Swiftech MCR420-XP Quad 120mm Radiator Unboxing & First Look Linus Tech Tips
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2012-05-07
·
1,292 words · ~6 min read
0:08
Welcome to another unboxing. This is the Swifttech
0:12
MCR 420 XP. So, this is part of their XP
0:16
series of radiators, which is their higher performance, higher fin density
0:21
versus the QP quiet power series of radiators. And this is also their
0:27
largest radiator to date. So, out of all of the radiators SwiftTech has produced,
0:31
this one has the highest overall cooling
0:34
capacity. So, you can see this is an MCR, although I guess it'll also work
0:39
for XP. Oh, yeah. Okay. MCR. And it'll also work for XXX-, you know, XX
0:46
uh series radiators. Make sure the screws do not hit the water channels.
0:49
This is a very good warning. you should heat it because if you go all the way
0:53
through to the water channels, you will puncture your radiator and you will have
0:56
no warranty whatsoever for doing that because it is your own fault. All right,
1:01
here in this little box, we find the only real accessories that come with a
1:05
product like this and that is mounting
1:09
screws. Wow, these are uh packed in here pretty
1:12
good. Pretty difficult to remove. That's
1:15
okay. We have unboxed things before on this channel. We will unbox things
1:20
again. We will not be stymied. All right. So, here you
1:23
have these are the correct length for going through 25 mm fans into the
1:30
threading on the radiator itself. So, you'll see here on the rad there are
1:34
threaded holes just like that. So, you go through the fan into that. And you
1:38
see there's quite a gap in between the thread and the fins themselves. Just
1:41
make sure you don't go all the way through into that. You should actually have enough extra thread left over on a
1:46
screw like this to even do a fan grill, but it'll be tight. We've also got a
1:50
couple here for mounting the radiator directly to the case if you do not have
1:54
a fan in between. So those are the mounting options that are included.
1:59
Next, we've got the radiator itself. So
2:02
this is a very high fin density radiator. So what does fin density mean?
2:07
Basically radiators all work the same basic way. You've got fittings up at the
2:12
top. Okay? So here you can see we've got G14 threaded holes. Okay? And then
2:17
you've got a tank, two tanks up at the top just like this. Usually there's a
2:21
little bit of a spillover between the two tanks that decreases the overall
2:24
restriction of the radiator without dramatically affecting the performance.
2:28
So what happens is it goes in this tank. It goes down the tubes that are attached
2:32
to this tank. So these tubes right
2:36
here all the way down to the bottom where there's another tank. You can see
2:39
this tank is quite small, but it is attached. This tank is attached to all
2:44
of the tubes. So, it goes down these tubes into the reservoir tank at the
2:47
bottom, up these tubes, and then out the other G1 quarter
2:54
fitting. So, what determines the cooling performance of a radiator? Basically,
2:59
surface area. Water cooling is all about taking something like this and cooling
3:04
your CPU with it, which is something that you cannot realistically do with an
3:08
air cooling heat sink because you can't fit this directly on your CPU. So you've
3:13
got a ton of surface area. You've also got water, which is an extremely
3:16
efficient way to move heat around. So you move the heat away from your CPU,
3:20
which has a CPU block on it. You move it into the radiator where the idea is you
3:23
have this enormous surface area. So how does the surface area happen when all
3:28
you've got is these little tubes. Well, these tubes are soldered to aluminum
3:31
fins. So when I say high fin density, what I mean is you see how these fins
3:35
are folded on themselves? They're just folded, folded, folded, folded, folded all the way down the length of the
3:39
radiator. Well, a low fin density radiator will have fewer folds. So, like
3:45
a bigger S shape, whereas a high density radiator or FPI, fins per inch. High FPI
3:51
rated radiator will have many little folds. There's disadvantages and
3:55
advantages to each. This one has more surface area, which means more cooling
3:59
capacity than a QP series radiator, which has bigger S shapes. However, if
4:05
you're going to use low RPM, quiet fans, you're actually better off with low fin
4:10
density. So, this radiator is for high
4:13
CFM, high static pressure fans, which can blow a bunch of air through it,
4:18
regardless of the restriction that it's causing by being so dense. Whereas, if
4:22
you have low RPM fans, you're actually going to be better off to have less
4:26
restriction to the air flow, less density in order to get the most cooling
4:30
potential out of it. So, this particular radiator takes four 120 mm fans on one
4:36
side, four 120 mm fans on the other
4:40
side. Although, you do not have to install eight fans on it. You can do
4:44
just one. And I actually get this question a lot, too. How do I install
4:48
fans on a radiator? So, I might as well answer it since I'm here. You can either
4:52
install them blowing air down through it. You can install them flipped the
4:56
other way, pulling air through the radiator from the one side and then
5:00
pushing it out away from it. Or you can do pushpull, which is to install eight
5:04
fans. So you blow away this way and suck in this way. Personally, my preferred
5:09
way of installing fans on a radiator is to do one bank of fans. So four fans
5:13
down the one side, pulling air through the radiator and then pushing it away
5:17
from it. Why do I do this? The reason is very simple. Because I am lazy.
5:22
If you have fans blowing air down into the rad, so you've screwed them in, what
5:27
happens is you're going to get dust buildup all along this surface because
5:31
that's where the air is pushing down onto the rad. In order to clean it, you
5:35
have to either blow compressed air at it, okay, which won't even do that great
5:39
of a job cuz there are fans in the way, or you have to unscrew all your fans,
5:43
blow it off, put the fan back on. So the reason that I always install fans
5:47
sucking air through the radiator and pushing it away is that then all the
5:50
dust accumulates on this surface. So I can just go clean it off and I am
5:56
done. So this particular radiator is available in a variety of sizes. You can
6:00
get it with single 120, dual 120, triple 120 and quadruple 120. The advantages
6:05
and disadvantages of each are that the smaller the size radiator you go, the
6:09
better your case compatibility is going to be. And the larger size radiator you
6:13
go, the better your cooling performance is going to be. So there are very few
6:17
cases that can internally mount a quadruple radiator like this. But I will
6:22
be installing this in the Silverstone TJ11 for my ultimate liquid cooled
6:26
machine. And I hope you guys stay tuned to my NCIXCOM channel to enjoy that
6:31
particular video. Here's the little Swift Tech logo on the other side. I
6:35
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
6:39
unboxings, reviews, and other computer