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Every now and then something comes along that really wows the hardware community. I remember the amazement when the immense VOS-32 came out, and the similar impact the elusive HP/Panaflo Orb had. This new cooler from Titan is similarly impressive-looking, twin fans blowing in towards a central solid metal body - almost like two Golden Orb's mounted side by side. Our initial sneak pics of it were met with a lot of excitement and I was very pleased to receive the first review unit from CoolPC.com.au.

The unit arrived in quite an attractive box, with full information and installation diagrams on the side - there is no separate instruction sheet. Each fan has it's own 3-pin power connector for monitoring by a motherboard header, and Titan include a converter to connect one to a passthrough molex (HDD power) plug.

click for larger pic	click for larger pic	click for larger pic
long clip end	short clip end	note the solid centre

The unit is made from adonized aluminium, not copper as the colour suggests. The design is fairly simple, a solid body with a radial-type heatsink on each end. This is all connected to a thick plate at the bottom which is the thermal interface to the CPU core. The mounting clip has 3 holes at one end, which might be a welcome sight for people who have snapped a lug off their socket, but the other, longer, end attaches to a single lug.

click for larger pic	click for larger pic
protective sheet	ominously rubbery thermal pad, rough surface

Somewhat ominously, the unit is not supplied with any thermal paste but comes with a rubbery, gooey pink thermal pad on the bottom. I have yet to see a standard thermal pad that was anything other than completely useless and, given this one's similarity to the one found on the Ultra-Cool Twin Fan from months ago, my hopes for it are not high. The surface of the bottom plate is fairly typical, aluminium that's been machined then adonized, leaving small grooves across the entire surface. You could definitely improve things by lapping or sanding this unit, but the clips might get in the way.