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Swiftech H2O-220-Apex Ultra


Date
: 02/16/06 – 04:53:59 AM

Author
:

Category
: Cooling

Page 1 : Introduction

Manufacturer:
Swiftech

Price:
259.95 MSRP

Many people, including myself, when they think water cooling they first think of Swiftech. My first water cooling system was built around the Swiftech MCW5000-A when it was new. It also used Swiftech's MCP-300 pump and a '68 Mustang heatercore. Water cooling wasn't nearly as mainstream then as it is today, but even then the popularity of it was rising due to hotter and hotter processors being shipped.

Today the water cooling market is much bigger, and common names in other areas of cooling and PC components have entered in with their own solutions. Swiftech continues to pioneer the water cooling market with new ideas making it easier to setup and achieve higher levels of cooling performance.

The
Swiftech H2O-220-Apex Ultra
that we're looking at now is the latest in Swiftech's line of coolers and their flagship kit. We'll also be looking at two waterblocks: the newer Apogee that ships with the kit and the Storm which it replaced. Let's jump first to the packaging…

Page 2 : Package

Below is the Swiftech package for the H2O-220-Apex Ultra water cooling kit. It has small dimensions, good weight to it and comes shrink wrapped.

Opening the package reveals tightly packed components each individually wrapped in bubble wrap.

The package contents are as follows:

Minus the tools, Swiftech provides everything you need to get up and running. They include an abundance of tubing (8 feet total) and their SmartCoils to help keep kinks from forming.

To help keep the parts from corroding and building up your own little zoo of microbes, Swiftech includes an additive they call
Hydrix
.

Lets move on and check out the specifications Swiftech gives us…

Page 3 : Specifications

The following specifications come straight from Swiftech's site:

Two of the important things to take from these specificationss are that the waterblock is universal and that the pump is speed variable. Both the Apogee and Storm are universal waterblocks supporting K7, K8, Pentium 4 and Xeon sockets out of the box. The only requirement for Socket A support is that the motherboard must have the four mounting holes around the socket. Additionally, Swiftech also makes optional mounting hardware for purchase for the Itanium and Xeon 'Nocona' platforms (the latter is included with the kit). The variable speed of the pump combined with the variable fan speeds allows users to tune the system to their desired performance and noise levels.

Page 4 : Waterblock

With the Apogee waterblock that ships with the kit, we can see the universal nature clearly by looking at the many accessories that Swiftech supplies with it:

Below are various angles of the Apogee waterblock. For a detailed breakdown of it's composition please refer to the information Swiftech provides here.

Detailed information regarding the composition of the Storm waterblack can be found here. Comparing the Apogee to the Storm we have the following side-by-side shots:

The big difference described by Swiftech between these two waterblocks is that the Storm required a high flow of water in order for it to really shine, so this meant you had to withstand a bit of noise to achieve this. The Apogee is a much more flexible design that allows for great cooling with a low flow of water and even better cooling as the flow is increased. We'll be able to see this later in the review. For now though, let's look more closely at the radiator…

Page 5 : Radiator

The radiator contained in this kit is a large 2-pass single row radiator made of flat brass tubes and copper louvered fins. One of the things that makes this radiator special is its self purging plenum chambers design, so that when installed upright or on its side, air cannot accumulate in them. It's large size accomodates two included 120mm fans made by Delta (part number WFB1212M) capable of pushing 72.4 CFM @ 34 dBA.

Attached to the radiator is the MCB120 Radbox, a helpful mounting adapter that allows you to mount the radiator to the rear of the case. Being able to mount the radiator externally is a huge advantage in space constrained setups.

To give the user some control over the noise and performance they want, there are the following power adapters to be used with the fans on the radiator. There's also a special bracket for cleanly routing the fan cables into the case.

Now on to the reservoir and pump…

Page 6 : Reservoir & Pump

Also in the kit is Swiftech's own pump and reservoir. The pump is very similar to the one used in my last Swiftech review of the H2O-120-P kit. The differences here are the color of the housing and the variable speeds you can adjust to on the back. Otherwise, nothing's changed.

The reservoir is tiny, but makes the fill and bleed process much simpler than before. Swiftech goes the extra mile here and even includes a small funnel for use in the process.

Let's move on to the install…

Page 7 : Installation

The install is where the bulk of my time was spent. Unlike the H2O-120-P, the H2O-220-Apex Ultra requires some power tools to get the job done. A large case is handy, but not necessary if you want to get creative.

Now, I haven't mentioned anything about Swiftech's documention up to this point. Seems best that I mention that here. In the previous sections it was clear in the pictures that Swiftech includes each component's individual install intructions on with the various parts required for assembly. They further have an entire booklet, shown below, which documents the install process and gives the user no room for error if they simply follow this guide.

The first step I took was installing the waterblock. This was simple to do and the install takes only a matter of minutes. It was close, but the waterblock fit just narrowly as one edge slightly touches a capacitor on the Foxconn NF4SLI7AA-8EKRS2.

Examining the rear of the case (Cooler Master's Wave Master) it became apparent that there was no way I could install the radiator as is without getting kinks in the tubing. The problem is that the barbs coming off the radiator are too far apart (and I'd wager this is true for most people). So I proceeded, with a great deal of help from my uncle, by putting the holes for the tubes as far apart as possible and mounting the Radbox about 1.5" to 2" farther from the back of the case. You can see that below:

After the radiator was in it was smooth sailing. I worked out the placement of the pump and reservoir before cutting the tubing to length. Then, once the tubes were cut to length I slipped the SmartCoils onto them. The rest of the setup was just fitting the tubes onto each component and clamping the ends. Finally the system was filled with distilled water mixed with the additive.

After all is said and done I was happy with how things turned out. The only quibbles I had with the setup were that I thought the radiator's barbs were too far apart and that the plastic hose clamps need to be replaced with your typical metal ones or it should be at least explained how to properly get them to release; I broke one trying. I also haven't quite figured out what I'll do with the pump as it sits slightly outside the case because of the video card. This will be easier to see on the next page where pictures of the setups are.

Page 8 : Testing

The same system specifications were used throughout testing with the only differences being the cooling and whether a case was used or not. The air cooled system was tested without an enclosure while the two water cooling setups were tested as seen below:

Each setup was given four hours from a fresh reboot to idle before the idle temperature was taken using Foxconn's own temperature monitoring utility, and each load temperature was taken after four hours of Prime95 toture testing. Each water cooling setup was tested under two conditions: high and low. When on high, the pump was on max power as were the fans, and when on low the opposite was the case. All the temperature readings were taken with a system temperature between 28°C and 30°C. The system specs are show below followed by the results.

These results demonstrate the reason for Swiftech's quick transition from the Storm to the Apogee waterblocks: the Apogee is much more versatile. When it came down to noise there was no comparison between the performance offered by the quiet water cooling systems on low and the air cooling. This was expected, but the true comparison here is that between the older and the newer Swiftech waterblock.

Page 9 : Conclusion

Swiftech has itself another winner here with the H2O-220-Apex Ultra. Ease of setup is of importance to me, and the Swiftech allows this as long as you're patient and don't mind drilling a couple holes into your case. Both waterblocks I tested were excellent performers, but the added versatility that the Apogee gives you makes it a definite winner. For any enthusiast looking for a high performing solution or a quiet solution that doesn't give up the performance, the H2O-220-Apex Ultra from Swiftech is a very solid choice.

Advantages:

Adjustable for noise control
High performance in both extremes
Excellent documentation
Quality parts and finish throughout

Disadvantages:

Requires hours for setup
Expensive

I'd like to give our thanks to Swiftech for supplying the parts that made this review possible.

Edit June 1st 2006: Many of you have contacted us regarding the incorrect placement of the Storm waterblock. At the time of writing, Swiftech did not provide any documentation/guides in print or online supporting this claim. I imagine the only place the recommendation may have been made is in the original kit that used the Storm, which was and still is unavailable due to it being phased out quickly with the improved Apogee.
Regardless, the spotlight of the review is on the Apogee (the new) and not the Storm (the old). The only difference in correcting the orientation would be one or two degrees and not anything life shattering.