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Thermaltake Tide Water


Date
: 02/21/06 – 02:49:58 AM

Author
:

Category
: Cooling

Page 1 : Index

Manufacturer: Thermaltake Technology Co., Ltd.
Price:
$78.99 USD (Newegg.com)

I won't be going through the regular spiel about who Thermaltake is and what they are about. Thermaltake is already a well known name around here at O2 as we have looked at an increasingly large list of products from their CPU cooling department, including the Big Typhoon and Blue Orb II among others. In addition to some great CPU coolers we have had the pleasure of looking at a couple of their power supplies with the most recent being the innovative Power Station 520W. Thermaltake doesn't stop there as they release some of the wildest and most sought after cases in retail stores worldwide like the Armor and Kandalf but we will be concentrating on cooling again today.

The latest of their cooling adventures has progressed into the emerging water cooling market. Water cooling is certainly not new to computer enthusiasts but it is quickly becoming mainstream with many complete packages out there to get peoples feet "wet". TT, of course has a few offerings there as well including the silent setups like the Rocket, and award winning Big Water/SE. Water cooling has even made it to the HTPC arena with products like the TT Rhythm. That alone should tell you how far water-cooling has come. The last of section Thermaltakes water cooling lineup encompasses the 'All-in-One' setups and we will be looking at one of them today, the TT Tide Water All-In-One VGA cooler.

From what I have seen, the Thermaltake Tide Water is the first of its kind, being an all-in-one VGA water cooler separate from any other component in the cases cooling system. The universal ATI/NVIDIA water block coupled with an all copper radiator and strong pump should provide an adaptable and efficient cooling system for video cards. The pump/reservoir/radiator housed in a single attachment that mounts in a couple of open PCI expansion slots comes pre-loaded with cooling liquid and is ready for 10,000 hours of work right out of the box. Its studio time so let's get to the eye candy.

Page 2 : Package

This is certainly a unique product so the package can make or break something this new to people. Let's see how Thermaltake tackles the package to explain to potential buyers what exactly the Tide Water is.

Starting off with a very large and decisively clear image is a great way for people to understand what a product is. I am a visual guy so for me this is perfect. It is obvious that TT doesn't want to go over the top with the packaging in keeping it sophisticated with a simple black and white theme. The water along the bottom lets us all know what the Tide Water is all about.

The sides of the box are simple with a smaller version of the image on the front and a silhouette of the unit installed in a case at the end. With a product like this there really arent a lot of specifications to put on the box so the simplistic theme is more than enough.

The ends, much like the sides, are very simple with very little to add to the package or information provided by the package.

When we flip the Tide Waters package over we get into some more specific details about the VGA cooler.

Thermaltake provides us with a complete list of specifications about the Tide Water, including water block, radiator, and pump details.

These two images outline how the Tide Water will be installed into the system. With the photos that Thermaltake has decided to use, there is not a need for long winded descriptions which gives the package a clean and un-cluttered look without lacking any information.

The last of the photos visually depict the details listed to the left. Again, the photos truly do say a thousand words as it is very clear what the Tide Water is all about. I think TT has done a great job with the package and within minutes of looking it over I had a pretty good idea of what the Tide Water was bringing to the table. I will now be going over the specifications in the next section.

Page 3 : Specifications

The specifications chart at Thermaltakes web site is not that large and nor should it be. For being as advanced as it is, the Tide Water is a very simple device due to its intelligent design. There are only a few components and here are the specifications for those:

We can see that the water block used is 8mm thick and is a universal mount for both NVIDIA and ATI cards. The radiator is pure copper and the fan only produces 19dB on the high setting. The pump is rated for 40,000 hours and the design of the Tide Water shouldn't have us adding any water to the reservoir for 10,000 hours. All of this adds up to one impressive offering on paper. Our performance testing will see if it lives up to the specifications.

Page 4 : Package Contents

We'll start the tour of the contents right after opening the lid.

Right off the bat, it is evident that the package is well organized. Protective styrofoam pads are positioned at either end and the manual is placed flat on top. The cardboard box appears to have a good grip on everything inside.

With the manual removed, we can see just how neat the Tide Water is packed in there by Thermaltake. The main unit is placed square in the middle of the package safe from any type of damage during transport, even if the box gets slightly punctured the Tide Water inside should be un-harmed.

The only accessories come in the form of the manual that was on top and the small packet of mounting hardware and thermal paste. When you think about it, the Tide Water is a pre-assembled ready-to-go device so accessories should be at a minimum. The encouragement of an easy install is derived from this lack of hardware.

I was quite impressed when I first opened the manual as it is chalk full of nice sized images outlining the install procedure as well as maintenance steps. The whole manual is filled with bright clear images that should assist in the install quite nicely. There is nothing worse than a poor manual with bad images and TT has done well not to provide that.

After digging the cables out of the upper most compartment of the package, the whole assembly comes out with ease and releases from the protective styrofoam to reveal the TT Tide Water. The contrast between the copper radiator and red fan with the bright green reservoir really gives the Tide Water some visual power. I like how the enclosure is clear and allows us to see the entire inner workings of the unit.

The first component that we will look at is the radiator. We can see the line coming from the front that enters the radiator at the bottom. The water path works its way back and forth through the fins that are being cooled by the fan pushing the heated air out the case.

The rear PCI expansion slot mount allows all the heated air to exit here and leave the case completely. Other air coolers such as Arctic Coolings Silencer series works in the same fashion but certainly not using water and a radiator.

Along the bottom edge is where we find the support legs that will be mounted in empty PCI expansion slots to help steady the Tide Water. The reservoir/radiator/pump unit is rather big and heavy with the water inside so these "legs" will be necessary to secure the Tide Water, especially while you are transporting the case to a LAN party or the like.

As we work our way back to the other side of the Tide Water we are greeted with the deep red fan. The fan design looks less like a fan and more like a generator. This makes sense as it is not really acting like a fan where it pushes air through but rather sucks air in from the front and pushes it out the sides.

The pump is housed just above the radiator with a mess of water lines running to and from it. We can see the lines coming into the Tide Water are securely clamped as I expected. You will notice the spring-like coils around parts of the tubing. These are placed on the tubes to prevent the tubes from kinking. TT obviously thought this design through and has done everything necessary to ensure smooth operation of the Tide Water. The only electrical connection also enters the unit here providing power to the pump and fan. A 4-pin molex pass-through connection is on the other end of the blue sleeved cables.

While the top is made entirely of clear plastic, the backside is made of aluminum. This provides the rigidity to the Tide Water and the mounting surface for all the hardware we can see form the other side. The fan also has a couple small slots here that will aid in getting fresh air through the radiator. At the far right we can see the mounting tab that helps secure the Tide Water to the case.

The last photo is of the fill port and water level indicator that is on the side of the main housing by the reservoir. The specifications state 10,000 hours of maintenance free use from the Tide Water but when that time comes, Thermaltake has made it quite easy to perform the task of refilling the reservoir. I think we can now get to the task of installing the Tide Water to our test card and move on to some thermal testing.

Page 5 : Installation

With the Tide Water coming out of the box ready to be installed, it will not take much to get the system up and running on a video card. I anticipate quite an easy install.

The first step in this simple process will be to remove the existing heatsink that is on the video card. With that out of the way, we just have to secure the two mounting bolts with the included washers. These two bolts will provide the threads for the mounting screws to secure the water block to the GPU core.

As we look at the backside of the 7800GT that will also be used for testing we can see that the mounting method is no different for NVIDIA cards. The mounting bolts are simply finger tightened and within a couple of seconds the water block is ready to be mounted.

Before installing the water block on either of the cards for testing I took this photo of the mounting surface. It is clear that this surface is almost perfect. The finish is exceptionally flat and polished to a mirror shine. We also get a close up of the clamps that hold the tubes to the block. As I have said, the Tide Water comes completely setup and ready to go out of the box.

Normally with a water-cooling setup of any kind you want to leak test the system but since Thermaltake has taken care of the setup of the tubes I figured I would put trust in them and mount the block without even bothering testing for leaks. This I would not advise for anyone else. After a thin application of the included thermal paste the water block secures to the core with the two provided screws and we are ready for action. The photo above illustrates how the water block mounts to both ATI and NVIDIA cards. It is a rather intelligent and simple method Thermaltake has designed. With the block installed the Tide Water is ready for installation in the case.

As soon as I dropped the Tide Water into the bottom two PCI slots I saw that the mounting holes didn't really line up all that well. I double checked that it was inserted correctly and this is the result. The second hole doesn't appear to be close enough to get a screw in but the open lip should be able to get a screw through to secure the unit.

The other notation when installing the Tide Water was the fact that I had to remove two SATA cables as the Tide Water is the entire width of the DFI Infinity and the 2 bottom SATA connections are directly below the unit. Even right angled SATA cables will not allow for their use as the Tide Water is just about touching them. The other two connections can be used as seen here although it is a bit tight, the cables still fit fine. When thinking of purchasing the Tide Water, take these things into consideration.

This overhead shot of the 7800GT installed with the Tide Water really clutters up the case. The two huge cards combined almost fill the entire lower portion of the motherboard but should fit in pretty much any case without issue. You might have also noticed that the Tide Water cooling fan is basically pulling its air right off of the power supply.

This is obviously not the ideal setup as that air is going to be warmer then fresh air but it will simulate the cooling ability of the Tide Water in a warmer stuffy case so it has its advantages for review purposes. Keep this in mind when going over the results and that the temperatures will be even lower when in a case that has some fresh air near the bottom of the case where the Tide Water will be pulling it from.

The last of the images I thought were worth sharing is how the radiator exhaust doesn't exactly line up with the rear PCI expansion slots. When building a device that is needed to fit every case on the planet, there is going to be some compromises and the exhausting of the hot air here again won't be ideal but it shouldn't be the cause of any issues or higher temps. Let's get to the testing.

Page 6 : Performance & Testing

To test the performance of the Thermaltake Tide Water it will be a simple matter of putting the video card under load on the two fan speeds and at various clocks of the two cards used for testing. Here is the list of hardware that was used for testing.

Before testing I did a quick check to see whether scanning for artifacts with ATI Tool or running 3DMark 03/05 in a loop for 3 hours generated more heat on the GPU. It seemed that ATI Tool scanning for artifacts would be a few degrees Celsius higher so I will use that as the method for putting the video card under load. This is the process used for testing:

• Apply Arctic Silver 5 and mount GPU cooler
• Install video card in case
• Load Windows and install video card drivers and reboot
• Open ATI Tool and begin to 'Scan For Artifacts' for 180 minutes/3 hours – Record Load temperatures
• Abort scanning and leave machine idle for 60 minutes /1 hour – Record Idle Temperatures

  This was the process for testing both speeds on the Tide Water. Here are the results with the Idle values on top and the load results below:

  

  I think the chart says it all, the Thermaltake Tide Water has produced some very impressive results. The idle differences between the Tide Water and Arctic Cooling Silencer on the X800GTO is about 5 degrees and at least 4 degrees between the Tide Water and the stock cooling unit on the BFG 7800GTOC. 5 Degrees Celsius is rather impressive when comparing idle values but the real numbers come in the lower section for the load temperatures.

  

  On the X800GTO when overclocked substantially to 570MHz and 600MHz at the core and memory, the Tide Water outperforms the Arctic Cooling Silencer by an impressive 10C on the low fan setting. When the fan is turned up to high another 7C are dropped off of the load temperature and dips to 45C! That is a difference of 17C from the Arctic Cooling Silencer which is not a slouch in its own right.

  

  When I hooked the Tide Water up to the 7800GT I thought for sure that the hotter running card would bring the results more in line with the stock cooler but I was
  waaaay
  off. The gap widened and the TT Tide Water was up to 20C cooler than the stock heatsink and fan. It actually allowed me to overclock the 7800GT further than with the stock cooler by 25MHz without artifacts showing up. The most impressive fact about these results is that the setup I had the Tide Water in was of the least ideal I could think of. With a larger case and fresh cool air being fed to the Tide Water it would probably have kept the BFG 7800GTOC under 50C when overclocked to its maximum of 490/1150!

  

  Thermaltake states that the fan when on high produces only 19dBA of noise. On low the fan is very quiet and can barely be heard unless your ear is within an inch or two of the fan. When in a case with the door on it is completely inaudible. The high fan speed is a good bit louder and when it was tucked in tight to the power supply in the Take 4 case it was even louder. When there is room below the Tide Water it quiets down a little bit and is much more useable. I think 19 dBa is an accurate assessment of the noise level and is equal to the noise of either the stock 7800GT or the Arctic Cooling Silencer fan at higher speeds. I will personally be leaving the Tide Water on low and when gaming hit the easily accessible switch to turn it to high.

  
  Page 7 : Conclusion
  

  Simple install, easier operation and the choice of amazing performance with a bit of noise or great performance with no noise is what I consider a pretty good setup. The Thermaltake Tide Water is all of those things above and so much more. I put the Tide Water up against one of the best performing air coolers for a GPU and it beat it running away. I then put the Tide Water up against one of the hotter running cards there is and again, the Tide Water didn't break a sweat in keeping the temperature well below its normal operating temps.

  The only drawback could be its large size and lack of memory cooling, but those are easily outweighed by the very impressive performance of the GPU. I would highly recommend Thermaltake to add some small memory ram sinks to help cool the memory down a little bit and think that would make this package complete. For now though, I will grab some ram sinks from my local store for a few bucks and keep the Tide Water on my X800GTO because it hasn't ran this cool in…well…ever.

  With the two cards I used today I think I demonstrated that the TT Tide Water is a perfect solution for completely silent cooling of even the hottest video cards on the market today with the option of turning it into an all out performing cooling monster with the sacrifice of a few decibels. The ease of installation makes it perfect for any and all users and if you are comfortable changing your CPU heatsink and fan then the TT Tide Water install will be like eating a piece of cake at a 12 year olds birthday party.

  

  Advantages

• Amazing cooling performance
• Simple and quick install
• Almost silent option

  Disadvantages

• Not small and requires plenty of case space
• Lack of memory cooling

  Overclockers Online would like to thank Thermaltake for providing the test sample.