Silverstone Tundra TD02-E Watercooler Review

There are several things to consider when looking at a self contained watercooling system.   Performance and price are always seem like the most important factors but when you consider that most watercooling units.  In the case of the Silverstone TD02-E the 240mm radiator gives you the ability to dial in your performance either to run exceptionally quiet or exceptionally cool.  Watercooling reliability has always been brought into question and unlike your standard tower cooler a self contained watercooling unit does contain more moving parts.  To help mitigate risk due to user error you will find a blue LED light on the Tundra pump assembly indicating that the pump is active and has power. 

We found installation of the Tundra to be extremely simple with the help of thick aluminum mounting brackets attached to the side of the pump block.  The entire system is built extremely well from the nickel plated unibody pump block to the hose connections and custom radiator.  You'll even get carbon fiber details on the side of the radiator assembly.

Aside from the super powerful fans the unit runs extremely quiet and can be dialed in even more with fan tuning.

During our testing we discovered that the TD02-E can handle and good amount of heat but starts losing efficiency around the 200w mark (Adjusted from 238w @ 4.6Ghz on our test system).  It would seem strange that 200Mhz would cause the TD02-E to collapse but running the system a 4.4Ghz was completely stable and operated around the level we were expecting. 

During our testing we noticed that the water loop had a rather pronounced “lag” meaning that it was slow to respond to intense heat loads.  This “lag” is completely normally in an AIO system but generally the quicker the system can react the more capacity the cooler has.  We suspect there are two reasons for this.  The first is airflow though the radiator and while the 2500 RPM fans move a good amount of air we feel the radiator shouldn’t need a high-flow fan to be efficient.  Second, and really the most important, we suspect that in an attempt to reduce pump noise Silverstone dialed the pump flow back.  This has an added benefit that water stays in the radiator longer but also means heated water can’t get away from the block.

Overall we are still very impressed with the Tundra TD02-E.  Load temperatures at stock clocks are very respectable and will improve even more on LGA 115x based systems.  The fans are quite powerful but, can be a little on the noisy at full tilt when you are overclocking.

Snowflake Status Light
Aluminum Unibody Pump Block
Easy Installation
Custom Radiator
Large Rubber Hoses
Solid Mounting Hardware

Fans are a bit loud (or maybe we are spoiled)
Noticeable cooling lag when overclocked