Storm Vs. Apogee: Too Much Hype?

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Originally Posted by WeStSiDePLaYa

if you have been around the WC world long enough, you will know what i am talking about.

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EDIT: and for the people who think they need a storm to be extreme, think about this, if your going for full out watercooling, you will have at least one gpu block.

and if you have the storm, its perfomance will suffer, and in turn from the restriction of the gpu block, the storms perfomance will suffer.

because the storm is ever very so slightly better in SINGLE BLOCK loop, while im sure most people here cool their gpu as well, and since the storm is a high restriction block, not only will the gpu block recieve less flow, the storm will recieve less flow from the resistance of the gpu block.

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Why can't people just buy a Storm for Quality.... not everyone buys stuff to be accepted...

If anyone has a bias..... c'mon why are you harping on the "Use a Storm and your loop will self-implode" for? (i've been WCing for aprox 4-5yrs myself.. comp on 24/7) I added a GPU block to my Whitewater..... guess what.... performance of the WW suffered!!!! OMG what to do? pull the frickn worthless heat-inducing GPU block? NO! because the 1c added to the WW was worth the 30c drop in temps from the 6800Ultra.
The Whitewater was the high-restriction Storm in that era, I could have.. "as people are warning today" bought a low-restriction Maze3 (Apogee)to go with a GPU block.. "or my loop will suffer" 4 yrs later.... everything is fine! History it seems is repeating itself.... PLEASE there's enuff "doom n gloom" in this world... Everything's good.... xcept Koolance.... heh :)

If you look at it another way.... adding "any block" to "any" CPU block will make the system "suffer".... PERIOD.

One just has to take all components in a system into acount, and build for it.
Example: I'm putting a Storm into a muli-block loop with a Resevoir, the res will have a sponge (methinks) for water filtering. Or in-line filter... I'm still building my C2D loop.

I'm putting an MCW60+MCW30 into the loop with the Storm.... I'm going for over-all system over-clocking... lowest mobo temps don't matter much to me.... max long-term system over-clock is what matters!

No cracks in my acrylic res... it is milled from a solid piece of cast acrylic though. With parallel threads and oring sealed barbs and a proper design, acrylic can work.

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Originally Posted by Wang

Why can't people just buy a Storm for Quality.... not everyone buys stuff to be accepted...

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Thats really a stupid comment. How is the Storm more quality than any other block? Sheesh - this is the blind loyalty we are talking about. I dont have any "quality" issues with my Apogee. :rolleyes:

dnottis: Sorry I was NOT comparing the Storm to the Apogee with that "quality" statement. I was just saying... the Storm is quality.
i.e Build quality.... like Acura, Denon, Tannoy....... y'kmow?

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Originally Posted by clokker

You on the other hand, seem to have mastered the art of kissing your own ass, which is physically remarkable but hardly in the same league.

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That is the funniest post I've seen all week. Thanks for that! :)

heheh nik: I agree ...I almost spit my coffee!

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Originally Posted by nikhsub1

No cracks in my acrylic res... it is milled from a solid piece of cast acrylic though. With parallel threads and oring sealed barbs and a proper design, acrylic can work.

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milled acrylic is leaps better than the thin sheet crap companies use.

and buy storm because its quality? if thats why you buy a storm, why not buy a TDX with a brass top and chrome barbs? that is TONS more quality than the storm, with much less price.

the TDX/RBX with brass top has got to be one of the toughest blocks out there, you wont beat the quality of a brass top with derlin tops like the storm/apogee.

I think this is not a high quality product. Acetal are very strong but less than 1mm? Any ME design this should been fired. Swiftech need another revision to clean thing up.
http://www.systemcooling.com/images/...image17big.jpg

BTW, quality is not about toughness, weight etc.

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Originally Posted by WeStSiDePLaYa

milled acrylic is leaps better than the thin sheet crap companies use.

and buy storm because its quality? if thats why you buy a storm, why not buy a TDX with a brass top and chrome barbs? that is TONS more quality than the storm, with much less price.

the TDX/RBX with brass top has got to be one of the toughest blocks out there, you wont beat the quality of a brass top with derlin tops like the storm/apogee.

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What happened to discussing the Woes of adding blocks to a CPU block?
Your reply is very trollish... I was hoping for better... I'm out... feeding time is over.

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Originally Posted by WeStSiDePLaYa

if you have been around the WC world long enough, you will know what i am talking about.

when i first started watercooling, i owned a RBX, and a TDX...
both now have cracked to hell tops, and the cracks started about 6-9 months and i used to have to clean the jets on the number 5 plates fairly often.

acyrlic cracks, period.


long time reliability of acrylic blocks, and even worse, res's is terrible.

ask anyone who has used an acrylic topped block for a decent amount of time, and i bet they will tell you it has cracks, and the tops of blocks is over and inch thick. while the walls of res's are mere millimeters.

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Don't most (if not all) of the instances you refer to involve tapered thread barbs?
Such a thread requires a mechanical interference fit (along with teflon tape) to work and is completely the wrong choice for a acrylic material.
I'll bet that your problems would never have occured using a parallel thread/oring seal such as found in all of today's barbs.
Thus, it's not the acrylic at fault, it's poor engineering.
Brass can be as easily misused, it has no inherent advantage in this case other than it is better suited to a tapered thread barb.

The same would hold true for a reservoir, naturally.

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Originally Posted by clokker

Don't most (if not all) of the instances you refer to involve tapered thread barbs?
Such a thread requires a mechanical interference fit (along with teflon tape) to work and is completely the wrong choice for a acrylic material.
I'll bet that your problems would never have occured using a parallel thread/oring seal such as found in all of today's barbs.
Thus, it's not the acrylic at fault, it's poor engineering.
Brass can be as easily misused, it has no inherent advantage in this case other than it is better suited to a tapered thread barb.

The same would hold true for a reservoir, naturally.

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how about you will never crack brass. or break it, ive seen both cracked and broken storms/apogees. show me that with a brass topped block.

if you want to know where, search the damn forum.

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Originally Posted by WeStSiDePLaYa

anyone who has been watercooling for some time will know this. but mostly you see noobs going "ive been using an acrylic rad for 6 months and it hasnt cracked" well, thats exactly why you havent seen cracks, they are only into it 6 months.

EDIT: and for the people who think they need a storm to be extreme, think about this, if your going for full out watercooling, you will have at least one gpu block.

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I have a whitewater with an acrylic top from 2003 that has no cracks, and also an acrylic res thats a year old with no cracks that i can see (which is moot as im swapping systems) 3 years is pretty long term. Acrylic is admittedly not the best material but i have never had it crack on me. I guess it depends on what additives you are running in your system.

Anyway the only reason any of this Storm/Apogee crap is an issue is because of soldered on IHS. When storm first came out and you had it sitting on die it was much better, but with an IHS condom on top of the cpu its just like with sex; the proc cant feel a damn thing. Due to this it really doesnt matter what you use, look at the maze 3 results.

been running the MicroRes from Swiftech and its acrylic and its been fine for over a year now.

same here...I've been using the mircores from swiftech for about a year with my comp running all day everyday, no problems whatsoever

This is exactly what I have been saying for such a long time. While the Storm may be a marginally better performing block, the real life difference is so TINY and downright insignificant that it does little to compensate for twice the price, the overly complicated design, size ect.

Thats why I think more hihgly of the apogee than the storm. Not because I would nessecarily rather have an apogee over a storm if I could get one for free, but because the apogee gives me pretty much exactly the same performance at half the price.

-Stigma

I'm starting to enjoy xtremesystems lately now that people are airing the fact
that they can think for themselfs :)

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Originally Posted by Stigma

This is exactly what I have been saying for such a long time. While the Storm may be a marginally better performing block, the real life difference is so TINY and downright insignificant that it does little to compensate for twice the price, the overly complicated design, size ect.

Thats why I think more hihgly of the apogee than the storm. Not because I would nessecarily rather have an apogee over a storm if I could get one for free, but because the apogee gives me pretty much exactly the same performance at half the price.

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Okay, I've been trying to stay out of this one, for the most part, but... Stigma has touched upon something that I've been trying to get across to people (in a somewhat indirect, I-don't-really-mention-it-in-XS sort of way). That being that the performance difference between most of the mainstream waterblocks on the market is very small. You're narrowing it down too much with this Apogee vs. Storm stuff--look at the bigger picture.

/me Applaudes Petra for speaking up

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Originally Posted by WeStSiDePLaYa

how about you will never crack brass. or break it, ive seen both cracked and broken storms/apogees. show me that with a brass topped block.

if you want to know where, search the damn forum.

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First of all, you neglected to address my question re: tapered barbs.
Secondly, if the Apogee came with a cast brass top (to reproduce it's current shape) it would cost twice as much as the Storm. If the top was machined from billet brass it would cost even more.

Just exactly how many "cracked/broken" Storms and Apogees have you seen?
I remember one from the very early days of the Apogee's release and that was most likely a QC issue rather than a major design flaw.

And no, I'm not going to "search the damn forum" every time you come up with some hare-brained assertion...it's incumbent upon you to provide the proof for this nonsense, not your incredulous audience.

i have my apogee, also several other blocks and the apogee is the best by far, best cooling, best quality best flexability for other boards.

they could have used a different approach for the mounting plate as it does infact hit components if you put it on the wrong way. on certian boards.


and correct me if i am wrong here, but i dont think i am. swiftech fixed the apogee's thin walls LONG ago , infact shortly after it was released,
i swear they thickened the walls.

and the issue only showed itself if you were stupid enough to crank on the barb's so hard it expanded the threads and broke the housing.

as for quality, they are the same frickin block for pete's sake they dont perform any better than the other. with the storm and apogee both, you need high volume water. which of course what water block doesnt benefit from more water moving thru it.

what i dont get, and dont like, is buying a block, air or water and seeing they used 3/8" thick copper base, wtf is that all about,
how can you cool a copper base when the copper is so thick the only thing being cooled is the very top where the water is at.

heat has to transfer thru the plate quickly , not slowly as a thinck plate will cause.

the apogee looks cheap but in reality,, its a great block,, wtf would you pay more for a Strom for ?

I'm with Stigma and Petra on this one. Better yet I'd like to see the real world difference between a Storm, Maze4 (or swiftech gpu block), P120.3, and DDC+ with modded top loop compared to an Apogee, Maze4, $20 dual heatercore, and D5 loop. Huge difference in price, but I'd be surprised to see more than 2c difference in temps, much less being able to overclock higher.

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Originally Posted by Lestat

what i dont get, and dont like, is buying a block, air or water and seeing they used 3/8" thick copper base, wtf is that all about,
how can you cool a copper base when the copper is so thick the only thing being cooled is the very top where the water is at.

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Erm, neither of the blocks in question have a copper base that even approaches .375" thick.
The Storm (which has the (apparently) thicker base of the two, has to be thicker since it has cups drilled into it for the jet tubes.
Thickness from the base to the bottom of the cups is probably on the order of .030 - .050, I'd guess.

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Originally Posted by cavfire

I'm with Stigma and Petra on this one. Better yet I'd like to see the real world difference between a Storm, Maze4 (or swiftech gpu block), P120.3, and DDC+ with modded top loop compared to an Apogee, Maze4, $20 dual heatercore, and D5 loop. Huge difference in price, but I'd be surprised to see more than 2c difference in temps, much less being able to overclock higher.

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Between those 2 systems you will definitely see more than 2 degrees difference, at least if youre using yates. with those id expect youd actually be getting into the 5-10 degrees difference range.

take the IHS's out of the equation and see which is better. :p:

I still think that the introduction of IHS's were the beginning of the end to large advancements in CPU blocks. IHS's leveled the playing field...

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Originally Posted by Budwise

take the IHS's out of the equation and see which is better. :p:

I still think that the introduction of IHS's were the beginning of the end to large advancements in CPU blocks. IHS's leveled the leveled the playing field...

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*Sigh*, Budwise is correct. First let me say that I believe this thread has degenerated into a Storm bashing fest rather than an argument on facts and figures. In a recent test a maze 3 performed identical to the Storm, Apogee and the 6002 on an IHS based CPU. If your argument is based on that, go buy a maze 3. In your mind there is no difference. Fine by me. OTOH, the question really becomes how do we gauge the performance of a water block? This has different answers to different people. Some only care about what their insocket thermistor shows them. Some will choose by which block allows the highest overclock. Then there are those that are interested in how efficient a block is at cooling the actual heatsource. I myself prefer the latter, to this end it is MY OPINION that using a test die (like robotech's) is the only way to do this. IMO the IHS introduces a variable that is not suitable for testing, there are too many unknowns which need to be removed.

If any of you CARE to see the fallout when the Apogee was released please read this thread. It is long, but there can be a lot learned there and if you want to learn I highly recommend it. http://forums.procooling.com/vbb/sho...ghlight=apogee

I want to give you all my perspective on the Apogee since as most of you know I am not the biggest fan of this block, I know it is a good performer but there is much more to this which has been touched on. First and foremost when the Apogee was released (actually about a month before it's release) Swiftech claimed it outperformed the Storm by 1-2C. OK, fine without seeing the block or anyone outside of Swiftech testing it, it seemed doubtful but possible by those that knew this info. In short the internal testing at Swiftech was done on an Intel TTV (Thermal Test Vehicle) which looks just like a CPU but is only a heating element. The IHS must be grooved to dead center and a thermocouple inserted. The idea is to read the Tcase value - the problem with this are numerous and I'll not get into it here - see the link above for all that.

Now comes Robotech's testing of the Apogee which you all have seen. In his testing he used 2 different sized heating elements, one 14mm sq and one 32mm sq. IIRC the Intel IHS is a mere 30 or 31mm sq. The 14mm sq die would represent a bare die CPU - X2, Conroe, whatever. The Apogee got spanked in this test, in fact the ONLY block it performed better than was the Maze 3. LINK Now we move to the 32mm sq slug, which again is BIGGER than the whole Intel IHS. Here is a pic of both elements used, look how large 32mm sq is, LINK In this test we see the Storm and 6002 still outperform the Apogee. Here it is CLEAR that the 6002 is a MUCH BETTER BLOCK than the Apogee, period.

IMO the marketing spin from Swiftech regarding the Apogee was a joke. Not only does in not outperform the Storm (which they hoped to replace with the Apogee) but it is clearly not even close to the performance of the block it DOES replace, the 6002. Now, why would Swiftech replace a great block like the 6002 with a side to side diamond pin array block? Hmm? I'll tell you. COST. Not performance. Now this is what makes me twitch, they feed the public a bunch of BS on the Apogee's performance, that it is the best block ever yet it can't outperform the 6002! Simple fact is the Apogee is FAR CHEAPER TO PRODUCE than the 6000 series or the Storm and THIS IMO is the ONLY reason for it's existence.

With all that said, people are going to buy what they want for whatever reasons they want. For my own reasons, I think the Apogee is a joke, I mean at least outperform the damn block you replace! Does the Apogee perform well? Sure it does. Are you going to notice a TEMPERATURE difference on an IHS based CPU whether you use the Storm, Apogee, 6002, MP-05, White Water, TDX, RBX, or the Maze 3? Not likely. Will you get a better overclock from any of these? Maybe yes. maybe no. This chap seems to think he did: http://www.sgoverclockers.com/index....owcontent&id=4