Thermaltake Water 2.0 Performer Review

Performance Testing and Results

I used the following machine to test the Thermaltake Water 2.0 Performer CPU cooler:

The 3770k is an interesting CPU, it doesn’t put out a tremendous amount of heat but it runs very hot. I tested the Water 2.0 Performer against the Thermaltake Frio Extreme and the 3770k’s stock cooler, testing was done at stock clock speeds (1.04vcore), 4.1GHz (1.11vcore) and 4.5GHz(1.29vcore). To further complicate matters all Frio Extreme and Water 2.0 Performer tests were run with the fans at maximum as well as minimum speeds.  If that isn’t complicated enough, the Performer was tested both with its stock pre-applied paste and the same AA Ceramic 2.0 paste I used for the Frio Extreme and Intel Stock cooler. The Frio Extreme is used for comparison because at the testing speeds/voltages used it beat the TRUE I usually use.

The results are the average core temperature measured in degrees Celsius over the ambient air temperature. This makes the results easy to compare as it takes away a huge variable. The ambient temperature was measured using a Fluke 51 thermocouple thermometer with the probe about one inch in front of the fan hub.

Here we are with default BIOS settings loaded and XMP enabled for the ram:

This probably isn’t news to anybody, but the stock Intel cooler is terrible. The Water 2.0 Performer does pretty well, it can’t quite match the Frio Extreme when they’re both using the same paste, but it’s close. The pre-applied paste is clearly good stuff.

I’ll add some voltage and some clock speed, here we are at 4.1GHz:

Pretty much the same deal here. The Intel cooler is still hanging in there, but things are getting hot. The Water 2.0 Performer does well, but can’t match it’s larger cousin, the Frio Extreme. Let’s crank the OC up a bit more, to 4.5GHz and plenty of vcore.

At this point the Intel cooler won’t even boot. The Water 2.0 Performer is doing well, it continues to hold its own against the much larger and more expensive Frio Extreme.

The Fans

The fans are very nice by and large, the PWM control works beautifully and they are very quiet in the mid range, nearly silent at the low end, and not at all obnoxious at full speed. However if your PWM fan controller uses a low frequency signal they squeal nastily. The spec calls for a 25kHz, if your controller or motherboard uses that frequency everything is great. My motherboard does not, it uses a ~4kHz frequency. At that frequency the fans squeal quite a bit, very obnoxious. My custom fan controller can run at 3kHz or 25kHz (some Nidec server fans want 500Hz to 3kHz), at 25kHz the fans are wonderful, at 3kHz they’re quite annoying.