The star of today's show is Swiftech's Apogee. Ringing in at just under half the weight and cost of its bigger brother, the Storm, while reputed to push similar performance data on chips with the IHS still equipped, it's hard to find something not to love about this block. Coming to us in a slightly larger version of Swiftech's standard brown box, The Apogee is very well packed, kept easily from harm's way.
Included inside the box with this fine chip you'll find:
- A well done instruction manual
- A full tube of Arctic Silver Ceramique
- Two sets of hose barbs (1/2" and 3/8". Europeans get 1/4" too)
- Two sets of click-clamps (1/2" and 3/8". Europeans get 1/4" too)
- Mounting hardware for the Intel and AMD Platforms
- The Apogee Itself
Unfortunately, due to the nature of many of these sockets, all users except those of the socket 754/939/940 platforms will be forced to remove their motherboards in order to install the Apogee block, a move which, to some respects looks forwards, but compared to the clip mounting of Swiftech past, seems a little backward. Now, as a step taken forward, the Apogee (as well as Storm block, if you should be so inclined) is designed to take any barb you should so choose to throw at it, including G 1/4" barbs, provided that there is an unthreaded portion of .080" or greater in length before the flange. This should be great news for anyone adding the Apogee, or any of it's successors to low flow loops, as fittings such as Aqua computer's Plug-n-cool can easily be utilized to maintain uniform fitting size and looks. As to those using the stock fittings in the package, the click clamps do all but nothing on generic tubing, as they appear to be intended for use with some of the thicker walled stuff, such as Tygon or Clearflex. (For the record, due to the copious amounts of tubing we go through, the cheap stuff is great.). While this may not be mentioned in the included manual, Swiftech's effort, unlike most of the engrish you'll find printing off of CDs, is very well put together, showing off exploded views for mounting this block on just about any platform. Kudos for looking out for the little guys.
With that exhaustive tour de force of foam, plastic, and rubber aside, it was time to take a gaze at the actual block itself. Now, being fully honest, the dual stack look of the Apogee and its predecessors quite put me off when I first looked at them, yet, as the block came out of its shell in person, it proved to be nothing short of beautiful. Crowning the smooth black Delrin top is a true beast of a mounting bracket, done up in slick chrome. Unfortunately, for us clumsy peoples, this is both blessing and curse, as it will take mere moments to smudge or imprint this finish with our fingers. There is one issue to note with this mounting plate, and a major one - that being that the holes are identical in size to the screws - before the threads! Before we drilled these holes out to 9/64", it was impossible to run the stock screws through them. Upon contacting Swiftech, we promptly had another set of mounting plates arrive at our door, along with a very brief explenation on these isolated incidences. Essentially, in a few cases, the mounting plates are not properly deburred, and as such, will not allow screws to pass through properly. Any users experiencing these issues should get into contact with Swiftech immediately, and a new set of hand tested mounting plates will be sent out. Thanks go out to Gabe Rouchon at Swiftech for outlining their swift course of action in this scenario.
Glancing at the four corners of the block itself, one thing becomes readily and painfully apparent - this block is bolted together by four button head hex screws, which, although proving difficult, proved inevitably possible to remove. Freeing the base from the confines of its prison above, we were shocked. Back at us stared a core that had the fins of its father and the spacing of its mother. Those two being the MCW5000 series and the refined MCW55 that is. With a base that's approximately a third of the thickness of the MCW5000 series, and a pin grid array which has been optimized for today's modern slow cooker processors, the Apogee has been tweaked and optimized from the ground up.
While its recipe and fundamentals may be age old, the implementation and benefits still ring true as ever in the modern day. A design such as this incurs very minimal flow restriction, while ensuring the chilled liquid blasts across the core without attacking it forthright. Thanks to the spread of the barbs, the larger die of dual core chips can be more effectively cooled, rather than leaving parts uncovered by a single powerful jet. Flipping the block over, we're greeted by the usual copper mirror which is of Swiftech fame. Around the sides of this slightly stepped base, the copper appears quite strangely machined, yet this is to be of no concern to us. To those of you looking at how thin the base and top are together, you've noticed our worry too. When mounting this water block with the stock Lotes bracket in place, there was absolutely no contact between chip and water block, apart from a droplet of thermal grease. Not good. Moral of the story? Gut that stock bracket as soon as you can and throw in the included PVC spacers, to ensure that your block stays nice and level. With the design and decor in mind, it's time to take a look at what's seemingly the runt of the family - sharing but the looks of the lineup, let's hear it for the MCW-30.
