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it beautiful and on the subject of building
it beautiful we're here in the swifttech suite and they have actually a
surprising number of things on display they're launching not one but two
actually no not two but three no not three but actually two times that it's
like three times two of one type of product anyway they've got six different
all-in-one liquid coolers everything from a dual 120 to a dual 140 to a
triple 120 mm radiator design with a
couple of different variants but first let's walk through all the changes that
they've made from the HX Series so this is the H whatever number corresponds to
the side X2 very creatively named
congratulations you guys so first of all they have made some changes to the
mounting system for the CPU Block in instead of being subjected to that whole
finicky hold the back plate on or maybe get sticky residue all over your back
plate while you try and screw it in from the front thing they've gone with a male
to female adapter so that it right out of the box you can screw it into an LGA
2011 socket or with the adapter you can screw it into the M3 threaded so the
actually thinner threaded more traditional back plate with one little
adapter and then you screw the block right into that I've seen other guys use
this system in the past and it is legitimately better the next thing
you'll probably notice about itely is whoa that block looks really really cool
in addition to having LED lighting effects and more on the LED lighting
effects later actually they've also added an acrylic top that I think looks
absolutely Sublime especially when you see it installed in a system with the
LEDs turned on to go with that they've changed over from their traditional sort
of black kind of frankly sorry boring
tubing to a clear tubing design that is going to complement very well this
little addition now this is cool the first thing I said when swifttech told
me hey we're going to include dieses in the Box was are they any good and the
answer was they're mayam and I was like you got to be kidding me a you're using
the best dies on the market best regarded dies on the Market Bar None and
B you're actually just saying it yeah we partnered up with those guys we're
including their dieses you mix and match any color you want and boom your clear
tubes look like that which leads us to
and I know this is a lot of different changes actually considering that all they called it was the X2 and not the X
completely something different uh because there are more changes on the
radiator they've upgraded the paint finish it is much more durable actually
feels nicer to the touch they have completely altered the reservoir and I
think it looks great so they've got an LED strip that actually illuminates the
water whether it's clear or whether it's colored it is just a I don't know what
to say about it it's clearer it's larger
and they've managed to do all of this without making it any higher profile and
any more likely to interfere with anything because if you look at it from
the side actually compared to even most custom well I shouldn't say most even
custom water cooling radiators the tanks at the end are very very short the pump
hasn't really been altered it's still an mCP 350 so that's your your quieter
version of the DDC it is still pwm controlled but on the subject of pwm
control I also want to introduce you guys to this little number so I've used
their pwm controller probably most famously in our whole room water cooling
setup where we ran a bunch of Radiators on the roof of a house but they have
made some changes this time so now you've got the one that controls the
others you've got only three four pin fan headers but they've added some other
interesting things so these little headers right here are for addressable
LEDs which means that each individual LED is controllable and mixable and with
the right software something they're actually working on you can actually
create effects with them but if you're not even into effects anyway and you
just want basic control this puppy will do that for you too there's a little
button on board so what you got to do is you take out your case side panel you
open it up you reach in you find your little fan controller doodad that you
tucked away somewhere because it's a bunch of wires you press the button actually you don't have to do that so
they've actually put a little two pin connector so that you can change your reset switch something very few people
use and some case manufacturers don't even include or any other button you
could wire it up yourself and you can cycle through different colors so this
technology is going to get even better over time because it allows us to mix
not only colors but also different brightnesses for a wide variety of
different effects now I talked about the
radio talked about the reservoir talked about the pump what I've ignored is the fans those aren't Helix fans those
aren't swifttech fans at all in fact those are those are those are those are
those are noise blocker fans those are their El Loops fans well hold on a
second once again acknowledging that you
know unfortunately designing widely regarded as the best if
not one of the best fans on the market is not freaking easy swifttech has
decided to just straight up partner with noise Blocker on these in order to
provide the absolute finest of performance for their customers that is
assuming that they're willing to pay so these SKS are available in a couple of
different configurations each that's why there are actually six different models
the Dual 120 mm version of the base model is
$139.99 the Dual 140 comes in at $149.99 if I recall
correctly and the triple 120 is 165 if
you want the version with the noise blocker fans you're going to pay an additional
$50 per skew but the good news is that
you also get Swift teex compression fittings instead of their Barbed and
collared fittings that although very reliable aren't as attractive looking
especially if you're looking to expand your system in the future and expand you
can just like the last generation it is no problem to add a video card add two
video cards add another radiator it's an mCP 350 it is legitimately custom
aftermarket grade and honestly with all the improvements that they've made to it
this time around everything from improved case compatibility to improved
CPU mounting to improved aesthetic in my opinion this is looking like a pretty
attractive product considering that for the base model they haven't altered the
price over the last generation and we've
got another little treat over here this is the Apple gkf the upcoming Flagship
Standalone Enthusiast block from swifttech they won't tell me everything
about it necessarily like I don't know anything about the internal flow
optimizations that they're saying are particularly badass but what they did
tell me because the first thing I said when I saw it was holy crap those fins
are really close together and it's it's kind of smug smile yeah they're 0.15 mm
in thickness so about a piece of paper with that much between them like it's
freaking unbelievable so I was like come on you got to you got to be kidding me
here how did you do that well the answer is not by taking a hunk of copper and
then running a bit through it to create channels the answer is through a
technique called skying that's where the SKF uh Sky fin you know well naming
schemes man right that's where that comes from so what's actually done is
like a blade is used to to slice to like
to shave the copper and then bend it up into a fin over and over and over again
so the fins are actually like kind of curvy if you were to look at them from
the side but that is how they are able to achieve such tiny little fins and of
course you know the looks being able to stare at it and admire through the
window of the block how tight they are together is cool but if it didn't
contribute anything to Performance then I'm sure they wouldn't bother doing it
but Swift Tech's claiming compared to their previous Flagship up to a six
degree Improvement something I would have thought was impossible at this
point so thanks for checking out not only this but all of our Linus techic
coverage of CES 2016 and another huge thank you to Squarespace for allowing us
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