Thermaltake Pacific W2 CPU Water Block Review

When reviewing watercooling hardware you have to keep things in perspective.  Not every product will be a performance winner and in some situations may not even be designed all that well.  However, In keeping with the theme that watercooling "is just for show" the Pacific W2 is scoring quite well with the black top and integrated lighting.  Oh and before you say anything, Yes, I know it is a rebranded Swiftech Apogee XL and honestly it shouldn’t matter.

Installation of the Pacific W2 was rather straight forward and similar to installing a typical heatsink.  I did have issues getting the LGA 2011 mounting bolts installed due to the impossible, and now broken, plastic retaining clips.  The situation was easy to work around by installing the bolts manually but, it shouldn’t have come to that.  While I think standard metal C-clips would have been much better the truth is you might install the waterblock once or twice and after you get the hardware installed it likely will remain that way. 

Overall performance was average for a waterblock of this design.  The machined fin design is very old school and doesn’t provide the same surface area that a skived fin or extruded pin design would.  They compensated by cutting across the fins and adding a questionable O-ring in the middle.  I suspect the O-ring is an accelerator to force the water to move more quickly across the CPU location but also adds restriction to an otherwise free flowing design.  In reality it seems to be a simple way to increase pressure drop and inadvertently moves water away from the CPU due to “path of least resistance” rule that fluids follow.

Despite the issues I had with this waterblock I still like it due to the integrated light and simple design.  The lights can add some much needed lighting to your builds and show you are not ashamed of your waterblock.

Lightweight Block Design
Lighting Effects
Color Filters
Simple Installation
G1/4” Thread Fitting Support
Decent Performance

Mounting hardware
Should have used RGB LEDs
Decent performance