Thermaltake Tidewater (Dual) VGA Water Cooling Kit

Finally, the memory.  I believe we all know that the stock air cooling will do better because you have air moving across the memory chips whereas with the water block you do not.  But how much difference does it really make?  To test this we installed the Tt aluminum RAM sinks that came with the Tidewater unit first and used these in conjunction with the stock GPU air cooler.  This helped keep as many variables equal for our testing as possible.  Using our IR Thermometer again, we recorded the temperatures off the RAM sinks themselves.  Correct, this is not a true temperature reading for the memory but provided we are taking the same measurement, the same way for each setup, the measurement becomes a valid relative useable value.

Conclusion

The Thermaltake Tidewater unit, be it the single or the dual model isn't for everyone.  The dual model itself is restrictive to a select few who can afford to run a SLI or CrossFire setup to include cards and compatible mainboard.  These types of users are very discriminating performance buffs by and large.  The two problems we ran into are actually more important items of note.  Most, but certainly not all SLI rigs are in larger midtower cases which compensates for the Tidewater length issue and its needing a minimum of 11 inches.  The other item of note is that of the end user really needing to have a full sized mainboard to consider adding the Tt Tidewater to their frag box.  A compact board such as the Albatron K8SLI simply would not do for the Tidewater to be installed in any situation outside of a Senfu Tech Station setup.  Most full sized SLI compatible boards only have three PCI slots.  With that said, only one and that being one thin PCI card, can be used in conjunction with the Tt Tidewater because of cramped slot space.  If you have a wireless NIC and say a audio card in your box... well, if you want the Tidewater too, you are going to have to pick which you want more.

In spite of these considerations; in the end, I find it hard not to really like the Tt Tidewater unit.  It certainly brings performance to the table from several perspectives.  In low speed trim, its operation was all but silent.  The fit and finish of the components was noteworthy in itself and gave me a new respect for the designers at Thermaltake.  Not to mention a very significant decrease in average GPU temperatures which is what the unit is designed for in the first place.  With a street price of less than $110, you can water cool your VGA cards independent of any other CPU water cooling system that may or may not be installed in your system.  Thermaltake has done an excellent job here and as long as you have the space in your case and the free PCI slots, the Tt Tidewater may be for you.

Pros

• Fantastic GPU cooling performance

• Fits NVidia or ATi based graphics cards

• Excellent fit and finish

• Lightweight at only 6.1 kgs

• Quiet operation

• Water cooling for your VGA cards independent of any other cooling set up

• Fair price

Cons

• Requires at least 11 inches of case depth

• Requires SLI / CrossFire board with at least three PCI slots

• May have to choose which PCI card function is most important to you if you use more than one.

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Pg 1 - Introduction
Pg 2 - The Unit
Pg 3 - Inside and Installation
Pg 4 - Concerns and GPU Performance
Pg 5 - Memory performance and Conclusion