Review By Clay Angelly - March 21, 2006

CLOSER LOOK CONTINUED

Thermaltake provides a liquid level gauge and fill port so that you can periodically check your fluid level and refill if necessary. The provided documentation is strong regarding photo walkthroughs but the actual wording/instructions are lacking a bit. The instructions are also lacking a few details such as when you should expect a need to refill as well as what kind of fluid to use. The assumption is that the specifics of the coolant used isn’t critical.

Thermaltake Tide Water - Level Gauge and Fill Port

The copper heat sink is substantial and utilizes heat pipe technology to really cool down the liquid as quickly as possible. The fins are nice and thin resulting in a healthy number of them to dissipate the heat.

Thermaltake Tide Water - Radiator Heat Pipes

Thermaltake Tide Water - Radiator Heat Pipes

One obvious question is how this unit mounts to your system. Thermaltake uses a simple solution to really keep it secure via two PCI slot "blanks". These are just solid acrylic inserts that snugly fit into two of your free (and adjacent) PCI slots. The typical screw mounts are also provided so you can screw it down to your case at the back plate slots.

Thermaltake Tide Water - PCI Mounts

Two sets of mounting screws are included (one small diameter pair and one large diameter pair) to accommodate the various mounting hole sizes on different video cards.

Thermaltake Tide Water - Mounting Hardware

The water block is nothing spectacular but it gets the job done. The contact area is not made of copper. It also is not lapped extremely well. It's not bad, though, as the results will soon prove.

Thermaltake Tide Water - Water Block Surface

On the other side of the water block you'll find the typical slide mounts which allow you to easily line up your mounting screws.

Thermaltake Tide Water - Water Block Slide Mounts

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