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Thermaltake Big water?

E

Erock503

n00b
Joined
Jun 29, 2005
Messages
7
I'm building a new system, and I'm thinking of trying some watercooling. I haven't seen any reviews of the thermaltake bigwater system, but it fits the case I want to get.

I'm getting a thermaltake shark series tower. I was thinking about getting the vga blocks, but I don't know how well they will fit the 7800GTXs, especially in SLI.

The system I'm building is as follows:
AMD X2 4800+
2GB(2x1GB) Corsair XMS DDR 400 CAS2
Asus A8N-SLI Premium
2xWD 10k Raptor 36GB SATA drives (NVRaid)
2xBFG 7800GTX OC in SLI
NEC 915n 19" LCD(want to use in addition to 21" CRT that I have)
ATI HDTV Wonder
Thermaltake Shark series tower
Enermax 535W SLI compatible PS
Thermaltake Bigwater kit

I'm upgrading from:
P4 3.0G HT
Asus P4t533-C
1GB RDRAM PC1066 Mushkin
ATI AIW 9800Pro
WD 7k ata133 (2)30GB Raid
SB 5.1 platinum


I need to build another system, and while I've always used Intel, the AMD looks like a better product at this time. Is the Thermaltake Bigwater a "decent" cooling system? Being that it's my first venture into watercooling, I figured the Tt would be an ok "kit" system without too much trouble. I'm going to overclock some, but I'm more interested in stability since this is a work/game system. While I haven't been OC'n in a while, the last system was a P3 600 with a peltier and Alpha, so I'm not a complete noob to OC'n, although close at this point.

Any red flags you guys see with the system I'm building? Thanks in advance for any advice.
 
Me and a friend make a few extra bucks by building systems for people here locally

we put one of these : http://www.frozencpu.com/ex-wat-66.html?id=xstBKLsL on for his roomates computer and it was really quiet and cooled great. Comes with everything you need(resivoir, radiotor, tubing, coolant, cpu and vga blocks) plus, it uses no fans

It is priced higher than other kits, but i am thinking of getting one for my computer
 
The BigWater system just will not perform very well in the system your listing. It simply does not have the heat dissapating capacity.

A few questions for you:
What is you budget for water cooling?
Are you willing to modify your case to fit a larger radiator?
Do you need it quiet?
Are you looking to go low-flow (1/4" - 3/8") or high-flow (1/2")?

With the system your proposing your going to need more than a single 120mm radiator. Your looking into the relm of dual or possibly tripple 120mm radiator.

Personally, I would recommend the following for an all-out gaming system like the one you are getting:

Swiftech Storm CPU waterblock
2 DangerDen Acetal-topped Maze4GPU's w/ ram sinks
Swiftech MCP655 or DangerDen D5
HWlabs BlackIce Pro2 or BlakcIce Pro3 (both on sale right now over at DangerDen)
Any Resevoir or T-Line (its all personal preferance)
12 ft. McMasterCarr MasterKleer 7/16"ID tubing
metal worm-gear hose clamps
patients and thoughrough planning (really, the most important)
 
Hi guys, thanks for the response.

A few questions for you:
What is you budget for water cooling?
Are you willing to modify your case to fit a larger radiator?
Do you need it quiet?
Are you looking to go low-flow (1/4" - 3/8") or high-flow (1/2")?
Click to expand...

Well, as far as budget, I'm already spending enough that I don't want to skimp as far as cooling, so budget is open ended. It's for work, so I can write off most of it.

I really don't want to modify the case unless I have to. I have modified cases in the past, ie side windows, blowholes, etc.., so I have the tools, but I would rather not if possible. Would I be better off with one of the stand-alone solutions that are outside the case?

I don't need it quiet. I have a supermicro server case that I have been using since the 90's, and swapping PS every few years. I have a 120mm fan on the side over the CPU, (3) 80mm on each side over drive bays, (1) 80mm in back, and (3) 80mm in the front. I am used to the noise now, so I don't think there is much that will bother me at this point.

I'm up in the air about high-flow/low-flow. I don't know enough about either to really say. I just want the best performance, and ease of installation.

I really am looking for a kit that will work the best. Since this is my first foray into watercooling, I figured I would keep it simple. Am I barking up the wrong tree looking for a kit to cool this system?

That Zalman kit looks nice, but it's a pretty hefty price tag. Would I need to modify the case I want to accomodate, and would that sufficiently cool my system? I would like to get some GPU blocks, but I'm worried about them fitting the 7800. Also, if I were to use a GPU cooler, I would need to take off the oem heatsink. What then happens to the ram on the video card, how do I make sure that is still cooled?

edit: almost forgot, will I be able to fit any GPU blocks with 2 7800's in SLI?

Thanks guys. :)
 
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