Welcome to another unboxing. This is the Swifttech
MCR 420 XP. So, this is part of their XP
series of radiators, which is their higher performance, higher fin density
versus the QP quiet power series of radiators. And this is also their
largest radiator to date. So, out of all of the radiators SwiftTech has produced,
this one has the highest overall cooling
capacity. So, you can see this is an MCR, although I guess it'll also work
for XP. Oh, yeah. Okay. MCR. And it'll also work for XXX-, you know, XX
uh series radiators. Make sure the screws do not hit the water channels.
This is a very good warning. you should heat it because if you go all the way
through to the water channels, you will puncture your radiator and you will have
no warranty whatsoever for doing that because it is your own fault. All right,
here in this little box, we find the only real accessories that come with a
product like this and that is mounting
screws. Wow, these are uh packed in here pretty
good. Pretty difficult to remove. That's
okay. We have unboxed things before on this channel. We will unbox things
again. We will not be stymied. All right. So, here you
have these are the correct length for going through 25 mm fans into the
threading on the radiator itself. So, you'll see here on the rad there are
threaded holes just like that. So, you go through the fan into that. And you
see there's quite a gap in between the thread and the fins themselves. Just
make sure you don't go all the way through into that. You should actually have enough extra thread left over on a
screw like this to even do a fan grill, but it'll be tight. We've also got a
couple here for mounting the radiator directly to the case if you do not have
a fan in between. So those are the mounting options that are included.
Next, we've got the radiator itself. So
this is a very high fin density radiator. So what does fin density mean?
Basically radiators all work the same basic way. You've got fittings up at the
top. Okay? So here you can see we've got G14 threaded holes. Okay? And then
you've got a tank, two tanks up at the top just like this. Usually there's a
little bit of a spillover between the two tanks that decreases the overall
restriction of the radiator without dramatically affecting the performance.
So what happens is it goes in this tank. It goes down the tubes that are attached
to this tank. So these tubes right
here all the way down to the bottom where there's another tank. You can see
this tank is quite small, but it is attached. This tank is attached to all
of the tubes. So, it goes down these tubes into the reservoir tank at the
bottom, up these tubes, and then out the other G1 quarter
fitting. So, what determines the cooling performance of a radiator? Basically,
surface area. Water cooling is all about taking something like this and cooling
your CPU with it, which is something that you cannot realistically do with an
air cooling heat sink because you can't fit this directly on your CPU. So you've
got a ton of surface area. You've also got water, which is an extremely
efficient way to move heat around. So you move the heat away from your CPU,
which has a CPU block on it. You move it into the radiator where the idea is you
have this enormous surface area. So how does the surface area happen when all
you've got is these little tubes. Well, these tubes are soldered to aluminum
fins. So when I say high fin density, what I mean is you see how these fins
are folded on themselves? They're just folded, folded, folded, folded, folded all the way down the length of the
radiator. Well, a low fin density radiator will have fewer folds. So, like
a bigger S shape, whereas a high density radiator or FPI, fins per inch. High FPI
rated radiator will have many little folds. There's disadvantages and
advantages to each. This one has more surface area, which means more cooling
capacity than a QP series radiator, which has bigger S shapes. However, if
you're going to use low RPM, quiet fans, you're actually better off with low fin
density. So, this radiator is for high
CFM, high static pressure fans, which can blow a bunch of air through it,
regardless of the restriction that it's causing by being so dense. Whereas, if
you have low RPM fans, you're actually going to be better off to have less
restriction to the air flow, less density in order to get the most cooling
potential out of it. So, this particular radiator takes four 120 mm fans on one
side, four 120 mm fans on the other
side. Although, you do not have to install eight fans on it. You can do
just one. And I actually get this question a lot, too. How do I install
fans on a radiator? So, I might as well answer it since I'm here. You can either
install them blowing air down through it. You can install them flipped the
other way, pulling air through the radiator from the one side and then
pushing it out away from it. Or you can do pushpull, which is to install eight
fans. So you blow away this way and suck in this way. Personally, my preferred
way of installing fans on a radiator is to do one bank of fans. So four fans
down the one side, pulling air through the radiator and then pushing it away
from it. Why do I do this? The reason is very simple. Because I am lazy.
If you have fans blowing air down into the rad, so you've screwed them in, what
happens is you're going to get dust buildup all along this surface because
that's where the air is pushing down onto the rad. In order to clean it, you
have to either blow compressed air at it, okay, which won't even do that great
of a job cuz there are fans in the way, or you have to unscrew all your fans,
blow it off, put the fan back on. So the reason that I always install fans
sucking air through the radiator and pushing it away is that then all the
dust accumulates on this surface. So I can just go clean it off and I am
done. So this particular radiator is available in a variety of sizes. You can
get it with single 120, dual 120, triple 120 and quadruple 120. The advantages
and disadvantages of each are that the smaller the size radiator you go, the
better your case compatibility is going to be. And the larger size radiator you
go, the better your cooling performance is going to be. So there are very few
cases that can internally mount a quadruple radiator like this. But I will
be installing this in the Silverstone TJ11 for my ultimate liquid cooled
machine. And I hope you guys stay tuned to my NCIXCOM channel to enjoy that
particular video. Here's the little Swift Tech logo on the other side. I
didn't show you guys yet. So, thank you for checking this out and don't forget to subscribe to Linus Tech Tips for more
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