Thermaltake BigWater 745 Cooling Kit

Performance

In order to see how well the Thermaltake Bigwater 745 performed, I allowed the processor to start in an idle state and remain idle for 20 minutes.  After 20 minutes of idle time, a reading was taken.  The processor was then brought to full load for 30 minutes.  After the full 30 minute period, a temperature reading was taken, and the processor was set back to idle.  This was done five times on the Thermaltake Bigwater 745, as well as on the stock Intel cooler.  The highest and lowest results were thrown out and the remaining three were averaged for the score.

The room temperature was 21C for these tests, and didn't vary more than 1C during testing.

Test Bed

• Intel 3.2 GHz Pentium 4 640

• Foxconn 945 P7AA Mainboard

• Mushkin 2GB DDR2-5400

• HIS Radeon X850XT ICE-Q

VGA

• Western Digital 80GB 7200RPM IDE HDD

• MGE XG Dragon Case

• Windows XP Pro SP2

Results

As you can see, the Thermaltake BigWater 745 just blew the stock Intel cooler away.  I know this is to be expected, but I was still taken aback, because these are the lowest temperatures that I've ever seen on one of my systems.  The stock cooler's idle temperature was around 41.5C, while it averaged around 57C at load.

The Thermaltake BigWater 745, on the other hand, never broke the 40C mark, even after being under full load for 30 minutes.  Averaging 31C idle, and 37C at full load, this cooler took all the torture that I gave it in stride.
 

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