welcome to my unboxing and first look at the apple G HD from swifttech I spilled
some um alfredo sauce on it but I assure
you that should not actually affect the cooling performance of this particular
water block which is according to swifttech and I tend to believe them at
this point they kind of know what they're talking about which is actually
apparently about 2° better than the apple G XT rev 2 which was their last
generation block that in my opinion actually looked more balling out than
the HD and that was partly because of the metal construction which looked
amazing but was obviously costing them a fortune to produce um so it is
apparently a couple degrees better than that guy which was already about as good
as it gets I mean there's only so much you can do at this point to improve
blocks that are already pretty much
cooling your CPU as much as they can or
however you want to say that so included with the Appo ghd is a couple things
first of all you've got mounting hardware
for LGA 2011 which looks like is all
that is included with this particular version of it although there are
multiple versions of swifttech blocks available uh no that is not all included
looks like it includes all of the Intel sockets so that's uh that's outstanding
so right here is LG L
GA this looks like
LGA 2011 and then the one that's
actually on it it looks like LGA 1156 or
1155 so what I'd like to do is verify that before I go any further and I
nubbed out LGA 2011 doesn't need a back plate at all so this is a 1366 back
plate which seems kind of redundant to include at this point and then this is
an 1156 back plate so that is going to work on 1155 as well which means you'll
be able to Mount Your ivybridge processors on here and then your Sandy
Bridge e processors are just mounted on LGA 2011 using the screws so those go
right into the back plate that's built right into the board so why does the HD
perform better it performs better because of the base plate design which
we'll get to in just a moment you can see I'm undoing the screws here for the
mounting mechanism swifttech does such a good job of their mounting mechanisms
they are just sort of perfect in everything way the screws are calibrated
so that they're putting the appropriate amount of pressure on the CPU as long as
you do them up all the way so you just go until it stops
and uh that's pretty much it you don't have to think about it beyond that they
also clip into place on the hold down plate that goes over top of the block
that doesn't change anymore used to be you had to swap those out on blocks
older blocks like the apple G apple G GT
uh now now they just clip into place using please come
off thank you for that they clip into place using little retention Clips right
here so you can pop those off they are reusable then you pop on the LGA 2011
one and they will be held into place so that means you don't have to fuss around
with them you don't have to pop them through the back of the board you don't
have to do anything like that you just put them in place hold it on you
actually can see these uh sticky pads here you can actually take these off
stick this to the back of the mother so it doesn't move and then the whole
process is actually simpler than most of
the those prefab liquid cooling kits so
there you go put that in your sort of
hat and wear it as a feather or whatever else the case may be swifttech has
dramatically improved the options that they have in terms of fittings over the
last couple of years so these right here are just your kind of standard stubby
fitting well standard fittings because they're barbs but they're stubby which
means that they're going to be uh sort of a L less um less of a straight
stretch required coming off of the block which makes it easier to make curves off
of it so the only thing to be careful of with stubby fittings and with any
fittings is making sure that you're using an appropriate mechanism to secure
it so you can see here we've got worm Drive clamps that are included with the
block these are not necessarily the easiest to use but these are the safest
way to secure your tubing in such a way that it is not going anywhere you can
see the size of them is appropriate for 1/2 in ID 3/4 in od tubing which is what
most enthusiasts are using although personally I'm more of a 38inch tubing
Advocate swifttech includes a high quality thermal compound it looks like
uh yeah we've seen this stuff before with any number of labels on it yes it's
good stuff so there that's pretty much all there is to say about that and the
obligatory test look at that there's a little L on the bottom I'm going to go
ahead and be narcissistic and assume that's for Linus cuz this block is
special no it's probably not uh so the obligatory finger Test shows that it is
extremely shiny although it should be noted guys that that is not necessarily
the strongest indicator of thermal performance in fact it's it's not one
thing I would like you guys to check out though actually if I can get the angle
changed a little bit here I need to go here there we go so watch this you see
how the line of the table there actually bends at the bottom see how it goes like
that and then at the top it goes the other way uh this way the reason for
that is the base is going to be slightly convex so once you tighten it down the
copper will flatten and make the best possible Bond against the CPU IHS itself
the Aesthetics of this block are outstanding I mean we've again come to
expect this from swifttech there are two different options for Inlet and Outlet
you can either go or rather there's three different options for the outlet
and then there's one for the inlet here so this is in and then the way the block
is structured inside it's actually can come out here here here and here so that
means you can actually split it out to different components directly from the
CPU block or you can use different options if you want now it should be
noted that you can only use 3/4 in od compressions on the primary Inlet and
Outlet you can't use them here but most people aren't going to be using multiple
Outlets from the Block anyway so I wouldn't worry too much about it there's
a matte finish on the hold down plate that looks absolutely outstanding and
you can see here that you can actually move these there you go back and forth
so that is going to cover your entire range of Intel sockets if you do need
AMD mounting options they are available but they are sold separately or as a
different block most people doing high performance builds these days are using
Intel anyway so I agree 100% with swift
Tech's choice to not bother including the AMD mounting kit because um sort of
95% 99% of people would probably end up
throwing it out so thank you for checking out my unboxing and first look
at the Apple ghd from swifttech don't forget to subscribe to Line's Tech tips
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