Thermaltake Water 2.0 Extreme Unboxing
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2013-05-07
·
1,629 words · ~8 min read
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NVIDIA. Welcome to my unboxing and first look at the Thermaltch Water 2.0
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Extreme. This is different from the Big Water SE that was my first water cooling
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kit. So, I'm actually going to take the approach with this unboxing of comparing
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the Water 2.0 no extreme to how far
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Thermaltch has come in like the last 8
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years in terms of their pre-done liquid cooling kits. Cuz let me tell you, the
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Big Water SE was no easier to install
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than a custom loop. It didn't really perform that well, but it looked really
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cool. It used quarterinch tubing, so it was like not performance parts. I mean,
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the water block on that thing was like it had a channel like this, and that was
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like it. It was still way better than air though. And it got me. It was like
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sort of like that first hit that gets you into something like um
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school, which is obviously what we were talking about. Um so let's have a look
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at what Thermaltch has to say for themselves first. Top-of-the-line liquid
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cooler equipped with power and performance. No refills needed. there
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advantage over big water SE which came with like jugs of coolant and you had to
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actually like fill it and then drain it and then refill it and top it up and
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stuff like that. 240 mm radiator doubles the cooling surface. I can tell you it
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more than doubles the cooling ability versus the big water SE because that one
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was 120 mil and it had the worst radiator design I've probably ever seen
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in a liquid cooling unit. I'm not trying to rag on Thermaltch. an old product at
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this point, but man, that thing had one tube that went through like this. So,
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the flow restriction of that radiator was terrible. It also had like one of
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the densest fin arrays that I've ever seen. And this one does not have that.
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Universal socket compatibility. Okay, that the big water had, but the mounting
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mechanism wasn't too great. Uh, high performance copper base plate
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accelerates the heat conductivity. High reliability, lowrofile pump based on an
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asetch design, so you know it's not going to die or anything like that. Pre-filled coolant reduces the liquid
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replenishment hassle. Low evaporation tube reduces the loss of coolant and the high-tech sealed circulation system
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prevents leaking issues. Double okay high reliability pump, high efficiency
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radiator, powerful cooling fans, there are two, and fan control software
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included, which is nice to see. Inside the box, we have a manual, which is in a
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bajillion different languages, including
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moa or I don't know, my French is kind
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of rusty. Um, fan control software
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version 1.3. Very nice to see Thermaltch
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fans. Thermaltch's been doing fans for a while, so I figured they probably know a
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thing or two about it. Uh PWM fans, so
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PWM control is always nice to have, especially if you're going to be
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programming fan control curves or whatever else like that because voltage
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fans, voltage control, DC fans can be a bit of an issue. If you set a very low
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fan speed, they might not start, for example. So PWM fans always are running
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12 volts through the fan, but it just sends it in bursts so that it has enough
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torque to start the fan pretty much no matter what. Uh mounting hardware
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included.
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Ascounting hardware versus previous generation products. This clip right
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here is like the magic clip because it used to be you had to take the block uh
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what's this? Product warranty policy. Okay, good.
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Oh, this looks like it uses a thicker radiator than most of the other 240 mil
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products out there. That's kind of interesting. I'mma be back in just a
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moment here with uh with a Corsair
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H100i. Where is my H100i? It's over here somewhere. Here we
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go. I think it uses a thicker radiator. And a thicker radiator would go a long
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way towards increasing the overall surface area. Because guys, liquid
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cooling is not is not magic. It's just
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the liquid more efficiently moves the
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heat away from the CPU and towards the heat dissipator or the radiator. So in
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this case, you can see ah like this.
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Okay. So the big water 2.0 which big now
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I'm doing doing that the water 2.0 to
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has a very very very loose spin arrangement which is great for quiet
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operation compared to the Corsair H100i
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which is more dense. So if you did ramp up the RPMs of the fans, this kind of
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design would start to pull ahead of this kind of design where you can see the
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water channels are spaced more closely for more effective heat conduction to
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the fins themselves. But check this out.
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The water 2.0 has a significantly thicker radiator
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than the H100i. That means that even though they are both 2x 120 mm water
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cooling units, this one is probably I
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mean that must be like at least 20 to 30% thicker, which won't give you quite
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the same advantage as for example a dual
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140 mm radiator, but it'll fit in more
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cases because it's 2x120. Although some cases will have trouble with it because
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it is thicker. If you have any clearance issues with your MOSFET coolers or
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anything like that, that might be a problem. Um, but it gives you more
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surface area. So, that's good. That's something I didn't know about the Water
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2.0 until I opened it up here. I'm just going to put that away. Um, where were
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we? Right. The mounting mechanism. So, it includes a high quality thermal
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compound on the base here. And all we're going to do is remove the uh the cover.
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And I'm going to show you guys what's so much better about this. So, you used to have to just take this thing and like
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hold it on to the retention ring. and then like thread some screws through it
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and all that. Now you just take this guy, clip it on. Oh, I'm really excited
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about this cooler now. And I was excited before, but now I'm now I'm really
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excited. I was all nostalgic about my Big Water SE. Now I'm all like, "Oh, I
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don't need that anymore. Just use a water 2.0, which is like better with
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thick radiator." Anyway, the point is that if you have two hands and you're
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not trying to sort of lean over like this to do it, you just clip this piece
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on here. Then you take all of the mounting screws, clip them through here
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with the included plastic brackets. The instructions will cover all this and it
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is quite straightforward. So you don't have to hold everything in place while
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you're fumbling around with it inside your computer case because a lot of people do upgrade existing computers
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with these pre-done liquid cooling kits. In terms of connectivity, you're going
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to find pretty much what you'd expect. So the CPU block/pump unit itself has uh
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here we go, a USB connector. So this is how you access the fan control software.
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um or that's how you interface with the with the unit through the fan control
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software. It has two black uh harnesses
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coming off of it for the two four pin PWM fans. These are all using black
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wires, which is going to look way nicer in your case than the uh the older
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generation products that did not use all black wires. And finally, a three pin
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connector for the fan pump itself, which is inside the water block unit. I don't
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know if I mentioned I don't know if I showed the thermal compound that is
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pre-installed. that looks like uh the
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same kind that pretty much everyone uses. It's really good stuff. I've actually tried replacing this with
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aftermarket stuff. Unless you're using really high-end aftermarket stuff,
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you're not going to see any temperature improvements. So, I always use the
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pre-applied one on the first installation. I think that pretty much
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covers it. It's using quarterinch tubing. Although, I'm not entirely sold
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on 38 in tubing making that much of a difference in terms of performance. We
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actually ran the H100 versus the H100i and we only saw a what was it like a two
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degree difference or something like that. I think it was only a couple degree difference using the same fans
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which could have just as easily been improvements to the CPU block and not
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necessarily any improvement from going from 1/4 in to 38 in tubing. I mean the
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38 inch tubing looks baller but it actually doesn't have quite the same
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tight bend radius as quarterinch tubing does. I think that pretty much covers it
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for the water 2.0. Make sure you're subscribed to Linus Tech Tips so that
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you see our performance review where we're actually going to take the Water
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2.0 and find out how much of a performance advantage that thicker
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radiator gives it when we put a high quality pressure optimized silent fan on
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it. And of course, be subscribed because
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