HW-Legends #16: This GPU Cooler Made in 2005 still works Today! Thermaltake Tide Water

[@kcobainrv]

No cat in this studio, unacceptable!

[@der8auer-en]

:( seems like I have to record extra cat content for a cat-break

[@Tautolonaut]

@@der8auer-en C-roll?

[@helljester8097]

@@Tautolonautexactly or if there is a appropriately adorable doggo at thermal grizzly will accept d-roll I am not hard to please.

[@gunysa]

Who will test product caTability?

[@GrainGrown]

@@helljester8097 No dogs. Only cats.

[@clynesnowtail1257]

Car coolant is good at preventing corrosion, but as you found, when something was covered in coolant and then the level drops exposing it to air, rust can occur. GM learned this lesson in the '90s, where vehicles were being driven with low coolant, but not low enough to over heat, so some parts were basically getting splash cooled only. Those areas would rust really badly and turned the coolant over time into a rusty slurry.

[@pvtnewb]

Oh boy please make that 8800GTX video, such a legendary card

[@DrNoBrazil]

1080 ti is the ultimate legend

[@ChrispyNut]

Really not, the GT[512] way more legend.

[@puciohenzap891]

@@ChrispyNut 8800/9800GT 512MB was legendary, so was the 9600GSO 384MB but as a budget offering. HD2900XT from ATI was legendary...bad, as was the Nvidia FX5950 Ultra few years before.

[@Warmeister-zr2tg]

8800gtx was my first high end card and had them in SLI, good old days

[@yensteel]

We should bring back copper+transparent coolers. Like the HIS IceQ series. Edit: IceQ not chill. Wrong name

[@shaneeslick]

G'day @yensteel yeah I love the look of my HIS HD5770 ICEQ5 Turbo

[@yensteel]

@@shaneeslick Oh, the cooling name may have been wrong. The HIS IceQ were definitely quiet coolers! Some of them were blowers with a quiet radial fan, and a transparent shroud. ^ ^

[@banoko]

I LOVE BARE COPPER!!!

[@kevinerbs2778]

Those where the best blower card coolers ever made, they have hybrid fan design inside of them too. I'm sick of this nickel plated bullcrap nickel is NOT a good conductor it's actually 3-5 times worse than aluminium.

[@kasuraga]

I have a pair of HD4830 IceQ 4's awesome looking coolers, even if most of the copper is just painted aluminum

[@masterTigress96]

150 watt TDP what a time that was to be alive. I can only hope we can make a return to more modest TDP numbers. 400 whatever watts for the 4090 is just insane. If it wasn't performing so well it would just have been a reincarnation of the GTX 480.

[@der8auer-en]

I loved my 8800GT with G92 chip back then. And it was 125W haha. Crazy how things got out of hand

[@PointingLasersAtAircraft]

I want a desktop that consumes 2000W at idle.

[@djchotus1]

Well. A 4060 is 110watt. And I bet performs way better than that old. Card. We're in the Golden age!

[@petrihadtosignupforthis8158]

2080 > 4090 is roughly 3X performance jump. It is also 2.5x jump in power demands.

[@Belaziraf]

@@PointingLasersAtAircraft Next gen nVidia will allow you to consume 5000W with power off.

[@gerber8915]

My first AIO video card was a EVGA 980ti. It worked really well at the time. Currently running a MSI Suprim that is also an AIO solution and doesn't look massive in the case. This was a fun throwback to watch 👌👌

[@marinipersonal]

The only way something made by Thermaltake to last 20 years is in a sealed box.

[@der8auer-en]

hahahaha

[@ocudagledam]

I don't know of any water cooling kits that can last 20 years while in use.

[@burrfoottopknot]

@@ocudagledam TT have a track record of poor build quality IMHO

[@doclmoreno]

I love this videos! they take me back when I was a kid reading about this gadgets on magazines! It is awesome they still kinda work after 20 years!

[@quirkyMakes]

I personally really appreciate the effort you put into getting this piece of tech history working again. Thanks alot! Oh and these AIO's were really geared toward the tinkerers.

[@maplemiyazaki]

love this kind of content, revisiting the good old stuff is so much fun!!

[@mikeydk]

Love these old cooler videos!

[@duccc]

Always appreciate how much effort you put into your videos!

[@brandonroeder2461]

I modified a CoolIt FreezeOne back in 2006 for my E8500, I still use it today for my 5800X3D. The only thing I had to change was the block, the rest ( including the vast majority of the coolant ) is all as it was in 2006 when I first installed it. Works like a charm still. I even have a backup unit I bought at the same time that's not modified at all yet, all original.

[@MrGiulik]

The new studio has a fresh and lovely air. Congratz Roman , 'caz it looks awsome !

[@DigitalIP]

Flush the coolant out via the fill port and replace it all with distilled water, you could probably grab the contaminants with the syringe as well. I'm pretty sure coolant has a shelf life, so being 20 years old is likely Part of the problem as well.

[@MrArrakis9]

this hits me hard in the nostalgia I wanted one of these coolers so bad back in the day. back when Thermaltake was making their own designs Lol!

[@quasaristmagnetar2658]

they still own their designs

[@Th3Fly1ngCow]

@@quasaristmagnetar2658sometimes they stole a ton of case designs

[@quasaristmagnetar2658]

@@Th3Fly1ngCow like which case?

[@Th3Fly1ngCow]

@@quasaristmagnetar2658mainly caselabs google thermal fake

[@Cogency]

The little Terrarium with the light on the desk is a bit to bright, rest looks good!

[@BrandensOutdoorChannel]

Too*

[@theminer49erz]

I had the basic tidewater back when it came out. I put it on a ATI X850 All-In-Wonder along with a custom cooler for the rest of the PCB and OCed the heck out of it. I also OCed CPU by making a custom loop for my Athlon 64 using their passive tower RAD they had. It was a free open box score, too! Anyway, one reason I think the pump is so slow is because it's a little more powerful and restricted due to the rather small RAD's "passages". That is from memory from geesh, nearly 18± years ago since I serviced it. It worked really well btw! I'm thinking about using it to liquid cool my router😁

[@andrewdenzov3303]

Oh I remember that thing. I periodically run into some hardware relics while browsing local flea markets. My best finding for now is CM aquagate with zalman WB

[@WoTReplaySK]

Those unknown pieces are crystallized coolant, quite a common thing with old fluid, I think the longest interval is 10 years for replacement. This one is 9 years past its zenith. PS:Next time you need to clean the radiator and also the heat exchanger because it will also be in it, the best thing is to rinse it all with vinegar water.

[@GULIwer1980]

Yeah coolant is long-lasting but not that long-lasting. Nice video and nice studio.

[@brandonroeder2461]

I have an AIO for my CPU that's used the same coolant since 2006, Feser F1 UV Blue. The ONLY thing I've added since then has been small amounts of distilled water into the sealed resevoir, eHeim Inovatek resevoir/pump. And that's every other year or so. 😂 Still runs clear and quiet.

[@super_slav91]

Glycerin based coolant is ever lasting. doesn't break down, 10 years in my car already. VW G13 coolant.

[@gallanonim1177]

Still have my 8800GTX hanging on my wall, still working, still able to play Witcher 2 and things like this. Epic GPU series

[@3DQuan]

15:23 one of the reasons your content is some of my favorite. (aside from the great technical perspective) the unintended humor is always hilarious

[@detmer87]

I had the Thermaltake SLI version installed on two Geforce 7800 GT's. What I remember is that the performance was in between stock air cooling and custom waterblock. It was an improvement over the single slot air coolers.

[@greggreg2458]

I love HW legends episodes!

[@kitpalencar5165]

DUDE I have three Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 8800GTXs in triple SLI in my retro rig. So sick to see this cooler!!! I even have a dead one on display occupying my vertical GPU mount in a Corsair 680x.

[@siberx4]

The whole 8800 family was legendary for the time. Great cards, and glad to see a unique version of one here!

[@JessicaFEREM]

absolutely oxygenmaxxing in there with all the greenery

[@WXSTANG]

I am the first one to ever make a watercooled system. I designed it in 2000, and made it in 2001 while I was in college for engineering. It went on my Celeron 300A. Everyone laughed at me, and told me it was a stupid idea, so I gave up on it. It had a voltage regulator tied to a termistor which regulated a Perry Pump, and RC fuel tank, and RC fuel line which I sourced from Tower Hobbies. I used a PC fan with aluminum capilary tubes running across the face as a radiator and I stuffed it all in an old CD 5.25 inch case and added a front faceplate with temperature monitoring and manual override pump speed adjustment. The heatsink was a custom block. Huh... moral of the story... most people will try to drag you down. Do what you love, even if others hate on you for it.

[@puciohenzap891]

Nice studio Roman! Love the HW legends episodes. Any chance of DFI and Abit motherboards episode?

[@Knowbody42]

I remember that socket 939 Lanparty board with an Nvidia nforce4 chipset.

[@puciohenzap891]

​​​​​I had a few of them, the nf3, the NF4 UltraD and the NF4 SLI-DR Expert, should've never sold the last one, truly an idiot moment considering it had an athlon FX60 on it😢

[@der8auer-en]

I have some DFI boards and also one abit board. Will check :)

[@andrew1977au]

Definitely DFI, I had heaps of those boards back in the day

[@puciohenzap891]

@@der8auer-en Please do Roman! Legendary OC boards - maybe some LN2 fun? 😀

[@Boogie_the_cat]

I like the green colors and plant like accents in your new studio.

[@mememe37]

Thank you for showing us such a cool concept!

[@mste456]

used to love my old BFG 8800 GTX's running in SLI, could almost fry an egg on the side of the case they got HOT!!!

[@AngryPenguin22]

PLEASE more GPU modding like this! Show us how to hack up an AIO to cool a 3090! I LOVE this kind of GPU modding! Studio looks great man.

[@Capt.Marco-Hawk-L.L.A.P]

I still remember water cooling my Athlon xp cpu back in the day the tubes were the same size as your cooler in the video, I still have the water block but no longer have the other parts

[@xsvrrx]

cool thanks Romen. great video as always

[@Schattiz]

Gratz on 200k subs!

[@DrivingVertigo]

Love the reviews of retro water cooling kits. Might I recommend the Evercool Water Cooler Kit WC-202 for a future review? It too included a GPU water block, as well as CPU, and they are readily available on eBay. I had one back in the day and it was a beast to cool my overclocked Athlon XP mobile barton.

[@charredolive]

To think this kit retailed for $75 is crazy value

[@rayproductionsbackupchanne3862]

yeah that was before manufactures realized idiots are willing to pay upwards of 500% extra for something,

[@dslynx]

new studio: looks and sounds great to me!

[@notjhon-r7n]

Ahhh my old tnt and radeon 9500 series just flash back

[@Chaos_God_of_Fate]

I love this kind of old hardware. would be neat to see more AIOs with different form factors like this. I was kinda hoping you'd fire up the 8800 though. I just dusted off an old 8400 since i needed a single slot gpu to get into the bios and change it from UEFI to CSM mode- my old Fury Nano wouldn't work in any of the other slots and it was too thick to put into the bottom slot. It was just sitting in a box with a bunch of other low-mid tier GPUs, but I now keep it in a safer spot since I know it still works and it saved me! I almost thought I'd gotten a bad motherboard with my new build, all is well though.

[@marsaustralis6881]

Given the increasing lack of PCIe Cards due to a lack of spare PCIe lanes, there's an opportunity to repurpose some of the PCI slots to handle blower-style liquid-cooling radiators. Dell themselves have marketed a GPU attached to a modern version of the TideWater, produced by Asetek.

[@lrmcatspaw1]

I love the all copper heatsink. Really cool to watch you fix this old thingy. I love my old PC parts that I never will use again. I think the pressure of the waterblock is not good since there is such a large difference from hotspot to gpu temp.

[@geofrancis2001]

I had one of these on my X1900XTX back in the day.

[@DeMoniserer]

3:08 - actually preinstallied solution is combined water AND air cooling. So there is no TDP excess.

[@fryguylol]

I remember playing on my SLI 8800 GTX & COD2 🎉

[@itsdeonlol]

New background looks good!

[@TechnologyHive]

Great video, Roman! Thanks for sharing!

[@AdamsWorlds]

Never seen one back in the day, most water cooling was external that I came across in the early-mid 2000s. (usually just on the CPU and a big square box that looked like the PSU was mounted externally). It seemed to change overnight to AIO/Custom cooling with a reservoir. The popular reservoir I remember seeing was the DNA helix shape that looked like the thing from resident evil movies. I remember cases having 2 clear strips up the side that would light up and had fake bubbles inside, and cold cathode tubes lol.

[@MmntechCa]

There was a bunch of them. Corsair I think had those that mounted on top of the case. I think Thermaltake had one that mounted in the 5.25 bays. Zalman's Reserator was the most I was most interested in. Was a fanless setup with this big cooling tower. Most enthusiast cases of that era had cutouts to run the hoses through. IIRC, Coolit had the first AIO as we'd know them today. I think they were a variant of the ones Apple was using in the G5 PowerMacs. Of course you had to have CCFL blacklights with UV reactive parts.

[@leovbernardo]

Nice studio!! Congrats! One feedback: the boards hanging on the wall are somehow blending with the boards on the desk.. maybe because of the bg colors?!

[@robmasters3569]

love the new studio but I HATE that you do not have your cats wandering around or chilling out and looking adorable. Please don't stop featuring them in your videos or I will be really disappointed. Animals are so important and I don't care that people will say my comments have nothing to do with technology

[@Speak_Out_and_Remove_All_Doubt]

Loving the new studio, very eco!

[@der8auer-en]

thanks :)

[@ccleorina]

I still keep my Cooler Master AquaGate Mini R120 from 2008 and its still working good.

[@EliseoBLK]

good enough for me, sounds good, looks good. so no problem for me.

[@eizomonitor6003]

I would describe it as a very calm place with an almost romantic atmosphere.

[@andersmalmgren6528]

I had the 8800 GTS (G92). Water cooled with a none full cover block if i recall correctly. I think it was my last card before I went full cover block. But what a great card it was. I could run crysis without peoblem.

[@pankothompson5903]

I miss all the cool aftermarket coolers Morpheus, Arctic Accelero/silencer. Larger blower conversions would be nice if you could easily convert to a 120mm ducting to get the heat away now that we are crossing into 400-600 watt territory

[@Speak_Out_and_Remove_All_Doubt]

- Video Content Suggestion - I saw something a couple of years ago from I think Anthony at LTT on 'Hypertec Immersion Cooling' or maybe the company is 'Submer', I'm not really sure. But it seemed like they had a new type of liquid you could submerge systems in that wasn't Novec and seemingly safe. Pretty sure it would make for a great video if you could get a tour of the factory or build system using it or something like that. I have always wanted an easy to maintain submerged PC!!

[@mealot7613]

Bought 2 coolermaster aquagate viva aios for old gpus a few weeks back. They needed a refill but something like a filter was gone to hell and clogged up everything. Happily these have a flow meter and i was able to take it out.

[@WeAreMovieMakers]

Would be cool to take a look at one of those external water cooling towers that were fairly common at the time.

[@RuruFIN]

The Asus Aquatank card was a nice one, overclocked to ~Ultra speeds.

[@coccoborg]

Really high hot spot may be because of clogged fins in the cold plate, or vad cold plate design in general. Early cold plates were quite primitive

[@billlucas8124]

you mentioning the video output chip in the TDP section reminded me they existed! I remember re-padding it whenever I was repasting my 275 gtx. what ever happened to them did they just become integrated into the gpu itself?

[@jordibt1789]

hey, love yours vids, could you find the MSI stirling engine CPU cooler to make a vid about it? couldn't even find a vid of it

[@chrunchyhobo]

That's extremely unlikely, as it was a one-off prototype that never made it to market. It was a chipset cooler BTW, not a CPU cooler.

[@supernova874]

Tide water , With Tribe VX still have them and still working and where amazing , had also TT Original Tribe that i breaked down cause the pump had failed after a looooong time and replaced with tribe II , don't remember what card i had install in Tide Water but most posible was my x1900XT from noise was too high.

[@DuneRunnerEnterprises]

Hmm,just another of "unobtanium"😊. I think,i can remember seeing it somewhere,and wandering,how cool it was.

[@_Randwulf]

Impressive Roman, as to how far you are willing to go to get a product to function.. 👍😎

[@balika011]

If you can have cats in this studio as well, i'm fine with it.

[@milosmarinkovic1572]

Great stuff thy for english version, that cooler would be awesome in 2007 but now is not horible but kinda unusable. All in all great video i love it.

[@zCaptainz]

GJ Nice effort. Most people would just *try* to fit it in, give up, and later sell it on an auction Lol

[@Heakz]

Computer hardware is so odd, often whenever I want something to exist, it isn't that it has never been done, it always has been, years ago but just never became a thing. I wish it was more common to see atypical but useful concepts turned into actual products each generation; even if they don't end up being widely accepted.

[@DLTX1007]

I think sapphire... Yeah the X1950XTX Toxic also had a AIO cooler on it similar to this

[@100500daniel]

Pretty crazy that a "cheap" small sized GPU air cooler is much better than what was the premium solution back then.

[@emilyshabang]

That was a cool looking aio solution.

[@Darkchiller23]

I have a NZXT G12 with NZXT Elite 280 all with Noctua fans even the one on the G12 plate with a Noctua 92mm and radiator is push-pull and it's cooling a Gigabyte 7900xtx OC idle is 26c and hotspot 33c. While gaming it's cooling 39-41c and hotspot 54-55c all on max settings and tuned to 3200 MHz. This is the way for AIO!!!

[@Madpegasusmax]

I like the terrariums , the cat is missing , nice product , will it cool down a HD 7770 ?

[@OllyO-gt8pg]

the impeller on my fish tank pump does the same, has to be squeeky clean.

[@michaelfairchild]

After all those years, I'd replace the coolant. Even now a watercooling coolant have around 2 year shelf life. At least the coolant and pump doesnt look like one from older Pauls Hardware system.

[@Tom-lu9gj]

Bring the cats to the new studio and we are happy.

[@marekciostek1458]

You can clean everything, add new tubing, maybe new mini pomp from other AIO, new clean destilated water but it still be 20 years old AIO.

[@unitybeing777]

Great times.

[@slavkorulit]

for now overall picture is darker than before but quite nice!

[@mombizzle]

abit stoned but I really loved the video 😅 i thought he would give up on the pump earlier.

[@AngryPenguin22]

Can you make a hacked together full AIO loop? Like 2 Corsair 360mm aios, or something, with hoses combined and using both pumps on the gpu and cpu to push the extra water? It would be amazing.

[@VexFlint]

Do you know what would be nice to try? Adding a new block to this combo, seeing if it helps in anyform of heat dissipation

[@facebag666]

I have sapphire HD3870x2 ATOMIC with a factory water cooling unit on it. as far as I can tell my card is #18. I got it to run quad crossfire with my AMD quadfather FX74 settup.

[@nemesisecg]

Cooler master aquagate duo viva

[@crf637]

W

[@floodo1]

Oh man I remember the Tide Water. Actually cool aesthetics for the time … so funny to see the stickers on the old GPUs This channel always keeping it real with the random “that took a lot longer than I expected” in various vids

[@Chiongster101]

I have the old universal GPU waterblocks and I do wonder if the new memory chips like gddr6 work well with passive air cooling without heatsinks.

[@JJFX-]

Thermaltake was so close yet so far. If only they'd released something with a pump in the block we might have avoided all the Asetek drama. They filed for their patent in mid 2004 but I don't think anything utilizing it were sold to OEMs for another 1-2 years.

[@hisuiibmpower4]

looks like a sensorless brushless dc motor ，measure inductance and resistance on each phase and find a 3rd part drive can drive that motor

[@yakacm]

Love these kinds of videos. One thing thou, so the card is rated at 155W plus 35W for the other components, and the cooler could manage 120W, just wondering how that could be described as a perfect fit? What am I missing?

[@TheCulturedSwine]

Only problem with the new studio is the lack of kitty

[@cs_mns]

I remember this and the subzero

[@DudokX]

Nice Plants!

[@therobotguide]

This was fun :-)

[@gerardfraser]

good job

[@danytoob]

Roman strikes again! Couldn't be cooler (pun intended, of course!)

[@yakacm]

I've said this before, when Derbauer 1st started making these videos in 2 languages, but can we just take a minute to appreciate the work that must go in to that. It would be OK if he just recorded once and did a voice over, but it doesn't appear to do that. The parts where he's mending stuff and he saying what he's doing, must be a PIA to do. Like you can only solder a wire on once, so god knows how he does that, cuz it's not like he can do 2 takes?