Thermaltake Big Water 735

The hardware provided with the system will allow you to mount the Big Water in pretty much any system out there. There are brackets for AM2, K8, LGA775 and BTX. Included with the hardware is very descriptive instruction guide with plenty of pictures for those of us who don’t like to read. The mounting brackets are not shabby and cheaply manufactured, they are quite the opposite.

Each component in the Big Water uses a tool-less design that is very well manufactured and truly tool-less. These threaded quick connects used in this system are a perfect fit for the quick installation. Many kits and components on the market don’t provide threaded connectors and require the use of zip ties or other methods that aren’t exactly easy to remove. These threaded quick connects will provide enough pressure on the tubing to prevent leakage (running 24 hours a day in my rig with no leakage for over 3 weeks now).

In the provided guide for installation, Thermaltake recommends installing the system so that the pump pushes water through the water block to the radiator and finally into the reservoir. This layout is subscribed to by many of the manufacturers that produce water cooling kits. This is true of my custom water cooled rig as well.

With the size of the radiator, most people will have a problem getting this thing to fit into their cases. I am not one of those people that can sit idly next to my computer knowing that my radiator is sitting outside my chassis or jerry rigged in some manner. My Lian Li PC70 doesn’t have any 120mm fans in it, they are all 80’s and is where one of our previously reviewed products comes into play in great fashion, the Scythe Kama Bay. The beauty of the Kama bay is that it installs into your 5.25 inch bays and doesn’t require modifying your case. I simply modified the Kama Bay by installing motherboard risers before the fan to give me enough clearance for the radiator, then mounted the fan against the radiator blowing in the same direction as the fan originally installed by Thermaltake. This configuration allows me to mount this radiator up front taking advantage of proper chassis airflow.

After the initial fiasco of modifying my Kama bay to install the Big Water 735, I am happy to say the rest of the installation is easy enough for a caveman to do (Watch out Geico). My favorite part of the review process is seeing if a product is actually worth the effort and the money.