SilverStone makes excellent, high quality products that are designed well with functionality and performance in mind. Today for review I have the SilverStone Tundra TD01S, it is their venture into liquid cooling, and they have done it with style and class. The Tundra is something amazing to behold, it is an external liquid cooling system that is truly noiseless, as there are no fans involved in the cooling process. It uses a unique, patent pending, uni-body technology where the entire housing is the radiator to dissipate the heat from the coolant. I am truly impressed by the Tundra, not only does it look like a work of art, it performs exceptionally well at cooling, and does so truly silently. So read on to learn more about a truly silent cooling solution, the SilverStone Tundra…
SilverStone Tundra TD01S External Liquid Cooling System
Reviewed by: Kristofer Brozio AkA Dracos
Sponsor: SilverStone
Tech Specs,Features or the Basic Info:
SilverStone Tundra TD01S
Introduction:
As SilverStone's first liquid cooling system, the Tundra TD01 is the first of its kind in the world. Inspired by the uni-body construction first pioneered on SilverStone's flagship tower chassis, the Temjin TJ07 , the frame of the TD01 is also crafted from one piece of unusually thick and high quality aluminum extrusion. However, the similarity ends as SilverStone engineers found ways to enhance the uni-body structure with advanced positioning of liquid channels and heat dissipating fins, creating a functional radiator frame. Using the enclosure's exterior frame as the radiator gives the TD 01 a tremendous amount of surface area in which to conduct heat exchange with the surrounding air without any use of fans, making this liquid cooling system perfect for low noise computing. And to be sure this spectacular patented (pending) technology can be appreciated in home theater environments and other areas where the TD01 is most needed, the styling and finish were fine-tuned to levels rivaling world-class audio components. If you thought liquid cooling in HTPC was not possible before due to integration issues such as size, noise, use of fans, or visual harmony, the TD01 will change all of that and offer a compelling reason to finally make the transition.
Special Features:
-Gold-plated temperature level indicator
-Patented all aluminum uni-body radiator frame
-Integrated multiple liquid channels and heat dissipating fins
-High capacity reservoir crafted from thick aluminum and acrylic
-Dual submerged pumps integrated into reservoir
-Quick release connectors for ease of installation
-6mm diameter liquid-proof silicon tubing with optimized flow-rate
Specifications:
Enclosure material: 8mm uni-body aluminum frame, 4mm aluminum front panel, 1.5mm top & bottom
aluminum panels
Color: All black or all silver
Models: TD01B (black) TD01S (silver)
Dimension: 380mm (W) x 132mm (H) x 320mm (D)
Cooling System: Fanless design, advanced radiator frame with uni-body liquid channels and
integrated heatsink fins
Application: Intel LGA 775 AMD Socket 754/939/940/AM2
Thermal Resistance: Rca 0.31 C /W @ 130W
Weight @ full liquid capacity: 5.8 kg
Total liquid capacity 0.9 liter (2 x 0.6 liter bottle of thermal fluid included w/ TD01)
Water pump: Dual submerged pumps integrated in reservoir
Power consumption: 10W (DC 12V)
Water block material: Copper and acrylic
Water block weight: 350g
Liquid tubing length: 700mm TD01 to case x 2, 400mm case to water block x 2
MSRP: $369.00
-On a side note, I believe this is the first review of the SilverStone Tundra on the internet, so sit back, relax, and enjoy, I've got over 80 pictures to share with you and lots of information, and observations about the Tundra.-
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A Better Look at Things
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As usual the first thing we look at is the packaging, humans are visually oriented, and to the uninformed shopper the better looking the package is the better chance it will be purchased. SilverStones' packaging has always looked very good and professional, with lots of pictures and information about the product inside the box, the Tundras' packaging is no different. One side of the box has a picture of the black version of the Tundra the other is the silver version, while the sides have the main specs and features listed. The box is large and includes a nice carry handle as well.
Opening the box up we are greeted with another small box.
Under that we find the actual Tundra, packaged extremely well to protect it from just about anything the shippers can throw at it.
And it's even wrapped in plastic to further protect it from other damage.
A Better Look at Things
Continued:
Let's get a closer look at the SilverStone Tundra, obviously I received the silver version for review, Tundra is actually very lightweight, I was very surprised at just how light it actually is.
The only color on the Tundra is the SilverStone logo/name and the actual gold plated temperature level indicator located directly in the center of the front of the unit.
The top of the Tundra is removable and secured with hex screws, SilverStone included the tool for removal of the screws as well. The top features many ventilation holes all around the outside perimeter and the SilverStone logo and name embossed in the center.
The Tundra is exceptionally well made, it is finished very well, I found no machining marks, or stray pieces or metal. All the corners are nicely rounded, and the overall look is very professional and stylish.
As I mentioned the only colorations at the SilverStone logo and the analog temperature level indicator on the front panel, the front panel is also outset a bit from the actual unit.
The temperature level indicator is analog, it features gold plating and there are even white LEDs inside that illuminate the indicator in low light. The temperature can be read in either Celsius or Fahrenheit, and goes from 0C to 60C or 32F to 140F. The temperature level indicator is very good looking and adds to the overall appearance of the Tundra.
A Better Look at Things
Continued:
Moving to the back of the Tundra, this is where we find the connectors for the tubing and the connection for the power.
From the back view you can get a really good look at the actual housing, or the radiator of the Tundra, the entire radiator wraps around and has several stages of cooling involved.
On the back we also find an indentation or hand hold for easily removing the top of the Tundra, it slides back and lifts off.
Here's a closer look at the quick connects for the tubing and the power connection.
On the bottom of the Tundra we find four feet with rubber bases and metal trim, we can also see four screws that are what holds the reservoir/pumps in place inside the case. The feet are nicely done and made to look like other home theater components, the rubber base provides a non-slip surface and helps eliminate vibration and/or noise.
A Better Look at Things
Continued:
Before we open the Tundra up and take a look inside, let's check out the accessory box and its' contents. Upon opening the box we find the user manual, and note sheet first off, under that is the tubing and a compartmentalized styrofoam casing.
In the styrofoam casing we find all the accessories, including two bottles of coolant, thermal paste, mounting hardware, and the CPU block.
SilverStone provides two bottles of blue colored coolant to fill the Tundra, I found this is more than enough and had a little left over. The bottles have directions for use, a warning and the ingredients listed as well on them.
Taking a closer look at the contents, we find a small bag with assorted screws and the wrench for removing the Tundras cover.
SilverStone provided their own brand of thermal compound in the standard syringe. The included power cable is the same on both ends to make installation easier.
There are two styles of mounting brackets included to cover all the installation options available for the Tundra.
Included also is a pass-through PCI bracket with quick connects for the tubing, one is labeled in the other labeled out so you know the direction of the flow to and from the Tundra. SilverStone utilizes the standard pass-through molex connection to power the Tundra, next to the tubing connection you can see the power input connection.
A Better Look at Things
Continued:
One last thing to look at before we open the Tundra up, the CPU block, and I have to say I was very impressed when I unwrapped this CPU block. It's thick and heavy and looks very cool, I wasn't expecting something that looks as nice as this block does.
The first thing that struck me was the plexi top so you can see through inside of the block, and looking inside we find lots of channels for the coolant to flow through. The diamond pattern not only provides more surface area for the heat to transfer to, but it also creates turbulence in the block as well to make the coolant stay there a bit longer to collect more heat. The second picture to more to show the SilverStone logo.
The CPU block also utilizes the quick connects to make installation easier, but these connectors are not interchangeable with the others as they are a bit taller and specifically for the block. The tubing is installed just by pushing it onto the connection and screwing the cap down to secure it in place.
The CPU block is thick and heavy, it is very well made and finished exceptionally well, the plexi top is attached to the base with for hex head screws, and there is a rubber gasket to prevent leaks.
A Better Look at Things
Continued:
Looking closer through the side we can see the channels inside the block and just how high they are.
The actual base is covered with plastic to prevent any damage to the surface, under that we find a flat mirror surface.
There are some minor imperfections that can be seen, but overall it is an excellent looking, quality finished heatsink base.
A Better Look at Things
Continued:
Ok, now let's open up the Tundra and see what we find inside of it.
The inside top of the Tundra has a piece of spongy foam attached to it, this is to prevent the top from touching the pump/reservoir and creating vibrational noise.
We find the same foam material under the pump/reservoir as well, and it serves the same purpose, to minimize noise.
With the lid off we can get a good look at everything, I was surprised at how much empty space was inside of the Tundra actually. The reservoir is plexi and aluminum, with dual submerged pumps. Off to the side we can see the power connector that comes in and powers the pump, and temperature level indicator.
Looking at the inside we can also see that it looks pretty much the same as the outside does, that radiator part that is, there are as many cooling fins on the inside as there is on the outside.
A Better Look at Things
Continued:
At first glance the tubing looks to be a jumbled mess, but there is a method tot he madness here.
There are two tubes that come from the dual pumps in a 'Y' and lead out of the Tundra back to the CPU block.
Looking closely at the cooling system, if you can follow this, the top tube that comes into the Tundra, with the spring attached, goes to the bottom, the coolant goes around the housing, then comes out of the tube at the bottom which leads to the second level of cooling, which the coolant goes around the housing again dissipating heat further, comes back out through another tube which leads to the top cooling loop, around the coolant goes again, then out to the reservoir finally. There are essentially three stages of cooling involved, four stages if you count that the reservoir is its own heatsink as well.
Speaking of the reservoir, the res itself it made of aluminum and has its own set of cooling fins as well to further help dissipate heat from the coolant. This reservoir looks nice, it's almost a shame to have it enclosed in the case out of sight like it is.
The dual pumps are located at each end of the Tundras' reservoir, you can see the tubes coming out at each end. The single tube on the side is from the cooling loop and into the reservoir.
A Better Look at Things
Continued:
As I mentioned the reservoir acts like a heatsink as well to further dissipate the heat from the coolant, so not only does it look great it also has function to it.
Both ends of the reservoir are thick solid plexi-glass, hidden behind the little pieces of foam are the pumps, the foam would not come off easily so I can't show you the pump closer without destroying the foam.
Here are two more pics of the reservoir, with lid on and with it off, the lid is also solid aluminum, with a rubber gasket of course to keep it sealed.
One end of the reservoir has the min/max marks for filling with coolant, this does make things a bit easier.
Well that about covers just taking a look at things, yeah that was a lot of stuff to check out, but there is lots more to come, so continue reading on to see how the Tundra performs and how easy it is to install.
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Installation, Testing and Comparison
Alright, the first thing that needs to be done is to install the CPU block to the mounting bracket you are going to be using. I am installing the Tundra with my Socket939 system, so that is the hardware I used. The first part of the mounting system is the plate that needs to be attached to the CPU block, this is done with four screws, to finish the installation I used two of the longer screws with the springs and the motherboard backplate.
The actual installation process was a bit rough honestly, the springs on the screws are very strong and quite a bit of force was needed to compress them to be able to attach the screw to the backplate. Once you get them started though they go in very easily, in hindsight if I would have slightly bent the mounting bracket attached to the CPU block it would have made things much easier, as upon closer examination the bracket is slightly bent now from the force of the springs, so that's a tip for the installation process for you.
Of course next up would be to install the tubing to the CPU clock and run it to the PCI bracket.
I started to do the install in my Coolermaster Centurion case that had screw less PCI brackets, I found that the tool less is nice but when you are trying to push the tubing onto the connector it just wouldn't hold the bracket in place, so I had to use a crew for the bracket. In the end though I ended up installing the Tundra with my Antec Nine Hundred gaming case, the Nine Hundred does not have the tool less design, so screws were a must there.
I installed the Tundra in my main system in the Antec Nine Hundred Case (review coming soon of the Nine Hundred), which basically consists of:
AMD Athlon X2 4200+
ECS Motherboard
BFG 7900GT OC
3 gigs of OCS ram
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Installation, Testing and Comparison Continued:
I have to say I really like the blue colored coolant over the green I was using before with my Corsair Nautilus 500 liquid cooling system, I also like the smaller diameter tubing much better as well, it seems much more manageable than the thicker tubing.
Here's an overview shot of the Tundra installed, you can see the tubing with the blue coolant flowing though it.
As I mentioned before the temperature indicator has two white LEDs in it that help to illuminate it in low lighting, the temperature level indicator actually measures the temperature of the fluid inside the reservoir.
Overall the installation of the Tundra was fairly easy, I am happy to report that I had no leaks at all. Everything went right together the way it was supposed to. According to the instructions you need to fill the reservoir, turn it on, let the system fill and then add more coolant to the reservoir to top it off if need be. All very simple and easy to do, if you can follow instructions you can install the Tundra, the instructions were easy to follow with lots of pictures and descriptions of exactly what to do.
I'm also very impressed by the fact that the Tundra is virtually silent, you can only hear a very low, high pitched whine from the pumps, no more than a whisper, which in my setup is drowned out by my case fans, and when you touch the Tundra you cannot feel any vibrations from the pumps. SilverStone did an excellent job in designing the Tundra to look great and be as silent as possible.
Installation, Testing and Comparison Continued:
Well that's enough of the pretty pictures, let's get into the actual testing and comparison of the Tundra to some other cooling solutions. Before installing the Tundra I used a modded (link to my mod HERE) Corsair Nautilus 500 liquid cooling system for quite a few months, almost a year now actually, and I was impressed by the results of the Nautilus but the performance of the Tundra is better and quieter, so that the Nautilus is now going to be retired to my other, (read:Intel) system.
The ambient temperature during testing was approximately 21C, that's one thing kind of nice about being cold outside, I can better control the ambient temperature with the use of the furnace. To get the idle temperature my system was turned on and left to sit for 30 minutes, to get the load temperature Prime95 torture test was run, two instances of it, one on each core of the CPU for the same amount of time. In the past couple months I discovered a neat little program called Core Temp, written by Arthur Liberman, it gives the temperatures of both cores individually, and tells you some info about the CPU as well. Using this program we can get a more accurate reading of the actual temperatures of the CPUs. Anyway, I threw the AMD Stock cooler back on and the CoolerMaster Mars as well to get some comparison temps on the chart. You can click the image to see a larger view of it as well.
Well we can plainly see that nothing beats the Tundra at idle, at load though the AMD Stock Cooler and the CM Mars clearly win, but being air coolers they are louder than the Tundra, especially the AMD Stock cooler, of the bunch the Tundra is the quietest, with the Corsair Nautilus coming in second. The Tundra is aimed at the HTPC crowd but we can plainly see it can be used to cool any CPU/Computer setup as well. I will happily leave the Tundra attached to my main system for some time to come.
The SilverStone Tundra, being fanless cools amazingly well, the Tundra is the quietest CPU cooler I have ever owned or reviewed. At the moment my HTPC is an Athlon XP based setup, but I have that liquid cooled with the Thermaltake Rhythm (modified mounting bracket), I don't think it is possible without a lot of work to get the Tundra to work with an Athlon XP based system, but I'm happy where the Tundra is right now, quietly cooling my main system. When you walk in, the first thing you see is my computer setup and the Tundra looks very nice where it is, I've had quite a few compliments on it already.
I can find nothing wrong with the Tundra, the design is perfect, it cools exceptionally well and does so quietly. The installation caused me no major problems, and was easy to do, no leaks on the first try, not bad at all. The only drawback I can see is the price, with an MSRP of $369.00, that might be out of the price range of some people; with the popularity of HTPCs on the rise though, spending another few hundred dollars to make that HTPC as quiet as possible is something that people building that new system might not have trouble spending. I personally made my HTPC, and all of my computers as quiet as possible, with the addition of the quietest fans I could find and liquid cooling. I believe that for an enthusiast, the Tundra is a must have addition to the HTPC, and even possibly for the main system as well. The Tundra is the finishing touch to add class, style and performance to the ultimate HTPC system. The look of the SilverStone Tundra is one that will compliment, yet blend right in to any home theater setup. If you are currently building an HTPC setup, you need to look at the Tundra as a must-have component for it, or if you have an HTPC system, you might want to think of adding the Tundra to it.
Summary:
The SilverStone Tundra has it all, class, style, and performance, all rolled into one beautiful package. SilverStone has always amazed me at the quality and design that goes into their products, and the Tundra has quite literally astonished me, and surprised me by its looks and performance. It just goes to show what can happen when a company takes things to the next level, with their dedication to making the best products they can. The Tundra is something to behold and admire for it's looks and performance, design and functionality.
DragonSteelMods gives the SilverStone Tundra TD01S a 5 out of 5 score and our Editor's Choice Award.
Pros:
-Virtually silent – fanless design
-Exceptionally well made
-Stylish and classy looking
-Excellent cooling performance
-Easy installation
-Very lightweight
Cons:
-Pricey
I would like to thank SilverStone for the chance to review the Tundra TD01S and for their continued support of DSM.
DIGG IT HERE!!
'Nuff Said