Heat pipe based coolers seem to be all the rage now a days. This is for good reason. Heat pipes are very effective in moving heat from one spot to another, thus almost sucking the heat from your cpu. Titan has recently released their Vanessa line of heat sinks that utilize heat pipes. The S-Type that we have for review today is their smaller of the two, utilizing one 92mm fan. The S-Type utilizes 6 heat pipes. and supports multiple current platforms. So let's take a closer look at the Titan Vanessa S-Type.

Specifications

Total Dimensions	92x116x144mm
Fan Dimensions	92x92x25mm
Rated Voltage	12VDC
	Min	Max
Rated Speed	1200RPM	2400RPM
Airflow	21.96CFM	46.14CFM
Static Pressure	0.75mmH2O	2.93mmH2O
Noise Level	<20dBA	<29dBA

Titan Vanessa S-Type
Titan packages the Vanessa cooler in a very nice high quality box. The front of the box features a large picture of "Vanessa" with a smaller picture of the actual heat sink itself. The rear of the package is a little more informative. The features are outlined, as well as the specifications. A large picture of the S-Type is shown, with arrows pointing to the main features.

Inside the box is the aluminum heat pipe cooler, the fan controller, Metallic fan, and the accessory box. The shots below give you a bit of a grasp on how large this cooler is.

Inside the accessory box is a lot of extra pieces. The Titan Vanessa S-Type is a universal heat sink, so all the brackets are included for the popular processors. Also included in the box is the hardware required for installation. Titan also includes a pci back plate for an additional option in mounting the fan cooler. This will be especially useful for those of us who have cases with doors on the front where the knobs of a rheobus just do not fit. Titan includes a very detailed full color instruction sheet.

Titan includes a single fan controller along with the heat sink. The front fascia is brushed aluminum. It is very plain, but is designed for one purpose which it does successfully. Shown in the picture is the controller with the extensions mounted to it. The extensions just help in mounting the controller in cases with limited screw holes.

Now that the accessories are handled let's take a look at the unit itself. The top of the cooler has a large sticker attached with the "Vanessa" figure on it. It also really defines the butterfly shape of the cooler. The tops of the heat pipes are capped with rubber nubs. The cooler follows the typical heat pipe design, it has six pipes coming up from the base, three on each side. As they progress up the cooler they are surrounded by a series of metal fins, in the S-Type these fins are aluminum. In the final picture you can get an overall view of the S-Type. One thing to note is the small aluminum point in the top center of the base. I will mention this later on...

The base of the S-Type came covered in a protective sticker. Printed on the sticker are instructions which I hope are obvious for every one... Under that sticker is on of the best finished bases I have seen yet. The base of the S-Type is completely mirrored as shown in the picture. No lapping is required on this heat sink at all.

The fan mounts to the S-Type with a metal clip. It is a simple installation that can and should be performed with the heat sink already mounted in the case. The S-Type only supports one 92mm fan, which although better for space, could hurt it's performance. Titan has pre-installed a ring grill on the fan, my fingers will thank them later.

Installation
Installation is as straight forward procedure when using the Vanessa S-Type with either a AMD64 or a Pentium 4/Celeron setup. Titan includes the needed brackets to mount the heat sink using the four holes around the socket. You would simply have to remove the plastic heat sink bracket that comes stock on your board, and mount in the new metal socket which allows you to mount the Vanessa S-Type. Installation on a Socket 462 based board is not as simple. Titan includes a clip to mount the heat sink to the socket. Normally this is an easy procedure, but because the clip is not attached to the heat sink in any way (besides the little nub shown above) it can make it a difficult task. Added to this, the cooler is quite large, and I would be more comfortable if Titan utilized the four holes around the socket like the other platforms. Once you have the Vanessa S-Type mounted you just need to clip on the fan and make the electrical connections. You are now ready to go.

In my installation I did not run into any fitment issues. The Titan Vanessa S-Type slide right into place, and still left adequate clearance around the socket. You may want to check and make sure it will fit in your installation before purchase as this is a large heat sink.

Testing
Testing was performed on the following system:
AMD Athlon 1700+ @ 12x166 (1992Mhz)
Titan Vanessa S-Type with 92mm Fan
Aerocool DP-102 with 2 x 80mm Fan
Asus A7N8X-Deluxe Rev 2.0
512MB Corsair PC4000
ATI Radeon X800 256MB
Western Digital 250GB
Thermalrock Circle Case
Windows XP Pro SP2

All results were acquired using Motherboard Monitor. Temperatures were taken at two points, full load for at least 20 minutes, and idle for at least 20 minutes. Arctic Silver 5 was used as the thermal paste in both tests to keep the setup as constant as possible. Shown below are the results.

	Case	CPU Socket	CPU Diode
Aerocool - Full Load	28	37	37
Aerocool - Idle	25	34	32
Titan - Full Load	29	39	37
Titan - Idle	29	35	31

As you can see from the results the Titan did extremely well. It kept up with the best heat sink I own, and did so in a quieter manner. Titan seems to have made an excellent cooler.

Conclusion
There is not really much to conclude about the Titan Vanessa S-Type. This heat sink performs on par with the best heat sink I own (and our best of 2003 award winner). Any heat sink that will keep a chip at under 40C full load makes it into my good books. This really speaks to the performance orientation of the Vanessa S-Type. The S-Type also came to me with the absolute best looking base that I have seen yet on a heat sink. This base takes polished to the next level. The S-Type uses a universal design, allowing you the ability to mount it to any of the recent form factors. This gives you more options when you plan to upgrade your system, and will cut down on the costs. The 92mm fan that is included with the Titan S-Type is very quite. I did not notice any noise besides the usual hum in my room with this product installed. If you find you need something a little different, you still have the ability to mount any standard 92mm fan if you need to.

The one annoyance I had with the S-Type was the Socket 462 mounting bracket design. I found it to be finicky and hard to install. I just found it strange that with the heat sink being as large as it is, that Titan would not utilize the four mounting holes around the socket like they had for the other platforms. Even if Titan redesigned the clip to have a larger area to push down it it would make it better. Once installed it is secure and fits but just getting it there can be annoying and difficult. One final thing that I would have liked to see was the ability to mount a second 92mm fan to the heat sink. In my past experience with the DP-102, adding a second fan to this style of heat sink can help the cooling performance. Although the Vanessa S-Type did excellent with just the one fan, you have to wonder how it would do with two...

Pros: Great performance, quiet, supports all recent desktop platforms, mirrored base

Cons: Socket 462 mounting bracket, no support for a second fan

Overall: Overall the Titan Vanessa S-Type is a great heat sink. Performance is on par with other similar heat sinks, and the noise wise it is very quiet. If you don't have a Socket 462, mounting will be a breeze, and the included fan controller gives you that much more control of the performance.

If you have any comments, be sure to hit us up in our forums.

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