Thermaltake
Tide Water All in One VGA Liquid Cooling Module Review
Page 5 of 6
Review By Clay Angelly - March 21, 2006
INSTALLATION
Now, down to business. The photo below shows where I installed the Tide Water. Those last two PCI slots (one white and one orange) are where the Tide Water's PCI blanks fit into.
Thermaltake Tide Water - Install Location
We all have different cases and each one can present issues at times when it comes to installing hardware. I thought I'd mention the only real issue I ran into which dealt with the little rivet you see in the shot below.
Thermaltake Tide Water - Rivet
That little rivet presented just enough of an obstacle which would not allow the Tide Water mounting bracket to lay flush in order to be screwed down properly.
What was at first going to be a complaint of mine (that the Tide Water mounting
bracket seems to be a bit flimsier than most) turned out to be a good thing.
It's flexibility allowed me to more easily cut out a notch around that rivet and
also flex it into place.
Thermaltake Tide Water - Mounting Bracket,
Notch Cut-out
The Tide Water clearly takes up two free PCI slots so it's a fairly big piece of
equipment. It is also cleanly contained, so there are no odd protrusions
from it. Below, you can see how it looks from outside of the case once
installed.
Thermaltake Tide Water - Bracket View
The frame of the case is a bit in the way of the exhaust. This wasn't a big deal to me and there's really now way to avoid it.
A permanent workaround would be to grab your nibblers, tin snips, or Dremel and hack that divider piece of your case out.
Thermaltake Tide Water - Bracket View
The next photo illustrates the finished installation. For SLI purposes, I made the obvious choice to mount the water block to the top (and also hottest running card).
Thermaltake Tide Water - Finished
Installation
Yes, the Tide Water is a large beast. Due to its clean form factor, you can see that there is a surprising amount of room between it and the second SLI card.
I really like how Thermaltake designed this unit. It could easily have been a
very awkward piece of hardware to install but the exact opposite was true.
