Thermaltake BigWater 745 Cooling Kit

Hooking it all up

As far as installation goes, hooking most of this up was the norm.  A large "H" plate was attached to the underside of the motherboard with the insulation between the metal and the motherboard.  Four large screws were placed through the back of the motherboard, and tightened onto the motherboard using four small nuts that are screwed on from the front.

The water block was then placed on top of the processor, and another "H" plate was secured to the top of the water block using four provided thumb screws.  These thumb screws were a welcome addition, because the small nuts that are used in most cases are somewhat of a nuisance to secure.

The lines are tightened down onto the components using the screw caps. 

Here's the only place that I really ran into problems.  The 120mm radiator/fan assembly is supposed to be able to be attached internally or externally to an exhaust port on your case.  Unfortunately, the only exhaust on my case is for a single 80mm fan.  I was unable to attach the radiator / fan assembly to my case because of crowding.  It thus it had to be left on the outside of the case.  Without any additional feet or anything to support it, I basically had to lean it up against the wall, or lay it on it's side so that the air would continue to flow through.  A strip of Velcro or double sided tape would easily fix this problem for floor mounting inside the the MGE Dragon Case used in my test bed.

The pump / reservoir assembly is supposed to be able to secure to the bottom of your case, below the expansion cards.  This may pose a problem in some cases if you don't have room to mount the smaller 120mm radiator/fan assembly.  Another issue I had in my case was that with the test Radeon X850XT video card I was using.  The pump / reservoir would not fit below that card because of the tubing that came out of its top.  This also meant that I had to keep that external to my case.

Now that I'd gotten everything hooked up and the coolant flowing through the system, it was time to test it out.

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Pg 1 - Introduction
Pg 2 - Components
Pg 3 - Installation
Pg 4 - Performance
Pg 5 - Conclusion