Thermaltake Water 2.0 Extreme

[dosmond]

I've chosen the Thermaltake Water 2.0 Extreme Water Cooler extreme for my build... but I have some questions about the unit, and the support info on the thermaltake website is less then helpful and hopefully some one on this forum actually has the same cooler and can provide some more info about it.

1) I can't see any info on mounting the cooler in the front of a case, every single review I've googled has it placed on the top of the case. That's an option But I'd like to use it in the front of the case (Arc Midi R2). Is this a good choice? and does it really matter if the hoses are on the bottom of the rad or the rad is flipped around so the hoses are at the top?

2) As for the wired adapters etc, there's a main power plug that goes to the motherboard header that powers the entire unit, and then there's the dual fan plug-ins from the water block that powers the fans and lastly there's the usb wire that allows monitoring and fan control. That's all fine and good, if I want to bother with the monitoring and such through thermaltakes software, what I'd I don't? A) if I do not use the included software, will it run the pump and fans at full speed? B) if I don't use the usb cable at all will it run everything at full speed, fans and pump. C) is there any ham in just hooking up the fans directly to a fan controller like the NZXT Sentry mesh? D) what about a completely manual setup, (don't use the usb, don't hook up the fans to the pump, don't hook up the pumb power to the motherboard just directly to a power supply molex?

Current build parts list: (some new, some old parts)

Fractal Design Arc Midi R2
G.Skill Sniper 8GB PC3-14900
Intel Core i5-4670K
Asus Maximus VI Hero
Antec Truepower New 750W
Gigabyte HD 7950 windforce
Thermaltake Water 2.0 Extreme
NZXT Sentry mesh
Intel 330 series 180GB ssd
OCZ Vertex 2 60GB ssd
various sata 2 and sata 3 harddrives
Antec big boy 200mm

 

[JD]

Chances are, the hoses will not be long enough to mount it in the front of your case. Beyond that though, nothing is stopping you. That's why you only see the unit mounted up top as it's the closest place to the CPU.

You should be able to plug the pump directly into the PSU using a 3pin fan connector to molex adapter. Likewise you can plug the fans on the radiator into whatever you want as well. The only reason they plug everything into eachother is so that you can control it using the software.

If your set on mounting it in the front of your case, you'll have to do a more custom-loop, there are some kits provided that will allow you to do this, but it'll be more work/maintenance:
Swiftech H2O-X20 Elite Series
XSPC Raystorm 750 EX240
EK L240 Complete Dual 120mm

I personally wouldn't recommend Thermaltake watercooling products. They've had a pretty bad reputation in the past, and I'm not sure they've done enough to improve themselves for me to think otherwise.