With more gamers and enthusiasts using quad-core processors the need for improved cooling it a must. Many have used air cooling, but are tempted to move on to bigger and better cooling methods like water cooling. Today, we will be looking at Thermaltake’s Bigwater 760i water cooler to see how it does on an Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 processor. Read on to see how it does against one of the best air cooled heat sinks we have to see if Bigwater 760i is worth it.
Sitting back in my chair looking at the test bench and feeling rather disappointed I couldn’t help but think about why the temps were so bad for a water cooler. I found my self looking at the front of 760i and the air inlet, in particular the way the inlet is in relation to the fan and radiator. I got to thinking that has to be restrictive. So I pulled the top of the M998 case back about 3” to simulate a blow hole. I then re-benchmarked the cooler...
How loud is the pump on this? A friend of mine has the bigwater 780e and the pump in that is the loudest thing in his rig (granted he had the radiator fan all the way down), but still, it's louder than I'd want to put up with. I think it's the same pump, but its orientated horizontally on the 780e rather than vertical (like its supposed to I think).
The 780e and the 760i use the same P500 pump.The pump sounded like it was full of rocks until I got the air out of the system, once I did it was very quite, the fan was louder than the pump. I know its more quiet than Nate's Nautilus. The fan on high can get loud depending on the case. When I had it on the table was worse than with it in the case. All of it is way more quiet than stock cooling.
You can avoid having to create a blow hole if you follow their instructions of putting it in the 2nd or 3rd from the top drive bay. I found by doing this and leaving the cover off the top drive bay it cooled my system very well.
Yup, but in the M998 the way the PSU supports are it prevented me from putting it in the 2nd and 3rd slots. That why I said you would have to play with the arrangement in the case, if I did this in my P190 it wouldn't have been an issue as its a full tower and has plenty of slots to leave space above the cooler.
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read the paragraphs after the graphs stev, once he fixed the orientation it did. and buba is it possible to make another set of graphs with the cooler in the better place? cause the way you have it now is a bit misleading especially if you are just skimming
martini161 wrote:read the paragraphs after the graphs stev, once he fixed the orientation it did. and buba is it possible to make another set of graphs with the cooler in the better place? cause the way you have it now is a bit misleading especially if you are just skimming
martini161 wrote:read the paragraphs after the graphs stev, once he fixed the orientation it did. and buba is it possible to make another set of graphs with the cooler in the better place? cause the way you have it now is a bit misleading especially if you are just skimming
martini161 wrote:read the paragraphs after the graphs stev, once he fixed the orientation it did. and buba is it possible to make another set of graphs with the cooler in the better place? cause the way you have it now is a bit misleading especially if you are just skimming
Yep, I skimmed while only looking at the charts. It's already mid-night out here on the east coast.
I wonder why the 760i didn't perform any better than the heat-pipe coolers? 
