Thermaltake Water 3.0 Pro Water Cooling System Review

Testing
The test rig consists of the following parts:

Processor: Intel Core i5 2500K
Motherboard: ASUS P8P67 EVO
Video Card: SPARKLE Calibre Series X480 GeForce GTX 480
Memory: Corsair Vengence 8 GB @ 1600mhz
Power Supply: High Power Astro PT 700w
Storage: OCZ Vertex 2 120 GB Running Windows 8 64bit
Cooling: Thermaltake Water 3.0 Pro
Case: Nanoxia Deep Silence 1

Testing was done using Intel Burn Test (IBT) with the AVX instruction set. The reason I use this instead of Prime95 with this setup is that it pushes our i5 2500K a whole lot harder, giving us a better sense of load temps. Most of the testing was done at the high memory setting for a single pass. While admittedly this in no way would qualify the chip as stable when overclocking, it gives us a realistic idea of what temps it will be hitting.

Here are the stock cooler results:

Ambient temps: 22.22C/71.99F
Idle temps: 31.25C/88.25F core average
IBT temps: 78.5C/173.3F core average

And here are the results for stock settings for the Water 3.0 Pro:

Ambient temps: 23.89C/75F
Idle temps: 35.5C/95.9F core average
IBT temps: 49C/120.2F core average

Wow although the idle temps were nothing to be impressed with (even considering the increase in ambient temp), the IBT temps were far superior with the Water 3.0 Pro. It seems this AIO likes to handle heat.

Lets turn thing up a notch and see how far we can overclock our 2500K.

Ambient temps: 23.89C/75F
Max overclock: 4.9 ghz!/1.472V vCore
IBT temps: 79C/174.2F core average with one core hitting 84C

4.9 ghz, that’s very impressive for a 120mm radiator AIO! In fact looking back at our past results it’s as high of an overclock as both the Coolermaster Seidon 240M and the H100i. It would seem that Tt is on to something with this thicker radiator design.

Now not to be a buzzkill, but lets set performance aside for a moment and talk about noise. We had our fans controlled automatically by BIOS during all testing. And let me tell you, even for someone who probably has hearing damage from attending too many concerts and clubs these fans are too loud! And it’s not just the level of noise at load, it’s also the pitch whenever they are on. They create a very whiney noise that is just no good. This would be something to think about when considering their performance.