed fan, and also come with what seems to be now-standard blue LEDs. The heatpipes are arranged n a 6x2 stacked pattern, theoretically increasing surface area, while making the cooler more narrow. Also, its 2 separate coolers now instead of one big one, this is supposed to cool more efficiently.
Specs from Thermaltake's website:
Strong Cooling Structure
- with mirror coating copper base, 6 copper heatpipes,supports up to TDP 130W
14cm Giant Fan with Blue LED
- the downward flow big fan covers more area to help system cooling not only for CPU
VR™ Fan Function
- allows you to adjust the fan speed for your need
Completely Silent
- 14cm fan could make good cooling effect at only low fan speed and generate minimum noise at the same moment
Universal Clip
– for the mainstream PC platforms such as LGA775 and AM2 sockets
Here is a diagram from TT on the airflow and sizing of this unit:
http://thermaltakeusa.com/ProductHtml/image/CL-P0456/cl-p0456_operationdiagram.gif
http://thermaltakeusa.com/ProductHtml/image/CL-P0456/cl-p0456_dimension.gif
Specifications are as follows:
Compatibility:
Intel® Core 2 Extreme (Socket LGA775)
Intel® Core 2 Quad (Socket LGA775)
Intel® Core 2 Duo (Socket LGA775)
Intel® Pentium D (Socket LGA775)
Intel® Pentium 4 (Socket LGA 775)
Intel® Celeron D (Socket LGA775)
Intel® Celeron (Socket LGA775)
AMD® Phenom II X4/X3/X2 (Socket AM3/AM2+)
AMD® Phenom X4/X3 (Socket AM3/AM2+)
AMD® Athlon 64 FX (Socket AM2/939)
AMD® Athlon 64 X2 (Socket AM2/939)
AMD® Athlon 64 (Socket AM2/939/754)
AMD® Sempron (Socket AM2/754)
Heatsink Dimension: 156 (L) x 155 (W) x 128 (H) mm
6.14 (L) x 6.1 (W) x 5.04 (H) inch
Heatsink Material: Aluminum Fins w/ Copper Heatpipes & Base
Heatpipe: Ø 6 mm x 12
Fan Dimension: Ø 140 x 30 mm
Fan Speed: 1000 ~ 1600 RPM
Bearing Type: ----
Noise Level: 16 ~ 24 dBA
Max. Air Flow: 85.76 CFM
Max. Air Pressure: 1.60 mmH2O
LED Fan: Blue LED
Power Connector: 3 Pin
Rated Voltage: 12 V
Started Voltage: 7 V
Rated Current: 0.32 A
Power Input: 3.84 W
MTBF: 50,000 Hours
Weight: 800 g
Here is how it arrived to me. The box itself was huge!
http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l11/sportrider12584/Big%20Tyhoon%20Pro%2014%20Review/1.jpg
http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l11/sportrider12584/Big%20Tyhoon%20Pro%2014%20Review/2.jpg
Open the box and we find the cooler and its contents nicely packaged inside a plastic housing that simply snaps apart.
http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l11/sportrider12584/Big%20Tyhoon%20Pro%2014%20Review/3.jpg
http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l11/sportrider12584/Big%20Tyhoon%20Pro%2014%20Review/4.jpg
Here is the cooler removed from the plastic. The white box includes all the hardware, paperwork etc.
http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l11/sportrider12584/Big%20Tyhoon%20Pro%2014%20Review/5.jpg
Here is the contents of the white box. The fact that this cooler some with mounting brackets for several different sockets makes it very appealing. It's pretty much the norm with most mainstream coolers you'll find these days though.
http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l11/sportrider12584/Big%20Tyhoon%20Pro%2014%20Review/7.jpg
Here is a shot of the fan speed controller that comes with the fan. They say you can mount it externally, but the leads for it are rather short IMHO. More on that later.
http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l11/sportrider12584/Big%20Tyhoon%20Pro%2014%20Review/6.jpg
The base is highly polished and comes with a protective film applied. Once the film is removed you get this:
http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l11/sportrider12584/Big%20Tyhoon%20Pro%2014%20Review/8.jpg
My board uses socket 775, so I used the 775 brackets that came in the hardware kit. There are 2 C-shaped brackets that get screwed to the base of the cooler, then those go through the motherboard. The only issue I found with this is that the 4 screw holes in the brackets are not precise. You have to loosely mount them, then mount the cooler to your board to get the screws to line up with the holes in your board, then go back and tighten the bracket screws. It takes some fiddling to get right, and an extra pair of hands makes things a LOT easier. Once you get it mounted it looks like this:
http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l11/sportrider12584/Big%20Tyhoon%20Pro%2014%20Review/9.jpg
http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l11/sportrider12584/Big%20Tyhoon%20Pro%2014%20Review/10.jpg
http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l11/sportrider12584/Big%20Tyhoon%20Pro%2014%20Review/11.jpg
Yea, its pretty big. But on the other hand, if it were a vertical style 140mm cooler it would be a lot taller, albeit more narrow. The orientation of the unit allows for air passing through the heatsink to also cool you NB/SN coolers and memory as well, which is a nice feature.
http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l11/sportrider12584/Big%20Tyhoon%20Pro%2014%20Review/12.jpg
This shot shows just how close it came to one of the factory coolers on my motherboard:
http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l11/sportrider12584/Big%20Tyhoon%20Pro%2014%20Review/13.jpg
Here is another shot of the fan VR control. Notice how short the pigtail is on this. It'd be hard to mount it anywhere externally, meaning you need to pop off your side panel to adjust the fan speed. Or unplug it altogether and use a 3rd party fan controller like I did. (unplugging the VR control defaults to cooler to max RPM.)
http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l11/sportrider12584/Big%20Tyhoon%20Pro%2014%20Review/14.jpg
Another annoyance (for those of us that don't have MB trays with cutouts for cooler mountings) is that its hard to get the the top two motherboard screws when installing the motherboard back into the case. I ended up using a stubby screwdriver to get in to the rear one, but it was tight.
http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l11/sportrider12584/Big%20Tyhoon%20Pro%2014%20Review/16.jpg
Now luckily I had a large case that this got installed in, I use the Thermaltake Armor (the original one, before the 250m side panel fan.)
Here are some shots showing how close it is to inner fan mountings. The fans shown are standard 120mm fans.
Mounted with no rear panel fan:
http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l11/sportrider12584/Big%20Tyhoon%20Pro%2014%20Review/15.jpg
Tight clearance between it and a rear fan:
http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l11/sportrider12584/Big%20Tyhoon%20Pro%2014%20Review/17.jpg
And looking from the front of the case shows the clearance between it and a 120mm side panel fan I put in this case myself.
http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l11/sportrider12584/Big%20Tyhoon%20Pro%2014%20Review/18.jpg
http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l11/sportrider12584/Big%20Tyhoon%20Pro%2014%20Review/19.jpg
Now that its installed, lets test it! On low the cooler is nearly silent. On high it makes some noise, but not nearly as much as the VR 120mm fan that was on my radiator did on high.
I replaced my water cooling system with this cooler, and ran the latest version of OCCT on normal, mixed mode for 30 mins. I ran it with the radiator fan on its lowest setting, then on its highest (sounded like a small jet engine in my case!) I then did the same with the Big Typhoon Pro, but fan speed was adjusted from 40% to 100% with my NZXT Sentry 2 Fan controller (http://www.performance-pcs.com/catalog/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=26057). Fan speed on the 120mm rad fan was controlled with the built-in PCI bracket controller that came with it.
Test System:
Abit AW9D-MAX (http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Abit/AW9D-MAX)
Pentium D 930, no overclock
2x Radeon HD3870x2 in Crossfire
6GB PNY DDR2-800 (2x2GB, 2x1GB)
Thermaltake Armor case
Ultra X3 800 (http://www.overclockersclub.com/reviews/ultra_x3_800watt_modular/)-watt modular power supply
Water cooling system:
Radiator, fan and waterblock from Thermaltake Bigwater 735 (http://www.thermaltakeusa.com/Product.aspx?C=1160&ID=1618)
Thermaltake P500 Pump (http://www.thermaltakeusa.com/Product.aspx?C=1162&ID=1639), no speed control, 12V only
Thermaltake Aquabay M1, M3 and M5
1/4" Thermaltake compression fittings and 1/4" Thermaltake UV tubing
Watercooling, fan on low:
http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l11/sportrider12584/Big%20Tyhoon%20Pro%2014%20Review/21.png
Watercooling, fan on high:
http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l11/sportrider12584/Big%20Tyhoon%20Pro%2014%20Review/20.png
Big Typhoon Pro 14 on low (40% according to NZXT Sentry 2)
http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l11/sportrider12584/Big%20Tyhoon%20Pro%2014%20Review/22.png
Big Typhoon Pro 14 on high (100% according to NZXT Sentry 2)
http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l11/sportrider12584/Big%20Tyhoon%20Pro%2014%20Review/23.png
It seems to perform almost as well as my watercooling setup did. The difference between low and high didn't seem to make much of a difference though. They both maxed out @ approx. 47ºC, but with the fan on low it stayed there more, and with it on high it seemed to fluctuate more.
It matched the performance of the watercooling on low, but got beat by it on high (not that anyone would really be running that watercooling fan on high all the time, unless the computer was in a different room or they had the sound cranked up.)
This cooler can be found in the $60-$70 range depending on retailer and shipping.
Looks - 5/5
Performance - 5/5
Installation - 3/5
Price - 5/5
Overall I give it a 4 out of 5.
I would have given it 5/5 if the mounting brackets were easier to mount, and if the VR fan leads were long enough to either reach a PCI slot or front panel.
Looks gets a 5 because it is one nice looking cooler.
Performance gets a 5 because it equaled the performance of my water cooling system. Although I haven't tested many other air coolers to compare this to.
Price gets a 5 because for the $65 I paid for it from Performance-PCs, its far cheaper than the watercooling system I had, and yielded the same results.