The Verdict
I got to admit to really like this kit. Though it's not the most sophisticated water-cooler in the world, it definitely is way above average, in fact I dare say real good in combo with two 9800 GTX+ cards. I like the ease of use, easy installation and the cooling performance. On the other hand, it's not the most aesthetically pleasing product to look at when you compare it to for example to danger-den cooling blocks. But the kit is really efficient, cools pretty fantastic and as a result, though you now have two cards rendering your games, you can even overclock with a very healthy safety margin.
When we purely focus at the 9800 GTX+ SLI scaling, we then see that after 1600x1200 SLI kicks in very well. In the situations where you get really GPU bound you'll notice your performance nearly doubly up, and that's just very decent performance. But that is the denominator in the back of my mind, you need to play your games above a resolution of 1600x1200 for SLI to kick in hard and to be able to witness that return of your investment, or play with brutally harsh image quality settings in a modern game.
My favorite game at this very moment is Mass Effect. I play it at 2560x1600 with the image quality settings as defined in this review. With one GTX+ card still averages at 37 frames per second (which already is bloody nice for the money), however with that second GTX+ added I end up at an average FPS of 70. It is an excellent modern title that shows Multi-GPU gaming potential so well with. And that's where you need to seek the true benefit, modern games.
So then, the performance level of the hydra kit is pretty darn amazing. I think it's worth the money for sure, but only if you are into this kind of thing though. Fact is that this kit will flat out beat a GeForce GTX 280, and that's a pretty amazing thing to do. That GTX 280 however dropped massively in price and now can be purchased for 400-450 USD.
Price wise the direct competitor to this Hydra kit then is the Radeon HD 4870 X2, and looking at that product on that end the Radeon 4870 X2 wins on price/performance, there's no doubt about that. The X2 however with all it's heat is not for everyone, but in all fairness so is the Hydra kit. So who is gonna buy the Hydra kit you ask ? Well, performance enthusiast and people who like to pimp their rig a little. Make no mistake, you'll have close to the fastest performing graphics card performance, pretty cool looks inside that PC, the benefit of water-cooling and the option to overclock it even further. I really do like this kit. It's something fresh, something new. See, previously you needed to purchase the card + waterblock and then a water-cooling kit. This is all in one. The symbiosis with the Thermaltake Bigwater 760 IS option seems to work out well. And though not the best or most sexy water-cooling product on the planet, it's by far the best complete kit we tested for GPU based water-cooling.
I really hope that this Hydra kit wasn't solely released for marketing purposes and that we'll actually see a nice volume available ion the stores. If you can find it, expect a sales price of 499-549 USD, and it's worth every penny. Highly recommended.
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