With the range of copper heatsinks, fan heatsinks, pin-based heatsink and everything short of cold fusion cooled heatsinks entering store shelves these days is always a bit of a surprise to see a good ol´ simple design like the TTC-D4T. Based around a rather uncluttered fin design, and pared with a 25mm thick 60mm fan, the TTC-D4T caught our eye on a recent trip the computer store. The cooling system is reliant upon twelve 32mm tall fins that are 26mm in width. Except for the clip channel which splits the heatsink into two fin sections the heatsink is one solid unit. It kind of reminded us of the rather well performing Thermaltake Volcano II.

There are a couple of factors concerning the manufacturing of the Titan which could be implicating negatively on the performance characteristics of the heatsink. First off, the machining process to remove material for the fan causes the fins closest to the central core to be bent slightly. The end result of this "skewing" is the closing off of the region directly behind the fan blades. There is no doubt that constricting the spacing between the fins in this region would have and adverse affect on the airflow over the remaining surface area.

In any regard, the KA06 seems to offer less than ideal temperature performance for its surface area and make-up. The most obvious explanation for this lack of cooling prowess is poor thermal conductivity between the aluminum fins and the copper base plate. Ideally the copper plate should distribute the thermal energy from the core of the processor out towards the edges. It may in fact be doing just that, but if the aluminum fins cannot make proper contact with the copper then that heat energy will not be effectively dispersed to the surrounding environment. Bottom line, the KA06 achieved only average performance.