Thermaltake Water 3.0 Extreme S AIO CPU Cooler Review

Peter Donnell / 9 years ago

Overview

Price

The Thermaltake Water 3.0 Extreme S strips a few of the features from its bigger brother, which helps keep the overall cost down. Those adjustments mean that the cooler costs just £90, which seems expensive, but it’s around £20 cheaper than the NZXT Kraken X61, which goes toe-to-toe in terms of performance!

Overview

Thermaltake has really delivered a great product here, it has performance that will blow you away, allowing for great overclocking with low temps and very reasonable fan noise. What I did notice, or more importantly didn’t notice, was pump noise, as it’s a very quiet pump and short of a bit of fan turbulence it’ll be well suited to those who like a quiet system.

Build quality is pretty decent, it’s nothing groundbreaking, but it’s not about to fall apart anytime soon either. The design is a little bland, but certainly presentable with all black fittings, a slim radiator and two nice looking fans that will suit virtually any kind of system build.

The installation process wasn’t particularly easy and may take a little time for those installing one for the first time, but the manual was clear enough to walk you through the process.

Overall, the removal of some of the features that allowed you to control fan and pump speeds have been a positive thing for Thermaltake. The price is lower, the installation process is easier and there’s still very impressive performance figures on offer, making this one of the best all-round AIO coolers money can buy!

Pros

Simple, yet presentable design
Good quality fans
Competitive price
Fantastic performance

Cons

Mounting kit could be improved

“The Thermaltake Water 3.0 Extreme S is one of the best coolers I’ve ever tested. It goes head to head with a few competitors in terms of performance, but manages to keep the price below £100, making it a very attractive option for those wanting to overclock, but not spend too much money”