Thermaltake WATER2.0 Extreme

I like the Thermaltake Water 2.0 Extreme. It takes the standard dual 120mm closed loop water cooler, and improves it.


The specs listed on the box:


Here are some closeups of the unit itself


The attached cables are USB, 4 pin male, and 3 pin female.


The USB will plug into the motherboard and provide support for the included Fan Control Software. The software monitors various temperatures including coolant temperature. It has 3 profiles which offer varying performance and acoustics. I have, found the normal and extreme profiles to offer very similar performance despite the extreme profile being very loud.

The Included accessories:



The Water 2.0 Extreme includes standard Intel and AMD mounting hardware (including LGA 2011). The included fans are very high quality, offering high airflow and low noise.

Here is the unit with fans mounted. As you can see, the unit is very thick with the fans mounted. This might become a problem during installation



The mounting procedure was very simple. The instruction manual contains everything needed for mounting. Most information is even printed on the pieces themselves. I also found the thermal paste to be of decent quality.




The performance of the Water 2.0 Extreme is very good. It outperforms large, high performance air coolers while taking up much less space.

At stock speed on a 3570k, the load temperature average was 52. At 4GHz the average load temperature was 60.5. Finally, at 4.5GHz the average load temperature was 80. These temperatures are slightly higher than average, but still acceptable.

As I stated before, the Water 2.0 Extreme is a think radiator. This helps with performance, but obviously creates space issues. The radiator might not fit into some cases, so that should be considered before purchasing.

I highly recommend the Water 2.0 Extreme to anyone who is interested in closed loop watercooling. This unit is priced at or below its competition. For anyone looking for a dual 120mm setup, the Water 2.0 Extreme needs to be on your list!

Initial Impressions:
Thermaltake has done an excellent job with the overall construction of this cooler. The radiator is thicker than other 240mm solutions, the tubing is much easier to manipulate, and the dual 120mm white bladed fans look great matched up the rest of the all black hardware. Even at first glance there can be no doubt that this is a serious cooler ready to cool even the hottest of CPUs.

Installation:
If this is your first foray to All-in-One coolers, the installation may appear to be daunting at first. Thermaltake supplies brackets to install the cooler on nearly every socket within the last 5+ years, so there is an abundance of hardware when you open the box. Once you get down to it, you will realize that installation is not difficult at all. Thermaltake has included a full installation manual that will walk you through each of the steps and has a full color version of the instructions available on their website as well. To install the cooler you select the proper backplate, attach the proper ring mount to the pump, lock the mount to the pump with the supplied retention ring and screw the block down on the CPU. The radiator mounts to any dual 120mm fan cutout with four supplied screws and washers. I had no issues mounting the Water 2.0 Extreme in either my large Corsair 650D or the much smaller BitFenix Prodigy in the standard push configuration.

Software:
Thermaltake has included software control of the Water 2.0 Extreme without the need to buy additional hardware. To use this feature you simply plug in an additional cord from the pump to an open USB2.0 header on your motherboard and install the software and drivers off the included CD. Through the fan monitoring software you can select from 3 Cooling presets: Silent, Custom, and Extreme. In addition you are provided with meters measuring coolant temperature, noise levels, pump speed and fan speed. The Silent and Extreme modes keep the fan RPMs at 1200RPM and 2000RPM, respectively. The Custom mode allows you to set the coolant temperature at which the fans should start to accelerate and at what temp max speed should be used. The functionality it adds is useful and it seems the door is wide open for more features to be added.

Test Computer Configuration:
My test setup consisted of an AsRock Z68 Extreme 7 motherboard running an Intel Core i7 2600K @ 4.3ghz (no power savings enabled w/ HT on) with 16GB of RAM running at the standard DDR3 1600CL9 XMP profile. A GTX 580 Lightning served as the GPU, but was kept at idle clocks with no load and auto fan control. The tests were carried out in temperatures of approximately 72F in the Corsair 650D with the internal case fans at their lowest possible setting. For load temperature, Prime95 Blend stress testing was used.

Performance:
At idle the CPU was kept chilly in either the Silent or Extreme settings. In silent mode the fans spin at a whisper quiet 1200RPM and resulted in core temps that ranged from 32-36C. In Extreme mode the fans will spin at an audible 2000RPM which kept the CPU at 31-36C.
At 100% load the Silent preset kept the hottest core of my I7 at 67C. When switched to the Extreme preset, the hottest core dropped to a max temperature of 57C. The results at Silent are a little higher than what I would expect, but at that speed the fans truly are silent- so much so that I checked if they were still spinning two times during the testing. With the temps well within acceptable limits I actually keep the Water 2.0 Extreme in this setting 95% of the time. The Extreme setting does keep the processor much cooler (beating some other 240mm AIOs that I have used in the past), but there is so much headroom in temps that I don’t feel it is necessary to run the fans at a higher and much more audible speed.
The Custom setting can find you that perfect middle ground, although you may find yourself using a little trial and error as fan speed is based of liquid temp inside the unit rather than CPU core temperatures.

The Concerns:
There really are only a couple minor concerns I have about the Water 2.0 Extreme. The most pressing issue that arose is a slight vibration in the fans when running at or near their full 2000RPM. I don’t know if this is an issue with the bearing used in the fans, but Thermaltake has advised me that no other instances of this issue has been documented. Another minor issue is the length of the CPU fan header coming off the pump. I’m a fan of keeping installs as clean as possible, but the short length of this lead leaves one of the fan connections out in the open right next to the socket. A slightly longer cable here would clean up the install immensely. The only other improvement I think Thermaltake can make is to add functionality to the software controls they have included. It seems like it would be relatively simple to allow the user to do things like set the fan speed to a specific RPM independent of temperature or edit their own fan ramp curves and I hope Thermaltake attempts to supply updates throughout the cooler’s lifespan.

My Verdict:
The Thermaltake Water2.0 Extreme is an excellent All-in-One water cooling solution for those who want to get their CPU under water, but don’t want to be burdened by building a modular loop. With only a short list of minor issues and a competitive price relative to what’s out there, the Thermaltake Water 2.0 Extreme should be at the top of the list for those that are looking for the best possible cooler for their PCs.

My Take on the Thermaltake WATER2.0 Extreme

First off the packaging looks to be done well so hopefully that will minimize shipping damage, and help assure an operational product when you receive it.





Everything you need to install the unit start to finish is included in the kit
The mounting hardware includes everything you need for multiple platforms.
Intel: LGA2011, LGA1366, LGA1156, LGA1155, LGA775
AMD: FM1, AM3, AM2+, AM2
The heat sink comes with pre applied TIM and it will be used for the test conducted in this review.

The Thermaltake software that comes packaged with the unit is a snap to set up and makes it easy to choose the preferred fan speeds for your needs. The software is easy to navigate; you can set it up with predefined parameters or customize it to suit you specific needs. The simple easy to read display of all the pertinent information is refreshing.
Today I will be testing the preset functions silent & extreme at various clock speeds. Where the rubber meets the road

(PERFORMANCE)
For testing the WATER2.0 Extreme out, I am using the Intel LGA1155 platform.
Test bed:

Intel 3770K
Asus Maximus V Gene
G.Skill F3-2666C11D-8GTXD/PC3-21300
Samsung SSD 830 128GB
Corsair AX1200
MSI R6970
Thermaltake WATER2.0 Extreme

I will be using LinX0.6.4- Simply linpak to create the CPU loads for these tests. Hyper Threading also will be enabled for all tests.
This will give us a great barometer of 8 threaded 100% loads as well as max out the 8 GB of RAM so we know the IMC is getting punished as well.

Silent Mode Idol 3.9 GHz:
Ambient Air Temperature = 17.2C
Average Fan Speed = 1283 RPM
Average Pump Speed = 3053 RPM
Average Coolant Temperature = 23.5
Max CPU Temp = 23C, 20C, 23C, 21C

Silent Mode 100% Load 3.9 GHz:
Ambient Air Temperature = 17.2C
Average Fan Speed = 1276 RPM
Average Pump Speed = 3051 RPM
Average Coolant Temperature = 25.3
Max CPU Temp = 54C, 56C, 55C, 51C


Extreme Mode Idol 3.9 GHz:
Ambient Air Temperature = 18.4C
Average Fan Speed = 2035 RPM
Average Pump Speed = 3063 RPM
Average Coolant Temperature = 23.3
Max CPU Temp = 22C, 21C, 22C, 21C

Extreme Mode 100% Load 3.9 Ghz:
Ambient Air Temperature = 18.4C
Average Fan Speed = 1980 RPM
Average Pump Speed = 3067 RPM
Average Coolant Temperature = 25.2
Max CPU Temp = 54C, 57C, 56C, 50C


As you can see there is no serious gain at stock speeds with the extreme setting over the silent, however keep in mind that ambient temperature was 1.2C above the ambient when testing the Silent mode. So if you’re fighting for every degree the Extreme mode looks to grab you a degree or two.

Overclocking:
I tried 4.6 Ghz with the silent mode and could not get it stable enough to run LinX for more than 35 minutes. The temps were running in the mid 80’. Since I have been running it for about an hour for these tests I have disqualified the silent mode results at 4.6 GHz. So as it turns out extreme mode really stretches its legs when overclocking, and the unit seems to have no problem at these clock speeds on the extreme setting.

Extreme Mode Idol 4.6 Ghz:
Ambient Air Temperature = 18.6C
Average Fan Speed = 2060 RPM
Average Pump Speed = 3063 RPM
Average Coolant Temperature = 23.7
Max CPU Temp = 29C, 29C, 31C, 28C

Extreme Mode 100% Load 4.6 Ghz:
Ambient Air Temperature = 19.3C
Average Fan Speed = 2028 RPM
Average Pump Speed = 3053 RPM
Average Coolant Temperature = 28.1
Max CPU Temp = 72C, 78C, 74C, 68C


Next I am going to put some aftermarket fans on the unit to see if there is a benefit to a push pull configuration.
Since I do not have any PMW fans handy I am just going to use some AOC Florescent fans I have on hand, they are 79 CFM each with no speed control

Let’s see if these fans can help out a little, a lot or not at all ……….


Extreme Mode Idol 4.6 Ghz Push Pull Configuration:
Ambient Air Temperature = 18.9C
Average Fan Speed = 1948 RPM
Average Pump Speed = 3067 RPM
Average Coolant Temperature = 21.4
Max CPU Temp = 23C, 23C, 22C, 21C

Extreme Mode 100% Load 4.6 Ghz Push Pull Configuration:
Ambient Air Temperature = 18.9C
Average Fan Speed = 1957 RPM
Average Pump Speed = 3046 RPM
Average Coolant Temperature = 27.7
Max CPU Temp = 71C, 77C, 73C, 68C


Once again the results are negligible but a degree better than the single fans. So here it is again, if you are fighting for every degree the unit performs a degree better with a push pull configuration with fans that were used for this test. Results may vary depending on the aftermarket fans used. Being the radiator does not have a real tight fin design it will lend itself to perform well with low speed fans as opposed to ridiculously loud high CFM fans. No need for Deltas here.



Please keep in mind all temps are max temps not average read with Real Temp.
The unit across all tests performed admirably. The build quality of the components seems to be very good. The fans provided are adequate and up to the job and when in silent mode not audible over the video card. On Extreme mode they are not obtrusively loud either, and much quieter than any air to air solution I have used with this type of performance.
The hoses and pump seem to be very sturdy and well built. The mounting system was thought out well and is easy to install.
One thing I would like to see is the grommets that slide into the retaining ring to be marked with a contrasting color to make them easier to read. The pump has a slight churning noise that is audible in silent mode, but quieter than my 655. The radiator provided is quite capable and the fin design lends itself to the use of lower speed fans. At a thickness of 36.5125mm the 240mm design delivers the goods. The software provided is not earth shattering, it simply works very well and is easy to navigate.

To sum it up I have to say that Thermaltake has hit the mark with the WATER2.0 Extreme. Bringing a high performance water cooler to mainstream computing that is very easy to install, No messing around filling coolant, purging bubbles or maintaining a loop is required. Easy mounting and everything you need is right in the box. (No more waiting for that fitting you forgot to order) While this product may not appeal to the hard core water cooling crowd, it is a home run for people like me that neither have the time nor patience to maintain a custom loop but cannot do without top end performance, Gamers who would rather be gaming than tinkering with a loop. From the enthusiast to the first time builder anyone can easily incorporate, and reap the performance of cooling with water as well as minimizing the sound of an air to air heat sink. The WATER2.0 Extreme in my opinion may have made high performance air cooling obsolete, and made water cooling reachable for anyone with a computer and mounting accommodations for the 240mm radiator.
Testing and looking over this product thoroughly, it is difficult to see many down sides to this unit; the price point for this kind of performance is more than fair and the quality is spot on.



Doctor Recommended ............