Date: November 6th, 2006
Article by: Joe Anderson (Hardware Reviewer)
Edited by: Nathan Glentworth (Owner / Head Editor)
Product was submitted by: Thermaltake
<--SHOP FOR A THERMALTAKE TIDEWATER VIDEOCARD WATER COOLING SYSTEM HERE
CORPORATE PROFILE
Thermaltake Incorporation, based in Taipei, Taiwan is the global leader Thermal Solution and Thermal Management for PC & Industrial Market. Its Engineering Staffs masters in Airflow Analysis, Material Conductivity and Heat Dissipation Efficiency. Thermaltake offers a wide range of products and services, providing effective and cost-conscious cooling devices. The Company has more than 1,000 employees worldwide supporting customers from its headquarters in Taipei, Taiwan, as well as from offices in China, Europe and United States Continent.
PRODUCT INTRODUCTION
While CPU temperatures have been on the decline recently, graphics processors seem to be taking the opposite course. With a few notable exceptions, the OEM coolers on these newer graphics cards are loud and their cooling performance can be described as adequate at best, especially if the user wishes to do some overclocking. Liquid cooling would seem to be a good fit here, but the latest CPUs may not really need this extreme and expensive treatment to achieve moderate overclocks. One solution would be a kit that watercools only the video card, but nobody makes such a thing. Until now, anyway. The Tide Water all in one VGA liquid cooling module (part # CL-W0052) from Thermaltake is just such a product. We're going to put it to the test and see how this innovative product fits into this new cooling niche.
PRODUCT FEATURES AND SPECIFICATIONS
The Tide Water is a totally self-contained liquid cooling system for the GPU. At 19 gallons per hour, the pump should cool the chip efficiently, and the fan data indicates virtually silent operation. The above information, while somewhat grammatically challenged, gives a pretty good indication of what you can expect from the Tide Water.
Noticeably absent is any mention of the included ramsinks. A welcome addition, ramsinks weren't included on early Tide Water models.
Thermaltake also makes a dual block system for SLI/CrossFire systems called the Tide Water Plus.
