Precise Control, Quiet Performance, and RGB Lighting - New Swiftech Coolers - CES 2016
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2016-05-06
·
1,666 words · ~8 min read
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lineus Tech tips coverage of CES 2016 is brought to you by school wespace build
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it beautiful and on the subject of building
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it beautiful we're here in the swifttech suite and they have actually a
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surprising number of things on display they're launching not one but two
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actually no not two but three no not three but actually two times that it's
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like three times two of one type of product anyway they've got six different
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all-in-one liquid coolers everything from a dual 120 to a dual 140 to a
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triple 120 mm radiator design with a
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couple of different variants but first let's walk through all the changes that
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they've made from the HX Series so this is the H whatever number corresponds to
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the side X2 very creatively named
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congratulations you guys so first of all they have made some changes to the
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mounting system for the CPU Block in instead of being subjected to that whole
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finicky hold the back plate on or maybe get sticky residue all over your back
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plate while you try and screw it in from the front thing they've gone with a male
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to female adapter so that it right out of the box you can screw it into an LGA
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2011 socket or with the adapter you can screw it into the M3 threaded so the
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actually thinner threaded more traditional back plate with one little
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adapter and then you screw the block right into that I've seen other guys use
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this system in the past and it is legitimately better the next thing
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you'll probably notice about itely is whoa that block looks really really cool
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in addition to having LED lighting effects and more on the LED lighting
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effects later actually they've also added an acrylic top that I think looks
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absolutely Sublime especially when you see it installed in a system with the
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LEDs turned on to go with that they've changed over from their traditional sort
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of black kind of frankly sorry boring
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tubing to a clear tubing design that is going to complement very well this
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little addition now this is cool the first thing I said when swifttech told
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me hey we're going to include dieses in the Box was are they any good and the
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answer was they're mayam and I was like you got to be kidding me a you're using
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the best dies on the market best regarded dies on the Market Bar None and
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B you're actually just saying it yeah we partnered up with those guys we're
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including their dieses you mix and match any color you want and boom your clear
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tubes look like that which leads us to
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and I know this is a lot of different changes actually considering that all they called it was the X2 and not the X
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completely something different uh because there are more changes on the
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radiator they've upgraded the paint finish it is much more durable actually
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feels nicer to the touch they have completely altered the reservoir and I
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think it looks great so they've got an LED strip that actually illuminates the
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water whether it's clear or whether it's colored it is just a I don't know what
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to say about it it's clearer it's larger
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and they've managed to do all of this without making it any higher profile and
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any more likely to interfere with anything because if you look at it from
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the side actually compared to even most custom well I shouldn't say most even
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custom water cooling radiators the tanks at the end are very very short the pump
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hasn't really been altered it's still an mCP 350 so that's your your quieter
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version of the DDC it is still pwm controlled but on the subject of pwm
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control I also want to introduce you guys to this little number so I've used
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their pwm controller probably most famously in our whole room water cooling
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setup where we ran a bunch of Radiators on the roof of a house but they have
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made some changes this time so now you've got the one that controls the
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others you've got only three four pin fan headers but they've added some other
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interesting things so these little headers right here are for addressable
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LEDs which means that each individual LED is controllable and mixable and with
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the right software something they're actually working on you can actually
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create effects with them but if you're not even into effects anyway and you
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just want basic control this puppy will do that for you too there's a little
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button on board so what you got to do is you take out your case side panel you
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open it up you reach in you find your little fan controller doodad that you
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tucked away somewhere because it's a bunch of wires you press the button actually you don't have to do that so
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they've actually put a little two pin connector so that you can change your reset switch something very few people
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use and some case manufacturers don't even include or any other button you
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could wire it up yourself and you can cycle through different colors so this
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technology is going to get even better over time because it allows us to mix
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not only colors but also different brightnesses for a wide variety of
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different effects now I talked about the
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radio talked about the reservoir talked about the pump what I've ignored is the fans those aren't Helix fans those
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aren't swifttech fans at all in fact those are those are those are those are
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those are noise blocker fans those are their El Loops fans well hold on a
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second once again acknowledging that you
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know unfortunately designing widely regarded as the best if
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not one of the best fans on the market is not freaking easy swifttech has
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decided to just straight up partner with noise Blocker on these in order to
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provide the absolute finest of performance for their customers that is
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assuming that they're willing to pay so these SKS are available in a couple of
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different configurations each that's why there are actually six different models
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the Dual 120 mm version of the base model is
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$139.99 the Dual 140 comes in at $149.99 if I recall
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correctly and the triple 120 is 165 if
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you want the version with the noise blocker fans you're going to pay an additional
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$50 per skew but the good news is that
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you also get Swift teex compression fittings instead of their Barbed and
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collared fittings that although very reliable aren't as attractive looking
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especially if you're looking to expand your system in the future and expand you
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can just like the last generation it is no problem to add a video card add two
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video cards add another radiator it's an mCP 350 it is legitimately custom
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aftermarket grade and honestly with all the improvements that they've made to it
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this time around everything from improved case compatibility to improved
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CPU mounting to improved aesthetic in my opinion this is looking like a pretty
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attractive product considering that for the base model they haven't altered the
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price over the last generation and we've
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got another little treat over here this is the Apple gkf the upcoming Flagship
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Standalone Enthusiast block from swifttech they won't tell me everything
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about it necessarily like I don't know anything about the internal flow
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optimizations that they're saying are particularly badass but what they did
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tell me because the first thing I said when I saw it was holy crap those fins
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are really close together and it's it's kind of smug smile yeah they're 0.15 mm
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in thickness so about a piece of paper with that much between them like it's
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freaking unbelievable so I was like come on you got to you got to be kidding me
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here how did you do that well the answer is not by taking a hunk of copper and
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then running a bit through it to create channels the answer is through a
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technique called skying that's where the SKF uh Sky fin you know well naming
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schemes man right that's where that comes from so what's actually done is
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like a blade is used to to slice to like
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to shave the copper and then bend it up into a fin over and over and over again
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so the fins are actually like kind of curvy if you were to look at them from
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the side but that is how they are able to achieve such tiny little fins and of
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course you know the looks being able to stare at it and admire through the
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window of the block how tight they are together is cool but if it didn't
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contribute anything to Performance then I'm sure they wouldn't bother doing it
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but Swift Tech's claiming compared to their previous Flagship up to a six
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degree Improvement something I would have thought was impossible at this
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point so thanks for checking out not only this but all of our Linus techic
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coverage of CES 2016 and another huge thank you to Squarespace for allowing us
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