Thermaltake Mini Typhoon

Mini typhoon, bollocks. It's huge and quiet; not at all like a small typhoon. As a cooler though, it’s very good.

Thermaltake’s idea of a ‘Mini’ Typhoon is akin to that of a mini gun – some marketer had a sick sense of humour somewhere along the line, as there’s very little that’s mini about the darn thing as you lug its 605g weight onto the mounting bracket.

It’s smaller than Gigabyte’s 3D Rocket II but still manages to weigh nearly the same, most likely due to the all copper construction. Interestingly, the fan even manages to hit the same volume as the 3D Rocket at about the same RPM – which is to say, not as quiet as a comatose baby locked in an anechoic chamber sunken to the depths of the Pacific, but definitely tolerable.

Compatibility is great, covering the full socket gamut from the last three years – remember when interchangeable coolers simply didn’t exist? Hoorah for progress!

Three heat pipes sprout out from two sides of the CPU slug, and an oddly shaped, curve-finned 92mm fan is precariously hung from the top with no shroud, making it highly exposed to the outside and just asking for a finger to be whacked sore between some highly rotational plastic.

The lack of potentiometer for variable fan speeds is interesting – although this can be easily solved through aftermarket solutions, we had expected to see something included.

As is now the norm, the copper-finned heatsink itself is raised quite highly from the baseplate via its heat pipes, the shape giving the impression of a Starfleet construction yard just waiting for the original Enterprise to dock for repairs.
In an ambient temperature of 24°C, it pulled a decent 42°C, strangely managing to do it with no blingy lights or glowy bits at all. Astounding.

For $70, Thermaltake has made the Mini Typhoon an excellent performer, allowing us to give it the big Atomic thumbs up for installation in your system. And if all else fails, you can always pull out your model starships, pretend you’re Kirk and make wooshy noises with the best of them.