[Review] Round 2: Swiftech Apogee XT Tested

[Fafeifa]

wow just wow

[Salamndar]

Great Block indeed, but I expected better flow!
none the less it is the best in cooling, but still it seems like it shouldn't be accompanied with any water block in the same loop for most people if they use only one pump like the MCP355 or the MCP655, am I right?

[Vapor]

Great Block indeed, but I expected better flow!
none the less it is the best in cooling, but still it seems like it shouldn't be accompanied with any water block in the same loop for most people if they use only one pump like the MCP355 or the MCP655, am I right?

I don't see why not?

Flowrate itself is a meaningless, what flowrate does is what's important.

As far as most loops are concerned, there's basically two tiers of importance of components: I'll call them 1st tier and 2nd tier.

1st tier consists of the CPU block and the radiator(s). CPU temperatures do matter for stability...if you can knock a few degrees off, that last 10-20MHz often becomes stable. CPU block and radiators are the two components that contribute to CPU temps.

2nd tier consists of everything else--GPUs don't care whether or not they're at 43C or 46C, VRMs sure don't care about a couple of degrees (and let's not get ridiculous with RAM or hard drives).


Given this breakdown, it's mostly sufficient to say that as long as you have quality components (no Zalman straight pipe or Thermaltake stuff), even very low flow will provide identical system performance (in terms of GPU/VRM/RAM/etc performance).

That leaves the CPU block and the radiator....I test flow vs. temperatures with the CPU blocks, and from all the testing I've seen, radiators just don't care about flowrate. Martin tested this a few months ago...the lowest flowrate he tested was .5GPM and the radiator was still performing at 98-99% efficiency (according to the trendline).

So in the end, the only component that has an effect on your system's performance (with regards to varying flowrate), is your CPU block. I'm giving the reader data for how the various blocks on the market respond to both flow and pumping power.

I wouldn't be at all concerned about the effect of using a Koolance CPU-350 or a Supreme or an XT would have on the rest of your system. I would only look at how the various blocks perform at your anticipated pumping power.

Given that, the XT is actually distancing itself from the rest of the pack because it performs so well with low flow.