Titan Fenrir and Skalli CPU Coolers Review

Much like some coolers we have seen in the past, the Fenrir cannot mount a second fan with out some sort of “ghetto mod”. This certainly does put this cooler at a disadvantage as nine times out of ten…two mediocre fans will beat one great fan. On the positive side, the “face” of the Fenrir is not a slab-sided affair and should help not only reduce static pressure but also help channel the air away from the edges and keep it in the fin array (or at least keep it in there long enough to cool the heatpipes).


When we took a look at the base of this cooler we come to the real magic of its design. While it may not be the first large U shaped 8mm heatpipe based designed CPU cooling solution we have looked at, this may be the first that has the makings of a winner. Taken as a whole this makes the Fenrir’s heatpipes so “wide” that Titan has to bend the heatpipes in towards each other to make sure that all are touching the CPU. We have a feeling that this cooler has been designed for larger, higher TDP CPUs such as the Intel i7 series and as such may not be totally effective when paired with a smaller Intel 775 pin style CPU.


Taking a close look at the actual base of this cooler we can see that it is well polished and there are very minor gaps between the aluminum pillars and the flattened heatpipes. The Titan Fenrir’s base is right up there in terms of finishing quality with the Cooler Master Hyper 212+ in this crucial area. In contrast, the Xigmatek Thor’s Hammer had a massive fin array but it lacked a good base and thus was unable to be all it could be.


The 120x25mm fan which accompanies the Fenrir appears to be an “in house” design by Titan which is labelled as TFD-12025H12ZP and is thus a “Z-Axis” high speed 120mm by 25mm thick fan. Titan states it runs between 800-2150RPMs while at its maximum speed it is rated to move 78.41 CFM of air and do it with an impressive 2.794mm (0.11inch) of static pressure. With its ability to go as low as 800rpms or as high as 2150, this (on paper) sounds like one mightily impressive fan which should stay fairly quiet for most of its operating range and only ramp up as necessary.


The “Z-Axis” moniker is a proprietary bearing design so details on it are slim to say the least. However, after touching and listening to it we feel fairly confident in saying this is a twist on the standard Rifle Bearing design. It does exhibit the same “click-clack” sound and feel that we have come to associate with rifle bearing fans, but it does this so subtly that it we may be wrong and it may be just a 2 ball bearing hybrid. While we put very little stock in “MTBF” numbers it is rated for 60,000 hours which does lend a lot of credence to our Rifle Bearing theory.

We should also mention that this fan is not only 4 pin PWM capable, but is also fully sheathed in a nice black nylon braid. This combined with the chromed blades does make for one down right striking and very clean setup.