Overclock3D.Net :: Print Page :: SwiftTech Apogee GT CPU Water Block

This arrived wrapped up nicely in a cardboard box so not a scratch was on the packaging. I think this style of packaging would be fine with most couriers, but unprotected there is a possibility of damage.

Package

The package includes:

* Water-block,
* Hold-down plates,
* Retention hardware for Intel socket 478 (Intel® Pentium® 4), socket 775 (Pentium® 4, Celeron, Core 2 Duo, Core 2 Quad, Core 2 Extreme), socket 603-604 (Intel® Xeon™ 400, 533 FSB), socket 462 (AMD® Athlon®, Duron®, XP, MP), socket 754, 939, 940, AM2(AMD® 64 bit processors), Socket F
* Three sets of hose barbs (1/4", 3/8" & 1/2") & washers
* Arctic Céramique thermal paste
* Installation guide

An impressive and most importantly complete bundle accompanies the Apogee GT. SwiftTech are always very good at providing what you need in the box and it's all there.

The bundle goes that extra mile with clips of all sizes and barbs of all sizes so no matter what your setup is like, you should be catered for here. Good stuff from SwiftTech and I am impressed at all they have included.

Specification

The specification of the Apogee GT is pretty impressive for such a well-priced block.

* Internal structure: the CNC machined C110 copper base plate is at the heart of Apogee™ GT cooling efficiency. Designed using Computational Fluid Dynamics, the Patent Pending Diamond Pin Matrix was further optimized in the "GT" version resulting in increased surface area and coolant velocity. The thickness remains at 3mm to promote a high compliance factor with its mating surface (i.e. the CPU heat spreader) thanks to the base plate flexing ability. This particular feature allows additional "tweaks" to the Apogee™ generation of water-blocks and may yield substantial performance gains as described in the tweaking guide HERE.

Patent Pending Diamond Pin Matrix Copper base plate
of the Apogee™ GT

The Diamond Pin Matrix requires proper base-plate orientation in relation to the intlet and outlet ports as shown below:

* The housing is injection molded out of Black Acetal. This process is key to allow mass production of the water-block, and thus economies of scale.

Patent Pending Housing

* The universal hold-down plate features mounting holes for all current Desktop and midrange server processors (Xeon™, Opteron™). Optional hardware is available for high-end server processors (Itanium™).

Hold-down plate - Click to enlarge

* Nylon Fittings: 1/4" NPSM to 3/8" and/or 1/2" barbs
* Fitting O-ring: (2) EPDM O-ring AS568A Dash Number 112
* Base plate dimensions: 2" x 2" (50.5 x 50.5 mm)
* Assembly weight: : 6.7 oz (190 g)

Now we've seen the numbers let's look at the block.

I like the look of the Apogee GT. The styling is plain and functional whilst remaining stylish. The block looks good installed as we will see later on.

Taking the block apart we see what is involved in the flow. The Apogee GT is quite a free-flowing block with a large inlet and outlet and a diamond matrix copper base.

The improvement in thermal performance scales from a minimum of 1°C and up to 3°C (at 100W) depending on the CPU's, with Intel's latest QX6700 quad core processors benefiting the most from the revised structure.

With boasts like this we really have to take the old Apogee GT and see exactly what difference we see from the new internal diamond matrix. For some reason my pictures of the internals of the old block went missing so here's the only one I have left:

If you can see - the matrix of the old Apogee was quite a lot chunkier. Flowrate stays almost the same and I do not have the equipment to test this fine detail as of now, but SwiftTech's tests have shown only a slight drop in flow.

The base comes wrapped in plastic to make sure it doesn't get scratched at all. Once this is peeled off the surface of the block is actually very very flat. I tested this with a piece of glass and it is very good. There are some marks from milling but these are very fine. This shows that the block has been finely lapped down - good stuff.

All in all the Apogee GT is just a good improvement on the Apogee. Nothing ground-breaking but then the Apogee was a pretty great block in the first place.

Installation as I said is simple and the springs and caps do the business of holding the block in place neatly. Good contact was achieved first time, although I have some experience of mounting the Apogee block before. Shown is test mounting on the IN9 32x Max.

Note that both the Apogee and the Apogee GT did not fit on the DFI iCFX3200 without taking off the stock PWM heatsink and replacing this with some SwiftTech VGA RAMsinks.

Another slight concern from someone who likes to be "in control" is that the caps on top of the tensioning springs don't allow over-tightening. Personallly I have found that a little extra turn can do wonders for temps on other blocks and maybe SwiftTech should provide some different screws to tighten it up a bit more. Having said this at least this means that over-tightening is never found and you aren't as likely to break anything on the motherboard by being over-zealous.

Test Setup

For the tests I used the following test setup:

CPU: Intel Core2Duo E6600 @ 3.33Ghz
Motherboard: DFI iCFX3200 RD600 motherboard
RAM: Mushkin XP2-6400 4-4-4-12
VGA: MSI 8800GTX 768mb
Sound: Creative Labs X-Fi fatal1ty FPS
HDD: OS - 160gb Hitachi Deskstar SATA II
Power: OCZ GameXtream 850w
Case: Lian Li PC71b customised

Water Loop:

SwiftTech Mcp655 Pump
Aquacomputer Evo 360 RAD (3 x 65cfm 120mm SilenX fans)
DangerDen Acrylic Bay Res
1/2" ClearFlex Tubing
De-ionised Water + Zerex Coolant + UV Green Dye - exact same mixes were used for each block

Blocks tested:
SwiftTech Apogee Waterblock

SwiftTech Apogee GT Waterblock

The Tests were conducted at the following Ambient Temps (thermal probe):

Apogee: 21.3-5°C
Apogee GT: 21.6-9°C

Arctic Silver 5 was used as the TIM and was given more than the 200 Hours setting in time on each block.

Core Temperatures were measured using CoreTemp beta 0.95. These were double checked using a thermal probe and found to be consistant.

Idle Temperatures were measured after power up for 1/2 an hour and recorded over another 1/2 hour period to gain an average.

Load Temperatures were taken after 1/2 hours load with Orthos Stress Test using small FFT's. Again this was recorded over a 1/2 hour period and average results obtained.

With a difference of only 1°C at idle but a more significant 2°C at load, the GT shows it's worth over the older block. Note also that the ambient temps of the Apogee testing were about 0.5°C higher.

Overclocked - 3.33GHz

At 3.33Ghz this e6600 needs 1.568v set in the BIOS to keep it stable. Not really recommended for those of you who like to keep your CPU's going for a few years! Still this is an excellent test of the blocks coping with high load.

Again at idle the blocks were whithin 1°C of each other with the Apogee GT edging ahead. However again at load the Apogee GT gained a more significant temperature drop on it's older rival of 3°C. That's not too shabby for a small revision on an already well-performing block.