The waterblock

Instantly upon opening the box, you realize that the waterblock is quite small. The base is protected with transparent plastic, to ensure a scratch-free surface for the user. Interestingly, there are no seals on the block, it is brazed shut. This ensures no leaks from the waterblock itself, but also makes it impossible to change barbs on the block. A Tt sticker is present on the top of the waterblock.


The bottom side of the block has a cushion on it. This prevents the block from shorting out circuitry on the core, but also stops users from mounting the block onto graphic cards with large GPU cores. The bottom of the block is flat and lapped to a mirror finish, faint milling marks can be seen.

Installation

I decided that I would install the block on my Gainward 6800 Ultra, but unfortunately, I did not succeed. Here, the cushion was the problem – the core of the 6800 Ultra is simply too big. Also, there is a HSI bridge right under the core. I could not get the block to cover both of these, so I opted to install the block on a Sapphire Radeon X800GT.

First, I removed the plastic caps covering the barbs, and slid on the tubing provided. The clamps do a good job of holding it on, I tugged at the tubing several times and it did not come off. I then screwed in the 3/8” barbs, no Teflon tape was necessary as the barbs come with o-rings.


I would like to point out one sad thing though. To me, it seems as if words like “restriction” and “flow rate” mean nothing to the people at Thermaltake. The tubing has a very small ID, and adds to the overall restriction in a water cooling loop.


Next, I removed the original cooler and cleaned up the thermal paste.


Following the instructions, I installed two screws with fibre washers through the card, and secured the rear bracket:

The instructions say nothing about how much you should tighten the screws, so I tightened them as hard as I could. This resulted in the bracket bending.

I applied a thin layer of Arctic Silver Ceramique on the core and installed the block.

The whole setup looked like this:


Installed, the card with the waterblock takes up very little space, you can mount a card in the slot right next to it: