Sitting on top of the inner carton is the users manual and fan control software CD. The two included 120 mm fans are the typical Thermaltake PLA12025S12HH-LV variety that are used on many Thermaltake products. The fans are rated for 1200 to 2000 RPM. The fans push a maximum of 81.32 CFM (per fan) at a 27.36 dBA  (max per fan). The hardware package includes all the needed items to install the block and radiator. The CPU mounting hardware supports all current AMD and Intel platforms.

As for the software, it gives you the ability to control fan speeds, and thus the noise associated with them. There are three presets to choose from; extreme, silent, or custom. The Extreme setting will run the fans at the full 2000 RPM, while the silent setting will drop the fan speed to 1200 RPM. The custom setting allows you to select the desire temperature and the fan speed will automatically go up or down in an attempt to keep the CPU at the desired temperature. You can also change the way information is displayed to a graph style if preferred.

The radiator features an aluminum fin design that is 38mm thick, and the interior of the radiator is aluminum as well. The radiator is threaded on both sides to allow for easy installation of a push/pull fan setup if one desires to do so.. Both hoses are permanently attached to the radiator using a plastic fitting. The hoses are just short of 13 inches long with an outside diameter of just over 5/8 inch, leading me to believe the inside diameter is probably 1/4 inch. Both hoses will swivel side to side which greatly aids the ease of installation. The water block itself comes protected with a hard plastic cover, and once that is removed you can see the factory applied TIM and the nicely done polish job on the copper plated water block.

The fan and pump wiring has been changed since I reviewed the Performer and Pro versions of the Water 2.0. Instead of the “Y” cable method of bringing the two fans together, the “Y” cable is now powered from the pump. So, basically you bring the fan power cables down to the pump area where you will find two adapters built into the pump to connect the fan cables to. This method is great for cable management because you can wire tie the fan power cables to one of the hoses as you make your way down to the pump area with them. Once the fans are hooked to the pump’s “Y” cable, you simply plug the pump’s power cable to the CPU header on the motherboard. The last wire coming from the pump is actually a USB cable which you need to plug into one of the motherboards onboard USB headers. The USB cable is needed in order for the fan control software to communicate with the pump and fans.

As far as installing the CPU block portion goes, the procedure is identical to the Performer and Pro versions. It doesn’t make much sense to regurgitate the instructions here, so I invite you two look at two different places for the instructions. The first being the previous review of the Pro and performer water 2.0 (page 3 located here), and secondly the Thermaltake Global Site has a great set of instructions posted as well. Keep in mind that you will need a case that has two 120 mm fan mounts on the top of your case, you’ll need this in order to properly mount the radiator and fans. I suppose the radiator could be mounted in the front or bottom of a case if the required 2×120 mm fan openings are present in these locations, but the preferred method is under the top deck. It might be a stretch for the 13 inch tubes to work from any other location as well.