Liquid Cooling Kit Review: Thermaltake BigWater 735

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The water block comes with several brackets which can be used to suit a variety of CPU sockets for both AMD and Intel. Most do not even require you to remove the metal plate on the bottom of the motherboard, either.

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The pump and reservoir are very plain and simple, with no flash, flow indicators, fluid level monitoring, (unless you call extremely dark tinted "translucent" plastic stuffed inside a dark computer "visible") or bonus features. The pump gets power through either a 4 pin Molex or a standard fan connector.

The biggest problem with this setup, though, is how difficult it is to customize. Personally, I would like to get a 5.25 inch bay reservoir with a flow monitor, temperature gauge, and easy fluid level viewing. Unless I want to also replace the pump, however, this presents a challenge. Because of the way the reservoir connects to the pump, the only way to really swap out the reservoir is to, instead, use 3/8'' plastic tubing unceremoniously stuffed inside the solid metal "tube thing". There is no barb, or screw down connector, or anything that gives you even the slightest bit of confidence that it won't leak all over your PC, desk, and carpet. While I successfully ran with a configuration like that mentioned above for a couple of months, I eventually gave up on it.

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Other than that, my only other complaint is probably the fan noise. Liquid cooling systems are technically supposed to be a little quieter than air cooled systems, but that certainly doesn't apply to this one. The stock Thermaltake fan on this radiator is not only an ugly eyesore orange, but also makes quite a bit of noise. You could eliminate that by turning the fan speed down to practically nothing with the included controller, but you'll probably find your temperatures jumping up higher than they were when you had a simple air-cooled solution. Your best bet is to replace the fan. I swapped mine out for a $12 120mm fan with a temperature sensor, which works quite well.

After trying it both ways, I can also give my recommendation for external installation. This particular radiator, for some unknown reason, doesn't do that great of a job at shedding heat. I found that, when installed inside of the case, my temperatures only improved by a meager 2 degrees celcius. When installed in the cooler environment outside the case, however, the difference was much more notable. Of course, so was the noisy fan which prompted its replacement.

Overall, this is a decent liquid cooling system. It includes everything you need to get started without being overly complicated. I think the pump/reservoir solution should have been designed much differently, but it will still work for most people. Reliability is one of the most important factors in PC cooling, though, and the BigWater 735 kit offers consistently lower temperatures and has been proven to run practically non-stop for over a year, even in extremely dusty conditions, and I fully expect it to keep on trucking for even longer.