Ready-to go water cooling for graphics cards: two sets reviewed

Thermaltake Tide Water

Thermaltake's Tide Water has been on the market for quite some time, and consists of a separate water block and one large unit which contains the pump, reservoir, radiator and fan. The device, encased in transparent plastic looks like an expansion card, but is much larger and thicker than that. The chosen long and flat shape is no coincidence: the unit is meant to be inserted into two PCI slots and uses a double mounting bracket to be affixed to the case. The hot air is tranported out of the case through perforations in the bracket. This kind of set-up is the biggest advantage but at the same time the largest drawback of the system: It allows for very easy installation, but the device does take up three slots, two for the radiator/fan and one for the graphics card itself. Not all users can spare to lose three slots in their case.

Thermaltake's Tide Water is an easy-to-install all-in-one solution

Mounting the water block is reasonably easy with the Tide Water. The universal block is suitable for all modern ATI and nVidia cards that use at least two mounting holes in the PCB. Because almost all cards use four of these holes, this will never be a practical problem. The cooling block has two mounting plates that can be tuned by means of two screws to end up on top of the PCB holes. Two supplied screws are then used to mount the block on the card.

The Tide Water's cooling block is attached with two screws.