Watercooling, Tai Chi or Koolance

PikKOn · 30 Aug 2006 at 23:03

I did a search on the forums regarding the Thermaltake Tai Chi and came across an interesting read with one particular guy not liking them. If anyone has this what do they think of it and how easy was it to fit the watercooled stuff? I never touched a watercooled pipes and stuff so bit worried about ruining my cpu, mobo I would just cry if I did

Someone mentioned Koolance too. You can not ask for competitors.

Many thanks
PiKkOn

Yewen · 30 Aug 2006 at 23:35

You can not ask for competitors.

But to get down to it, the Tai Cheaps cooling is very very poor, the included water is a gimmic to sell to children basically for the bling factor of water cooling, avoid it at ALL costs as a £50 watercooling setup in a £60 case will compeltely blow it out of the water, literally speaking.

Koolance make excellent kit, and my next case for my main rig will most certainly be on of their modified Lian Li cases, they are reasonably easy to get hold of in the UK and I highly recommend you get one.

To put it into perspective, Thermaltake over estimate the cooling capeabilities of their watercooling, and even still the Tai Chi is rated to remove half the heat as the bottom Koolance system. The Koolance will do it with a lot less noise if set to low aswell.

If you want the best possible performance however it is worth going for custom kit and fitting it to the case yourself, as this offers the best performance and value for money.

PikKOn · 31 Aug 2006 at 09:10

I was looking at prices for this Koolance and the cheapest one can be found for around the £325 mark whereas the Tai Chi is only £213. Is the whole watercooling kit provided by Koolance and is it all fitted and working except the connection for the CPU?

A_Darkfire · 31 Aug 2006 at 13:05

You get everything you need except the cooling blocks (i.e. CPU / GFX / MB, etc...). I got one a while back (one of the Lian Li ones with the 700w setup) and it works quite well cooling just the CPU, though it gets very warm during the summer (thank god for A/C!

).

Cooling the other parts could be trouble with the Koolance parts as they use small 1/4" pipes which isn't really up to it and you need splitters to work in the 700w+ cases. Of course you could use other manufacturers blocks that use the 3/8" pipe...

Would no recommend getting the 1000w Lian Li case ones though as the radiator stops you using the 'bottom' PCI slot on your motherboard (as the motherboard is mounted up-side-down, BTX style).

M!!cook · 31 Aug 2006 at 14:05

Any of the Koolance will take the Thermaltake to the next Generation and back!
Remember Koolance is mainly a watercooling company (not just computers, Air Con - Airplanes)
Thermaltake make Cased and fans in a once known as backstreet shop.

Yewen · 31 Aug 2006 at 14:33

The Thermaltake kit gets beaten by a £50 120.1 rad kit, that you can fit to any case.

The Thermaltake is just not worth the money, trust me someone I know who is a HUGE Thermaltake fan got it, loves the case but the watercooling is not being used as silent air cooling was considerably better.

Do you really need watercooling though?