Thermaltake CLW0211 Bigwater 760 Plus Dual Bay Drives Water Cooling Core i7 Compliant

Pros: The green tubing/coolant looks good. Adjustable fan is a nice feature. Easy installation.

Cons: The first thing I noticed is that the fan blows downward. Hot air naturally rises, so this seems a bit counter productive. Also, unless you have the drive bay directly beneath it empty, there is nowhere for the hot air to go. The fill indicator light never turns off, regardless of the amount of coolant in the reservoir. The pump went out on me after 4 months of use. And with the company's RMA service, I have to ship in the unit before I get a replacement. So, I had to buy a new CPU cooler anyway.

Other Thoughts: I will not be a repeat customer of thermaltake.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Customer,
We at Thermaltake apologize for the inconvenience this may have caused you. We can replace the level sensor through warranty service.
Thermaltake USA Customer Service
email: ttsupport@thermaltakeusa.com
Toll free: 1-800-988-1088 M-F 9:00AM ~ 5:30PM (P.S.T)
011

Pros: Fits into two bays. Easy to install. Plenty of tubing. Looks pretty cool with UV lighting.

Cons: Where to begin. I have only had this unit for almost a week now and everything that I have read that could go wrong with this (mostly) already has. For one, it doesn't cool for the life of me. I had a thermaltake heatsink with one fan that cooled better than this. Im sitting at 40-42c on idle 4.3 i5-2500k. Also, the refill light is on and its maxed out on coolant, another extremely common problem. But the biggest downfall of this unit is the design flaw withing. Why is there a fan pushing air DOWN on the radiator?? That just creates a hot pocket underneath the unit. There also isnt enough space in between the top of the fan and my cdrom drive, minimizing the amount of airflow. In order to reverse this, I would have to take out my cdrom drive and leave that bay empty, and take out other components just to get maybe 2c cooler. MAYBE. It is a shame since I was excited about this product, and an extremely big thermaltake fan, but I wanted to try to save some of you guys money and tell you to either build your own custom loop, or get a thermaltake water 2.0 extreme (especially since its right at about the same freaking price, for a bigger radiator and two fans. I would strongly recommend not buying this product. I guess some people have gotten lucky and its working for them, but all the problems that I have read about have already happened to me within the first week. Except for the pump going out, which is another well known issue. I have also seen the coolant evaporate over just a few days of running. Will be RMA, unfortunately.

Pros: This unit is the top cpu cooler on the market. Keeps my Q9550 at about 40C.

Cons: This unt uses alot of coolant (not water) It does have a tendency to evaporate.

Other Thoughts: I have this installed in a stock HP D500t case and it fits just fine. If you don't have much knowledge on liqid cooling or builds you should not purchase this item. The unit has been running for 3 years with no problems or failures.

Pros: I see a lot of people giving bad reviews, and I've seen several complaints about Thermaltake. I'm not here to give another bad review.

Everything works perfectly (including the refill light!) and the instructions were understandable from the pictures, but not the best translations.

Before i installed this, i had an older AM2 coolermaster hs&f. My 960T wouldn't boot windows when unlocked to X5 or X6 even at underclocked speeds. At first, i thought i couldn't unlock the 2 other cores because my MB only supports up to 95W (unlocking the cores would raise the cpu above 95W).

After installing the bigwater, I'm now running my 960T at X6 3.4ghz paired with an old school AsRock N68-S UCC that only supports 95W. I don't see higher than 47C at full load, and my idle temp with my 80mm tornado fan @ 20% speed, and 6 cheap 80mm fans @ 35% speed.

Cons: NONE AT ALL!

Pros: Only pro was it was delivered quick

Cons: I followed the instructions as well as I could (they are written terribly) and got the beast installed and the pump turned on for a whole 5 seconds and burned out.

Other Thoughts: If they re-engineer this product it would be a pretty sweet addition to any computer but until then this is a no buy

Pros: None, do not buy

Cons: When I purchased this unit 2 years ago, I expected it to last more than that for the price. Apparently the pump failed and was leaking coolant for a while and I just thought having to refill it every 3 months was normal due to evaporation as I never owned a liquid cooling system like this one. I was wrong and this now sits as a $150 paperweight.

Other Thoughts: Their tech support for this device is really poor. I let them know of the problem and they told me to purchase a replacement pump for my device. I'm not going to shell out more money in hopes of fixing this peace of junk. This is the second Thermal Take device I have purchased in the past 3 years and both were junk. Avoid this device as the feedback now reflects how junky it is. Wish I would have had it there to listen to when I purchased this device.

Pros: never installed

Cons: FYI this review is not based on the performance or ability of the unit, only the size...

I shouldve listened to the other reviews that said this thing is big. cause it's huge. I got a mid ATX case which forced the motherboard to be mounted on the side instead of the bottom. this configuration left no room for the cooling unit. even if I had been able to somehow squeeze the unit in, the tubes wouldve blocked the motherboard power cords.

I wouldn't recommend anything less than a large case if you intend on using this thing. I'm sure it works great, looks cool, but I never got a chance to find out.

Other Thoughts: word of advice, to the uninitiated...you don't need a liquid cooling unit unless youre going to overclock your CPU. I got a 4.2 ghz AMD. even if this giant had ended up fitting, I doubt I wouldve needed it.

Pros: IlovetheideaofbeinginthecaseitlooksreallygoodinmyrigIalsolikethelightsinitwiththeknobforthefanIlovethat.

Cons: WellI'veownedthisthingforoverayearandwellIdon'twritereviewsoftenbutIamforthis...ThisthingsrefilllightblinkswhenfullsenseI'vegotitsothatsucksalsothisthingisdefinitelynotam3complimentIhaveaandphenomiix6@3.8ghzturboletmetellyoumymoboidkhowmanytimesshutmeoffbecausethisthingsimplycannotkeepupmaybethrowitonaquadcoresurethatmayworkbutcannotdoa6core..Alsoyeahthelidleaksalotwhichreallysucksuhavetobesocarefulnottogetanythingonurmobographicscardanythingthinglikethat

Other Thoughts: Honestly I wish I could have a refund sense this is the 3rd heat sync I bought which says pretty much it will cool my CPU and hasn't kept it cool but this is more a learning thing to not buy another one of these.

Pros: It did cool my system down to 72 degrees F.
Does look nice in a case.
Nice and quiet (in my humble opinion)
Easy installation
No leaks
Easy bleeding!

Cons: First night I ran it...the temperatures were at 89 degrees. I came to the realization the case that I have was strictly designed for Liquid cooling. So I took off the door, my Blu-Ray Burner and left open the bay door and voila, 72 degrees. But I'm not happy to leave my door forever open and not have my burner. So unfortunately this cooler is NOT for every case. But I do recommend it for most depending on the case and air flow.

Other Thoughts: I did wish I saw the whole lack of air movement earlier in my case but live and learn. It is a small system and honestly I'm not too sure if will be upgrade friendly. By that I mean able to hold/push/cool enough water to other components other than the CPU. The Res does seem quite small. But I guess if someone adds an Inline Res it might solve the issue. But it would take alot of abstract brainstorming :p

Pros: I have 2 of these installed. One on the processor and one on the memory. They keep the processor at 34c under ultra settings in Battlefield3 and the memory is 31c

Cons: even though the coolant level is aways full, the low level lights are always blinking. This happens with both of the ones i have installed.