Swiftech APOGEE HD Water Block Unboxing & First Look Linus Tech Tips
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2013-05-07
·
1,387 words · ~6 min read
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welcome to my unboxing and first look at the apple G HD from swifttech I spilled
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some um alfredo sauce on it but I assure
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you that should not actually affect the cooling performance of this particular
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water block which is according to swifttech and I tend to believe them at
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this point they kind of know what they're talking about which is actually
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apparently about 2° better than the apple G XT rev 2 which was their last
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generation block that in my opinion actually looked more balling out than
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the HD and that was partly because of the metal construction which looked
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amazing but was obviously costing them a fortune to produce um so it is
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apparently a couple degrees better than that guy which was already about as good
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as it gets I mean there's only so much you can do at this point to improve
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blocks that are already pretty much
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cooling your CPU as much as they can or
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however you want to say that so included with the Appo ghd is a couple things
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first of all you've got mounting hardware
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for LGA 2011 which looks like is all
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that is included with this particular version of it although there are
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multiple versions of swifttech blocks available uh no that is not all included
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looks like it includes all of the Intel sockets so that's uh that's outstanding
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so right here is LG L
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GA this looks like
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LGA 2011 and then the one that's
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actually on it it looks like LGA 1156 or
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1155 so what I'd like to do is verify that before I go any further and I
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nubbed out LGA 2011 doesn't need a back plate at all so this is a 1366 back
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plate which seems kind of redundant to include at this point and then this is
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an 1156 back plate so that is going to work on 1155 as well which means you'll
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be able to Mount Your ivybridge processors on here and then your Sandy
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Bridge e processors are just mounted on LGA 2011 using the screws so those go
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right into the back plate that's built right into the board so why does the HD
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perform better it performs better because of the base plate design which
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we'll get to in just a moment you can see I'm undoing the screws here for the
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mounting mechanism swifttech does such a good job of their mounting mechanisms
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they are just sort of perfect in everything way the screws are calibrated
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so that they're putting the appropriate amount of pressure on the CPU as long as
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you do them up all the way so you just go until it stops
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and uh that's pretty much it you don't have to think about it beyond that they
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also clip into place on the hold down plate that goes over top of the block
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that doesn't change anymore used to be you had to swap those out on blocks
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older blocks like the apple G apple G GT
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uh now now they just clip into place using please come
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off thank you for that they clip into place using little retention Clips right
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here so you can pop those off they are reusable then you pop on the LGA 2011
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one and they will be held into place so that means you don't have to fuss around
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with them you don't have to pop them through the back of the board you don't
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have to do anything like that you just put them in place hold it on you
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actually can see these uh sticky pads here you can actually take these off
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stick this to the back of the mother so it doesn't move and then the whole
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process is actually simpler than most of
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the those prefab liquid cooling kits so
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there you go put that in your sort of
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hat and wear it as a feather or whatever else the case may be swifttech has
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dramatically improved the options that they have in terms of fittings over the
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last couple of years so these right here are just your kind of standard stubby
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fitting well standard fittings because they're barbs but they're stubby which
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means that they're going to be uh sort of a L less um less of a straight
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stretch required coming off of the block which makes it easier to make curves off
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of it so the only thing to be careful of with stubby fittings and with any
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fittings is making sure that you're using an appropriate mechanism to secure
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it so you can see here we've got worm Drive clamps that are included with the
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block these are not necessarily the easiest to use but these are the safest
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way to secure your tubing in such a way that it is not going anywhere you can
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see the size of them is appropriate for 1/2 in ID 3/4 in od tubing which is what
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most enthusiasts are using although personally I'm more of a 38inch tubing
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Advocate swifttech includes a high quality thermal compound it looks like
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uh yeah we've seen this stuff before with any number of labels on it yes it's
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good stuff so there that's pretty much all there is to say about that and the
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obligatory test look at that there's a little L on the bottom I'm going to go
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ahead and be narcissistic and assume that's for Linus cuz this block is
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special no it's probably not uh so the obligatory finger Test shows that it is
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extremely shiny although it should be noted guys that that is not necessarily
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the strongest indicator of thermal performance in fact it's it's not one
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thing I would like you guys to check out though actually if I can get the angle
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changed a little bit here I need to go here there we go so watch this you see
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how the line of the table there actually bends at the bottom see how it goes like
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that and then at the top it goes the other way uh this way the reason for
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that is the base is going to be slightly convex so once you tighten it down the
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copper will flatten and make the best possible Bond against the CPU IHS itself
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the Aesthetics of this block are outstanding I mean we've again come to
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expect this from swifttech there are two different options for Inlet and Outlet
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you can either go or rather there's three different options for the outlet
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and then there's one for the inlet here so this is in and then the way the block
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is structured inside it's actually can come out here here here and here so that
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means you can actually split it out to different components directly from the
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CPU block or you can use different options if you want now it should be
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noted that you can only use 3/4 in od compressions on the primary Inlet and
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Outlet you can't use them here but most people aren't going to be using multiple
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Outlets from the Block anyway so I wouldn't worry too much about it there's
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a matte finish on the hold down plate that looks absolutely outstanding and
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you can see here that you can actually move these there you go back and forth
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so that is going to cover your entire range of Intel sockets if you do need
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AMD mounting options they are available but they are sold separately or as a
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different block most people doing high performance builds these days are using
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Intel anyway so I agree 100% with swift
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Tech's choice to not bother including the AMD mounting kit because um sort of
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95% 99% of people would probably end up
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throwing it out so thank you for checking out my unboxing and first look
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at the Apple ghd from swifttech don't forget to subscribe to Line's Tech tips
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