Swiftech Apogee Drive Mini Review

[Martinm210]

Next on the list since I had the GT tested and the drive was based around the GT design, I figured the apogee drive was a good comparison.

My initial thought when I saw the Apogee Drive come out was, why bother wasting your money on that thing, you'd just have to throw it away if you wanted to upgrade. Little did I know the motor is completely upgradeable and performance turns out to be alot better than I expected.


First I would like to thank Linus from NCIX.com for providing me this sample to test, I believe it was his own personal and just wanted me to review it because there is so little information out there on it.
Thanks Linus!

On to the review:
If you want all the details and pictures I have them on my site here:
http://www.martinsliquidlab.com/Swif...ve_Review.html

But I'll spare you some of the boring stuff and just give you the executive summary here:

Here is the block/accessories package that you get, (Also a nice guide I forgot to include in the picture).


When you break it down this is what you'll find:


Even further, here is the flow chamber half on top of the base, the flow is spread over the base nicely.


And the most important part, the pump motor is a genuine Laing DDC3.1 and can easily be modified to a DDC3.2, put a pump top on it and now you have one of the strongest pumps around..


Now for some thermal testing, as tested it was producing 1.4GPM on my test setup, which is about 1GPM less than my GT setup:


And here is how it stacks up to the thermal performance (hottest of 4 cores)of an Apogee GT bowed with a DDC3.2 with XSPC res top.



It's performing every bit AS GOOD as the Apogee GT + DDC3.2 + Top combo. That's good and I think this is a really good option for those folks that are on a really tight budget ($100-$150). You could buy this combo along with a $20 bonnie heatercore and get some great cooling and more importantly the pump motor is "Upgradable", so if later you decide to buy another block, you can just get a pump top and have separated components then without throwing the pump away..

For $89, it's almost like you get the block for free and you're just paying for the pump motor.

Cheers!
Martin

[Riggs]

Awesome review, straightforward! I'm hoping to get one for my next amd lanbox build.

[StAndrew]

Excelent!!

So many people ask me how to watercool without breaking the bank. So hard to answer...... until now!

[BlueAqua]

Martin, you have a way about you to make everything look good. I don't know how you do it, but damn I almost want to try one out now. It would be great for my htpc.

[Martinm210]

Martin, you have a way about you to make everything look good. I don't know how you do it, but damn I almost want to try one out now. It would be great for my htpc.

There are some things I didn't like, mainly some QC issues around the casting quality and the use of coarse threaded screws, but otherwise I like the little unit. I've tried to answer alot of threads where folks have ask people to help them build a very inexpensive kit. Typically by the time you buy a DDC, a top, a waterblock, and a radiator...it's going well over $200. Going this route can easily save you $50 bucks...and that's good.

But I'm thinking for really low budget, this along with a $20 bonnie heatercore and a T-fitting, you can almost have a watercooling setup for just over $100 bucks. That's hard to do with individual components.

Heck if you had access to a buddys machine shop, you could salvage the base out of it and create your own dream block while you're at it. Now THAT would be fun!!

[BlueAqua]

I was just going to see how much these sell for and check for any deals, but I only found it through Swiftech themselves and CrazyPC. Are these discontinued or just mostly bundled in kits?

[Riggs]

Linky to performance PC's

$99.99

[Kibbler]

Hi Martin, I greatly enjoy reading your reviews. Thanks for putting in the time and effort.

1 question, in these pics...




Any corrosion risk?

[Martinm210]

Hi Martin, I greatly enjoy reading your reviews. Thanks for putting in the time and effort.

1 question, in these pics...




Any corrosion risk?

Good question, I'll check into it after I pull it from my system. I think the old magnet test would do the trick to test for ferrous metals. If they are mild steel, replacing those two with some stainless steel screws would be a good preventative idea.

[Martinm210]

I was just going to see how much these sell for and check for any deals, but I only found it through Swiftech themselves and CrazyPC. Are these discontinued or just mostly bundled in kits?

You can also get them at NCIX here:
http://www.ncixus.com/products/25711...RIVE/Swiftech/

Havn't seen them carried regularly in alot of places though. Most seem to be carried in the kits.

[Waterlogged]

Good question, I'll check into it after I pull it from my system. I think the old magnet test would do the trick to test for ferrous metals. If they are mild steel, replacing those two with some stainless steel screws would be a good preventative idea.

Martin, just hope those aren't a magnetic type SS.

[Martinm210]

Martin, just hope those aren't a magnetic type SS.

lol! Ok maybe I'll let them sunbathe on a salty wet sponge for a few days after sanding them down...

[Cptn Vortex]

The ONLY thing I dont like about this block are the 3/8" Barbs. Make them 1/2" or a new G1/4" Threaded design and I am ALL over this thing in a eye blink.

[voigts]

Its nice to get some more of your excellent work available on this since the data on the Apogeedrive is sorely lacking. I have been wondering how well this works.

[_G_]

Petras used to have them for $75 but i think he drooped them.

Looks like you got some real consistent mounts with that drive unit.

[Johnny Bravo]

Hi Martin, I greatly enjoy reading your reviews. Thanks for putting in the time and effort.

1 question, in these pics...




Any corrosion risk?

Weird - mine doesn't have these in it

[evil-98]

Weird - mine doesn't have these in it

no way, thats almost impossible, mine does

[Johnny Bravo]

See all that detailing on the surface and screw posts....yeah I don't have any of that - totally flat

[alacheesu]

Thanks for the review! Any vibration noise to speak of?

[evil-98]

See all that detailing on the surface and screw posts....yeah I don't have any of that - totally flat

pics? i would assume that would free up some flow

[Martinm210]

Thanks for the review! Any vibration noise to speak of?

At the stock 10W setting, I didn't get any sort of noticeable vibration of the block, although it is firmly attached to the motherboard, so I imagine if you had a loose standoff or something in the immediate area that would make noise easily, it could be something to watch for.

For me and running two 480s with slow speed yates, the fans cover up any sort of noise from the pump that I can hear.

[Petra]

Petras used to have them for $75 but i think he drooped them.

We may bring 'em back... not sure. We dropped the Apogee Drive because it just wasn't selling at all (even at $75). Didn't help that the leaking issues Swiftech ran into with the early units scared people off... even though all of the individual units we had were the revised ones (identifiable by the two wetted screws inside the mid-chamber and the cosmetic lines on the bottom of the lower plastic piece).

[nullface]

pics? i would assume that would free up some flow

x2, im dieng to see your block too

[Martinm210]

We may bring 'em back... not sure. We dropped the Apogee Drive because it just wasn't selling at all (even at $75). Didn't help that the leaking issues Swiftech ran into with the early units scared people off... even though all of the individual units we had were the revised ones (identifiable by the two wetted screws inside the mid-chamber and the cosmetic lines on the bottom of the lower plastic piece).

That's good info to know..I didn't even know there was a revision.

[Petra]

That's good info to know..I didn't even know there was a revision.

As I recall, the revised version introduced a reinforced midplate/housing (secured better, etc.) to fix the leaking issues and it's also when they started shipping with pre-bowed bases (the originals were flat and, therefore, don't perform quite as well as the revised ones).