Apogee GTX

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Originally Posted by mcoffey

Not the issue in relationship to unmounting remounting a GT, it does't have a plated AL top. My comment was in regards to unmounting and remounting a top that's plated AL which the GTX has. So my comments and argument is dead on in regards to being concerned that the plating will pop, thus exposing the AL in direct contact with copper, in the presense of an electrolite. And that condition will be magnified by the flexing from unmounting and remounting the block as the top (plated AL) applys presure to the plated area, and grating on the bottom plate which is copper. Which is a potential disaster for any WC rig.

And I've already checked around on different material engineering sites, and they stress that there's a potential for exposing the plated AL and corrosion.

So I'd say my concerns are valid. But couldn't agree with you more about keepng things civil when debating. I don't believe I've flamed, just expressed a valid concern and opinion without insulting or being uncivil.

Bottom line, I usually let the value of something dictate my purchases. Bad idea to create a block with mixed metals regardless of the rational IMO. So I won't buy one,

andyc

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Agreed. Regardless of the manufacturing standards used there is still a chance and there are still defects of said manufacturing. No matter what you do to stop it, it will happen. It is the primary law of statistics in manufacturing/QA.

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Originally Posted by gabe

Nickel/Zinc cobalt plated Aluminum:

We provide the MIL and ASTM specs on the plating of these housings. why hasn't anyone bothered to google these specs?

Please, let's review the facts (in this case the specs), before a hasty judgement is passed.

The treatment we give these parts is Military grade, and it is now being used by many other industries, including of course the Military. It's expensive, but well worth it.

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I'm sure that u did a great job with the coating, but many of us aren't familiar with alu in our loops. U should know it better as an American. :)
In Germany this would be totally acceptable... :p:

If the performance is top notch, i may ditch my beloved Storm though...

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Originally Posted by MaxxxRacer

Gabe, is there any reason for it other than looks?

And if its so expensive, wouldn't having a copper top that would provide the same secondary cooling effects be just as effective?

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I wonder the same thing. Weight maybe a prob?

Hmm, I just we'll just have to wait and see if these predicted issues actually come about.

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Originally Posted by IanY

How can aluminum contribute to a weight problem? Copper would be worse. Just a thought.

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U misunderstood me. I meant that cooper maybe a weight prob.

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Originally Posted by JoeBar

I wonder the same thing. Weight maybe a prob?

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Copper would not create a weight problem. the force of the tubes applying unwanted leverage to the CPU block is FAR greater than any effects caused by a heavier block.

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Originally Posted by snowwie

oh c'mon, you don't actually believe that, do you? With GPUs and CPUs today and double, triple, and quadruple rads, what kind of difference are you expecting a alu top to give compared to a plastic top? I expect nil.

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I expect nil too, but I am just hoping that Swiftech created the GTX for more than just bling factor.

oooh whens the "ultra" out :D

Thermalfake have an all copper block; from what I can tell it's extremely restrictive, and probably performs badly compared to almost anything else you can buy - clearly though cost isn't a problem because they sell it cheap.

(Had to edit this, there is a block that's going to be worse: the Thermalfake block made out of a great big lump of copper with a big lump of perspex on top: the water gets near the hear somewhere, honest, maybe).

Swiftech have always been pretty mindful of how their stuff looked, and I doubt that has done their business any harm. The vast majority of buyers aren't going to know if the composition of the block is a good thing or bad, and aren't going to care unless the Swiftech site tells them it's the best thing since sliced bread (but that would never happen right?) They just want something that looks flashy under a blue LED at a LAN party.

Obviously, you would use silver plate on copper instead of going solid silver because otherwise it might start corroding your copper rads - lol :)

File the rest of this thread with the one on the fans of thunder. Unless someone can show that this block consistently outperforms FuZion the whole debate is meaningless - and the claimed benefits would seem to only bring it to around equal (or still below give or take o-ring benefits).

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Originally Posted by MaxxxRacer

Copper would not create a weight problem. the force of the tubes applying unwanted leverage to the CPU block is FAR greater than any effects caused by a heavier block.

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Hadn't thought that. U gave me a new perspective. Thanx... :clap:

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Obviously, you would use silver plate instead of going solid silver because otherwise it might start corroding your copper - lol

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Hey, the base plate of the Storm G5 is >99.995% (just a quote, not a fanboy remark) pure silver. I honestly don't know whether the internals are copper or silver, but the top is delrin. Anyway, I've never heard of corrosion from owners. The point is why silver plate for looks when you can design for substance.

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Um, the corrosion comment is an attempt at what I call 'humour', you may know it as 'joke'.

That said, 99.995% pure silver sounds like a suspect choice for a block base (or top) but as for price: apparently, silver is a something over A$500 per kilo, so if the top masses 50g (a generous estimate) you're looking at about A$25 in materials, maybe US$14, something like that? Probably would be a less in practice as you'd get the mass down as low as practical.

But if there was any benefit, would it be enough to beat a D-Tek FuZion, 9 mounts out of 10? Sounds unlikely, nobody seems convinced that the alu block helps worth mentioning; so unless they are going to put some serious fins on the top it's not going to make a lot of difference.

Just speculating, but it would seem the gain they did get was from spacing the barbs, which was an overdue mod really... OTOH, maybe what they need is the inlet flowing straight at the center of the block, more like a FuZion. Maybe someone who knows can say whether D-Tek are getting a lot of impingement style turbulence benefits that helps the edge ahead of the Apogee GT in almost all tests I'd consider actual 'tests' as such and not blatant PR.

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The military does't have WC rigs that gets trashed by corrosion, we do.

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Incorrect - the military DO use WC'd rigs... As do NASA and ESA. Trust me on this one... no more can be said on the subject ;)

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Originally Posted by Marci

Incorrect - the military DO use WC'd rigs... As do NASA and ESA. Trust me on this one... no more can be said on the subject ;)

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<<<< Wants to get a look at Thermochills books...............hehehehe that would explain the shortage in RADs :nono: :D

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Originally Posted by Marci

Incorrect - the military DO use WC'd rigs... As do NASA and ESA. Trust me on this one... no more can be said on the subject ;)

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There's a PA120.3 in the International Space Station isn't there!

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Originally Posted by MaxxxRacer

There's a PA120.3 in the International Space Station isn't there!

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:lol2: its hanging out the window to get the lowest Ambient temps :-P

They are using Petra's PT NUKE as well.

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There's a PA120.3 in the International Space Station isn't there!

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There are bomb disposal robots, lasic eye surgery lasers, hazmat environmental control robots and many other such things around with ThermoChill HE Series rads stuffed into em...

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Originally Posted by Marci

Incorrect - the military DO use WC'd rigs... As do NASA and ESA. Trust me on this one... no more can be said on the subject ;)

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Please remain where you are. Operatives will be over shortly to collect you for debriefing. ;)

EDIT: And the NSA. Guess they have to cool those Rubicons somehow.

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Originally Posted by phelan1777

:lol2: its hanging out the window to get the lowest Ambient temps :-P

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I know you meant this in humor but...

I don't think placing a rad in a vacuum would work very effectively as there is no physical medium in which enable heat transfer. There might be a benefit from black-body leech but, unless I am mistaken, a rad exposed to a flow of air or water (or other thermally conductive medium) would be more efficient than exposure to mere entropy of even the coldest vacuum.

I've actually wondered about things like this in aerospace applications but naturally, not having access to a near absolute zero vacuum I haven't been able to test the notion. I don't know anyone who has access to such things either.

Well the heat could radiate from the rad into the vacuum as conductivity is not the only way heat gets transfered. Not sure how effective it would be, though.

a bit OT are we? LOL

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Originally Posted by Fossil

Obviously, you would use silver plate on copper instead of going solid silver because otherwise it might start corroding your copper rads - lol :)

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Copper and silver don't corrode each other, aluminum and copper do.

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Originally Posted by Budwise

a bit OT are we? LOL

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Hehe just a little.

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Originally Posted by Budwise

a bit OT are we? LOL

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Topic? There was a topic?

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Originally Posted by grudgelord

I know you meant this in humor but...

I don't think placing a rad in a vacuum would work very effectively as there is no physical medium in which enable heat transfer. There might be a benefit from black-body leech but, unless I am mistaken, a rad exposed to a flow of air or water (or other thermally conductive medium) would be more efficient than exposure to mere entropy of even the coldest vacuum.

I've actually wondered about things like this in aerospace applications but naturally, not having access to a near absolute zero vacuum I haven't been able to test the notion. I don't know anyone who has access to such things either.

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I am looking at the temperature, and if you have liquid moving through the rad via a pump, the RAD would absord the temperatures............but not knowing anything about how the cold of space would really affect a RADs heat transfer properties I was just looking at the basic COLD of space.


Space is Cold and thats all I was looking at. ;)


hey Marci, not that you can confirm or deny this at this time, but see if you can get one sent up with the next shuttle launch so we can get ambient temps and see if we can get a mad OC on a 6800 or Q6700 ;-)

We are such nerds..hahaha, debating the effects space would have on our overclocks lol :D

Has anyone recieved this block yet? Im anxious to see some tests!

peace

The forum ate my post about how we should listen to Gabe and not whine about the plated, thermally conductive aluminum that is used as a heatsink.

Also, what's wrong with a little bling?

My post had some suggestions for corrosion testing on this block that must've been quite delicious. The just of it was:

TEST 1: Loop with no CPU. Only the block, a pump, and some tubing. Run it for a long time, and look to see if there is any corrosion periodically.

TEST 2: Same as test 1, except with corrosion-resistant additive to the water. Use algaeacide in both loops, simply to prevent that factor from ruining the tests.

Speaking about space really does fit this thread now, it could not have gotten further off tract.

@nik,

I look forward to the test results so the data can speak for itself. :fact:

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Copper and silver don't corrode each other, aluminum and copper do.

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I think you will find that silver is capable of inducing galvanic corrosion in anything besides a handful of obscure alloys, gold, platinum, titanium and graphite.

However, for those that still don't get the joke, the rate of corrosion would be extremely slow - and with deionized water in a standard cooling loop, you could probably go a decade or so before you could detect it.

Just guessing on the time-scale here, haven't done any bogus calculations. However, if you were to intentionally induce galvanization, then you would soon see results, even from gold and copper (by which I mean the gold corrodes the copper). This is just electroplating in reverse, if that helps make it sound more believable.