Swiftech unveils Apogee XT new flagship waterblock

[gabe]

The new Swiftech Xt is really the new king !


Gabe i need to talk to you , and how can i get more screws that hold the backplate to the Gtz?

Mine are all wrecked the "screwdriver" you provide with the Swiftech blocks aint good

I am in china right now and will be back monday night. call me or email mid-end of next week.

[Toolius]

Just ordered the swiftech MCR 220 DRIVE and the Apogee XT from sidewinder.
I just hope i dont get a busted mounting mechanism. Sending it back to the states all the way from india is not going to be fun.
Anyhow got my fingers/feet/and my cat and dogs feet crossed too hoping everything goes well
Cheers gabe and thank you taking out such awesome products.
Kind regards
Tool

Edit.. i might need some help with my build guys.. where should i start a new thread ? is the work-logs section good ?
Thanks again everyone !

[mrh1]

Hi all, Ordered XT from Scan.co.uk, had a problem with one of the barbs, was bent not machined correctly when fitted into the block, was at an angle so not a fit tight and so would leak?
Contacted Scan, because of Easter opening hours I ended up ordering another one and will rma back after Easter.
Received the replacement yesterday, all of the back plate screw mounts are broken off and one of the barbs has the same problem I had earlier. So going back to Scan next week is an XT cooler with 2 bent barbs and a back plate with no screw fixing, not a good start, I hope the screw fixing don’t break off after the cooler has been install for a while, which leads me to my question when I mount the cooler do I screw the thumb screws all the way down i.e. until I run out of thread and wont turn anymore??
Sorry for the long post.
Using it on an I7 930 will update my sig when all up and running

[gubs]

after reading this long thread, I think I'll be having the ultima kit with this water block.. I live here in bangkok, which online store should i get it from?

thanks.

[wesley]

after reading this long thread, I think I'll be having the ultima kit with this water block.. I live here in bangkok, which online store should i get it from?

thanks.

Try http://www.sidewindercomputers.com/ from the US or http://www.edge2o.com from Singapore if you can't get it from a Thailand based WC store.

Wes

[gubs]

Try http://www.sidewindercomputers.com/ from the US or http://www.edge2o.com from Singapore if you can't get it from a Thailand based WC store.

Wes

thanks a lot wesley..

[Conumdrum]

Hi all, Ordered XT from Scan.co.uk, had a problem with one of the barbs, was bent not machined correctly when fitted into the block, was at an angle so not a fit tight and so would leak?
Contacted Scan, because of Easter opening hours I ended up ordering another one and will rma back after Easter.
Received the replacement yesterday, all of the back plate screw mounts are broken off and one of the barbs has the same problem I had earlier. So going back to Scan next week is an XT cooler with 2 bent barbs and a back plate with no screw fixing, not a good start, I hope the screw fixing don’t break off after the cooler has been install for a while, which leads me to my question when I mount the cooler do I screw the thumb screws all the way down i.e. until I run out of thread and wont turn anymore??
Sorry for the long post.
Using it on an I7 930 will update my sig when all up and running

Wow! Terrible bad luck. I can't see how all the screws were broke except it wasn't kept in the original shipping box. Someone has been playing with it.

Yes, you turn the screws ALL the way down. Place on the cpu, turn one screw one turn, cross tighten each screw only one turn at a time till all the screws are tight. Be careful starting the screws into the backplate, they are very fine threads. Best to play with it before you install it, make sure the threads are all good and smooth.

BTW, my XT was fine, installed great.

[gubs]

I am still having some confusion if I will be getting this block, I saw the XSPC Rasa and quite impressed how the micro fins was machined and done, I hope swiftech can improve this as well.

[Nickel020]

The pins of the Apogee XT are quite a bit smaller, and thus harder to machine. It also doesn't really affect performance whether the pins are all perfectly uniform or not.

[Daveburt714]

Hopefully someones online who could answer this for me real quick....

Does orientation matter with this block on an AM3 settup?

It says it's imortant for Intel settups, but no mention of AM3.

I'm ready to mount it right now, so if anyone could help I'd appreciate it...

[bomberboysk]

Hopefully someones online who could answer this for me real quick....

Does orientation matter with this block on an AM3 settup?

It says it's imortant for Intel settups, but no mention of AM3.

I'm ready to mount it right now, so if anyone could help I'd appreciate it...

I wouldnt imagine it matters a whole lot as amd processors(and newer intel processors) are monolithic.

[Daveburt714]

Thanks bomberboysk...

Guess I'll just mount it the same way I had the Enzo Sapphire with the inlet it the center and exit top right...

[bomberboysk]

Remember the one thing you do need to ensure on amd chips(well, actually all chips) is that you have the correct setup on inlet/outlet.

[scgt1]

With this orientation issue on I7 chips. Does it matter which 3 screws line up with the locking clip? There are three screws on one side and 3 on the opposite side. I would assume it doesn't matter as there was no indication as to which 3 screws are lined up in the manual. I'm just fitting right now for tubing cuts anyway. It would be nice to know though.

[chorner]

Just want to say that to those wondering about Swiftech quality control.... I'm sorry to report but between two H20-320 kits, and 1 EVGA GTX580 Hydro Copper these are the issues:

1) 1x Dented radiator & 1x replacement radiator with fill port that needed to be slightly modified to provide proper seal
2) 1x Stripped thread in the XTL block base
3) Horrible quality on the pin matrix on both blocks, the 2nd kits block being the worst of the 2
4) Threads busted on the chrome plated side of the GTX580 Hydro Copper waterblock
5) ... I almost forgot this one. The machining on the outlet port for the pump head (which is directly attached to the rad.) was crap, and instead of having a nice smooth volute, there's about a 1-2mm sudden "cliff" the water drops down before exiting the pump head.

How's that for Swiftech quality? Not bad huh? After the first try to RMA the dented rad and stripped block thread emailing Michelle who said to contact the dealer instead (which I did, and was docked shipping and an extra 3 days of my time) and ordering another kit... I've emailed Swiftech support a couple times with various questions about optimizing the kit etc. but honestly can't be bothered to complain about all the parts directly to their support as last time I did I got absolutely nowhere. Just know that I will never, ever buy Swiftech components again.

[penguins]

1) this is a very old thread
2) you never mentioned any of this in your only other 2 posts about it.. running for weeks right?
3) of course you're supposed to deal with the dealer about that stuff!
4) how are you not going to have to pay for shipping / lose days of time?

what did you do buy this in the back of someone's van??

[chorner]

I realise it's old, and yes I've been running it for weeks. Of my other posts, one of them I was trying to figure out if I could use the rad without the pump attached etc. as I've gone ahead and replaced all of the kit pieces with exception to the GTX580 HC and the pump. The reason being -> I'm not happy with the kit, but it's not a complete pile.

I'm not sure what the difference between dealing with the dealer and Swiftech is anyhow. Swiftech will have to take the shipped defective kit back at some point or another.

I bought the kit from www.directcanada.com actually.

[SonDa5]

I feel bad posting this because I admire the fine work that Swiftech does here representing themselves but I have been unfortunate to have a bad experience with a poorly made Apogee XT.

I chose the Apogee XT about a year and a half ago to use in my first water cooling loop.

This was my first build plan for my first loop.



Then I built the loop. Here it is before firing it up on the S1336 MB.



It didn't work for very long. Ran some benchmarks with it and the GPU block and CPU temps looked good. Then after a few days of use it wouldn't start. I RMA'd the MB.

Then I set the block up with a S775 MB.



This set up lasted awhile but one day it wouldn't boot. So i just left it alone for about 3 months then one day decided to buy a S1155 MB and this time around the Apogee HD caught my interest so I bought one.

Here it is.



I have been running it for about a month and it is working great. Nice temps on CPU and GPU.

So last week I decided to clean up the Apogee XT and get it ready to sell on Amazon. I open it up and this is what I find.



This is after I have tried to clean off the black residue of the inner out outer O rings. As you can see the channels are all jacked up. It looks like a mess. I was not happy but didn't think it could have been the cause of my prior problems till just today.

Last week I contacted Swiftech and spoke to Michelle. She asked me to send her a photo of the block which I did. (above) Call the next day and Michelle says that the tech department say the fins are perfectly fine and normal for optimimum performance of the block. She says the techs said that the burned O rings could be cleaned and the block would be good as new. She says the techs don't recommend replacing the block but do recommend some new O rings. So the O rings were mailed out today. At the time of speaking to Michelle I was fine with this but spent some time thinking about my past experience and the recommendations giving by Swiftech and I am not pleased.

I really think my block should be replaced. I don't feel safe using this block to cool with.

[lowfat]

I don't see anything wrong with the block in those pics. It looks like a normal XT.

[Church]

SonDa5: many blocks have their micropins or microfins ideally unbent only in vendor supplied pics, but bent here and there even in new freshly bought ones. Those techs were right, only that little bent pins do not affect cooling performance in noticeable way. Imho it can be at most decimal parts of degree difference. Is THAT minor difference worth $20 new block base + god knows how much for shipment?
Also never heard of other vendors RMAing on such minor bending cases. Check internal block pics for many users here on forum or even pics in several block reviews. Little bent pins can be found in most of them.

[SonDa5]

SonDa5: many blocks have their micropins or microfins ideally unbent only in vendor supplied pics, but bent here and there even in new freshly bought ones. Those techs were right, only that little bent pins do not affect cooling performance in noticeable way. Imho it can be at most decimal parts of degree difference. Is THAT minor difference worth $20 new block base + god knows how much for shipment?
Also never heard of other vendors RMAing on such minor bending cases. Check internal block pics for many users here on forum or even pics in several block reviews. Little bent pins can be found in most of them.

I here you and I'm not entirely in agreement. I can understand some minor imperfections buy my block is all out of whack. The craftsmanship does show that there are many imperfections on the fins and channels. Some of the channels are bent over and out of alignment while others are completely blocked off.

I'm new to water cooling but I have never heard of an O ring falling apart or burning up on a CPU block. I'm thinking the Copper base quickly dissipates heat away from the CPU but heat gets trapped in the upper part of the block which feels like a heavy chunk of steel.

Given that my O rings burned up or disintegrated after such little usage I think something is wrong with my block. Not sure what but all I can really see is messed up channels and mircopins so I blame them.

I want to use this block but I don't want to risk it causing damage.

[stephenswiftech]

O-ring: Without seeing the actual o-ring (or what's left of it) I can't say it's been melted. Unless you ran your loop without any fluid the temperature of the block shouldn't exceed 100C which is below melting temperature for the o-ring. [to be confirmed, but it sounds unlikely]

These o-rings are here to bow the copper base plate, in other words they are compressed slightly above the standard. And in addition to this, on one side the o-ring sits directly on top of the pins which tend to create marks (pits) on the o-ring.

It does look like there is some staining due to the o-ring and as Michelle said this should be taken care of with some cleaning.


Pins: there are bent pins and irregularities in the cutting process. When we first introduce Apogee XT, I can assure you that Swiftech was pioneering cutting this large pins bed with such small features, and I am not even talking about the depth. Each pass requires 3 different X,Y,Z operations to do that. We did it because we wanted to offer our customers the smallest features we could make. It's true that pioneering this technology implied having some bent pins and such, but we've tested and validated this product and there is absolutely no concern to have about thermal performance. If it is possible it is 100% a cosmetic problem, nothing else. Since we've started making XT we've been able to improve our cutting technique (machine, programming, etc.) and the current Apogee HD design is actually slightly easier to make.


We do value your input and we understand what your complain is, I just wanted to explain to you why your base plate is actually fine.
Since we couldn't see the actual o-ring we assumed it needed replacement but I am almost positive it didn't melt (did the other larger o-ring melt - if so make sure you ask Michelle a replacement also).

You mentioned you are new to water cooling, don't hesitate to ask questions we're here to help. But note that if an o-ring burns/melts it's most likely not the water block's fault... [the only thing that could explain that would be water not circulation - either bad pump or bad prime - 95% of the case it's bad prime] - [Even if your block had NO pin it wouldn't burn/melt, your water temperature would be most about the same - it's just your CPU temps that would be higher, in other words your o-ring would be at the same temperature].

Regards,
Stephen

[SonDa5]

I've soaked the block in lemon juice for 24 hours and scrubbed then in Katchup for 24 hours and scrubbed and it still will not come clean.

How do I clean it?

The O ring color is still on the block.