SilverStone Tundra Series TD03-RGB AIO Cooler Review

Installation

When it comes to a cooler, there are generally three factors that determine how easy the installation will be. Firstly, how well the manual presents the installation method. Secondly, how well the different parts are organised within the packaging, and finally the actual mounting system itself.

In this regard, for many of the more tricky installations, it’s usually the last option that presents the greatest issue. In this regard, however, it’s (entirely against the norm) the first two.

While the parts are somewhat organised, you are pretty much given one generic bag of screws containing the fixtures for all the various socket types. Secondly, and perhaps most disappointingly, you are not provided with a physical manual. Yes, the front of the packaging has a huge QR code box to access the manual online, but personally, I think that the lack of a manual you can hold in your hand is really disappointing.

So, what about the online manual? Well, even that isn’t particularly well written. If you plan to install this using your mobile phone to access the manual, then prepare for difficulties. The pictures are small and definitely hard to make out (even when zoomed in). Even the full manual (which you can download from the official product website) isn’t particularly detailed and certainly keeps written instructions to a minimum.

So… no physical manual and poor online versions doesn’t make for an installation suitable (or at least easy) for beginners.

Thankfully, the mounting system for the TD03-RGB itself is decent and actually pretty intuitive. Therefore, for an experienced hand, installing it is not too difficult. As above, however, the lack of an actual manual you can hold in your hand is just unnecessary cost-cutting that makes this much harder than it really needs to be.

RGB

There is, in addition, another problem with the installation. Namely that out of the box you are not given enough connectors to get all of the RGB lights hooked up. You are required to have either an RGB sync capable motherboard or your own hub controller. If not (and I got this entirely wrong), then the manual didn’t do a good enough job explaining to me how to work around it and this is coming from someone who deals with this stuff all the time. You can piggyback Molex cables, adaptors and cables etc. but at best it’s messy and (again) not intuitive in the slightest.

Once installed, however, the cooler does look pretty awesome and a particular highlight is the pump head to which the RGB lighting is nice, clear, crisp, and solid.