Legit Reviews

Today Legit Reviews takes a look at the new and improved water block from Swiftech, the Apogee GT. Continuing the line of high performing yet extremely affordable water blocks Swiftech claims the Apogee GT is the top block for keeping your Intel Kentsfield processor cool. Intel's latest QX6700 quad core processors are said to benefit the most from the revised structure and we find out if this is true.

Well Swiftech has done what many didn't think was possible by releasing a block that out performs their Storm block at a much lower price point. By increasing real-estate of the pin matrix they've optimized the block especially for the Intel Quad Core processors and it's easy to see in our test numbers that the block doesn't disappoint...

Article Title: Swiftech Apogee GT CPU Water-Block Review
Article URL: http://www.legitreviews.com/article/457/1/

I think you still should have put the GT up against the standard APOGEE in the review because on CPU's that use a IHS, the standard APOGEE will beat the Storm by a degree of more. That makes the GT maybe a degree better than it's older brother at best, and that's well within a margin of error taking mounting tolerance and the like.

Bio-Hazard wrote:I think you still should have put the GT up against the standard APOGEE in the review because on CPU's that use a IHS, the standard APOGEE will beat the Storm by a degree of more. That makes the GT maybe a degree better than it's older brother at best, and that's well within a margin of error taking mounting tolerance and the like.

Didn't really have a choice as we don't have the original Apogee. I'm just happy that we had the Storm that Brian bought with his personal money and the TDX that I bought with my personal money to have some data that was interesting to look at. Everyone thinks that all the hardware we get is free and that we don't spend our own money, but that's not true and this review is an example of that.

I know you offered to let us use your Apogee, but neither of us had the time last week to make the couple hour drive down and back to get it.

I had no idea waterblocks struggled so much with Kentsfield!

4 cores puts a huge load on just about everything out there from what I understand. With Quad Cores coming into the market these days I can fully see the use of triple radiators coming into full use. I also have one of Swiftechs MCR320 radiator not being used at the present time if you all would like to do a follow-up article............

Bio-Hazard wrote:With Quad Cores coming into the market these days I can fully see the use of triple radiators coming into full use.

Now that is crazy

I'm always baffled as why no one takes the radiator and simply puts it/them into a refrigerator. Example buy a small refrigerator that holds drinks and a few other small items, the kind you see in dorm rooms, drill two holes into the side of it 3/8th size? then run the tubing through it and connect of your radiator inside the frig and of course keep the frig next to the pc, and some beverages in the frig to of course. Then over clock the pc to what ever you new abilities alow you? IS this crazy or what?

Welcome to the forums. The reason no-one ever does this is because it is pointless.

The water is pumped through the radiatior so fast that the little time it is in the mini-fridge, the cooler air blown over the radiator has practically no impact on its temperature (less than 1oC difference). And with the amount of heat the water cooling loop dumps out (into the mini-fridge) it just doesnt have the cooling capacity to keep the air in the mini-fridge cold anymore (think how long a can has to be in before it is chilled).

Dan

It has been tried (often) several years ago. There are several problems with the method though, in the standard frige there is almost no gain in performance (very small vers cost) and when using the freezer portion, you run into condinsation problems. The next major problem is the pressure drop from running such long water lines from the pump to the fridge and back, that's a huge performance killer right there.

If you're trying to do that, a better idea is to put the whole pc in the fridge:
http://www.thinkcomputers.org/beta/home ... =13&page=7

Just need to do a few things to prevent condensation, like the group did on the page.

yup... I saw a clearance wine cooler like that one at home depot for $100 and almost snagged it.

R3N3G4D3 wrote:If you're trying to do that, a better idea is to put the whole pc in the fridge:
http://www.thinkcomputers.org/beta/home ... =13&page=7

Just need to do a few things to prevent condensation, like the group did on the page.

Yah that's a pretty good idea too. I did consider condensation but I was thinking maybe somebody had a answer for that. Looks good what they did, but no real answers to questions on how it was exactly done. Thanks for the link and idea though.

Apoptosis wrote:yup... I saw a clearance wine cooler like that one at home depot for $100 and almost snagged it.

Is their a difference between using a refrigerator and a wine cooler? Maybe for the wine it creates little or no condensation??

Basicly they perform the same function, a fridge can be adjusted to a bit lower temps. But a little foam insulation around the tubing, CPU socket along with a little Dielectric grease to keep the circuits dry and you're good to go.

Deanzsyclone wrote:

Apoptosis wrote:yup... I saw a clearance wine cooler like that one at home depot for $100 and almost snagged it.

Is their a difference between using a refrigerator and a wine cooler? Maybe for the wine it creates little or no condensation??

Most wine coolers have glass doors and wine racks (the first fridge linked in this article is nothing more than a wine cooler... the racks are even left in it. A smaller version can be had for $100 new.. http://focuscamera.com/haier/haier-wine-cooler.asp

Bio-Hazard wrote:Basicly they perform the same function, a fridge can be adjusted to a bit lower temps. But a little foam insulation around the tubing, CPU socket along with a little Dielectric grease to keep the circuits dry and you're good to go.

Do I understand this correctly?

1. put foam (styrafoam?) around the plastic/flexible tubing
2. Styrafoam around the cpu socket, (how to do that I can't even begin to imagine)
3. Thin coat of dielectric grease on the motherboard circuits.

I found a travel freezer at a fry's electronics that I was going to try running with my radiator in it. It had no effect lol. Then I took out the peltier that was in it and slapped some as5 on it and attached it to my old cpu block and put it in my loop. I think my temps were maybe 1c cooler lol. But it was a mess because I used the stock AM2 cooler that came with my proc to cool the hot side of the pelt and it was just kinda sitting in my case with wires coming out for an old switching psu I tore out of an old 486 compaq to power the pelt.