Thermaltake Water 2.0 Extreme Liquid CPU Cooler Review

Thermaltake’s Water 2.0 Extreme liquid CPU cooler costs £107 from leading UK retailers. Relative to its nearest competitor, the Corsair H100i which costs £90-95 from leading UK retailers, the Thermaltake Water 2.0 Extreme is more expensive. You are having to pay 15% more for a product that delivers slightly less performance on an Ivy Bridge system. However, it does come to my attention that on Ivy Bridge we see very strange temperatures. I know from personal experience and communicating with our people’s results that the Water 2.0 Extreme does indeed beat the H100 and H100i on LGA 2011 with 3930Ks and 3960Xs, the high performance Intel CPUs that most people are likely to use this with. The reason for this disparity is probably due to the fact that Ivy Bridge thrives on being able to remove heat quickly, not being able to remove large amounts of heat because it does not produce large amounts of heat in the first place.

As always I will elaborate on my concerns with the product before moving on to the good bits. My first concern comes in the form of the fan connections. The Water 2.0 Extreme offers just two 4 pin fan connections, since most enthusiasts who are likely to buy this would opt for a push-pull configuration, it seems strange to not offer them the ability to do that, the product should of had four connections not two – and it would of also been nice to see an additional 8 fan screws provided so you can install a second set of fans.

My second minor concern is with the fact the radiator is so wide, it makes the product too wide for a lot of mid tower cases so only users with big full or super tower cases will be able to use this product (although most users who are likely to spend this much on a CPU cooler would have that kind of case anyway). The wide radiator brings no extra benefits on Ivy Bridge versus thinner equivalents (the H100i) but on LGA 2011 you would see improved temperatures thanks to its increase cooling capacity, hence why this concern is only minor.

My third concern is with respect to the fans, I feel 1200RPM is just too high a starting point in a PWM range, 600-800RPM would of been much better and would give enthusiasts more flexibility and more options when picking an optimal balance between noise and performance. The limited PWM range makes the provided software less-useful because the adjustments that can be made are minimal.

My final concern is with respect to Ivy Bridge. I don’t know whether Intel is to blame or whether Thermaltake are to blame, but for some reason the Water 2.0 Extreme just doesn’t deliver its full potential on Ivy Bridge. It is sad to see but not that much of an issue since most users who will buy this will probably opt for LGA 2011 or AM3.

Looking at the product’s positives I would have to say there are a lot. Firstly the mounting kit is excellent, much better than the H100i mounting kit, it provides an easy, strong and effective mount and it is not possible to bend or damage the screws during installation like on the H100i. Secondly, the fans do not rattle or whine and the pump is silent, the only noise comes from the moving air the fans create which is as you would expect from a good set of fans. Thirdly I am great advocate of the provided tubing, it is flexible, manageable and easy to install – much better than hard plastic equivalents. Fourthly, the performance is excellent (even on Ivy Bridge, despite the previously mentioned caveat) and you will be able to tame the most extreme overclock on any modern processor – this product has Extreme in the name for a very good reason.

Thermaltake have developed a fantastic product in the Water 2.0 Extreme, it is just too expensive relative to the competition on the LGA 1155 Ivy Bridge platform. Since our results acquired from this platform show the product is inferior to the H100i it is not fair to award the Water 2.0 Extreme. However, I know that on LGA 2011 and Sandy Bridge-E we would of seen different results and a totally different picture but unfortunately we don’t have those results which makes it difficult to give an award due to a lack of evidence.

The bottom line is this product is an excellent acquisition if you have a Sandy Bridge-E, Sandy Bridge or Bulldozer/Piledriver platform where heat output is very high, it performs better than the competition on those platforms. However, on Ivy Bridge based LGA 1155 systems you will see very little difference between the cheaper Corsair H100i so it is not a recommendable purchase for Ivy Bridge – 3770K and 3570K users would be better served by other products. However, if you are using an FX 8350, FX 8150, i7 3930K, i7 3960X, i7 3970X, i7 3820, 2500K, 2550K, 2600K or 2700K (to name but a few!) then this is definitely going to give you better performance over the competition and similarly priced products.