Gadgetory

welcome to my unboxing and first look at the Apple G HD from Swift tech I spilled some alfredo sauce on it but I assure you that should not actually affect the cooling performance of this particular water block which is according to Swift tech and I tend to believe them at this point they kind of know what they're talking about which is actually apparently about two degrees better than the Apple GXT Rev 2 which was their last generation blocked that in my opinion actually looked more ballin out than the HD and that was partly because of the metal construction which looked amazing but was obviously costing them a fortune to produce so it is apparently a couple degrees better than that guy which was already about as good as it gets I mean there's only so much you can do at this point to improve blocks that are already pretty much cooling your CPU as much as they can or however you want to say that so included with the Apple G HD is a couple things first of all you've got mounting hardware for da-da-da-da-da-da LGA 2011 which looks like is all that is included with this particular version of it although there are multiple versions of Swift tech locks available note that is not all that's included it looks like it includes all of the Intel circuits so that's that's outstanding so right here is LGA him this looks like LGA 2011 and then the one that's actually on it it looks like LGA 1156 or 1155 so what I'd like to do is verify that before I go any further and I knocked out LGA 2011 doesn't need a backplate at all so this is a 1366 backplate which seems kind of redundant to include at this point and then this is an 11 56 back plate so that is gonna work on 1155 as well which means you'll be able to mount your Ivy Bridge processors on here and then your sandy bridge-e processors are just mounted on LGA 2011 using the screw so those go right into the backplate that's built right into the board so why does the HD perform better it performs better because of the base plate design which we'll get to in just a moment you can see I'm undoing the screws here for the mounting mechanism Swift Tek does such a good job of their mounting mechanisms they are just sort of perfect in every way the screws are calibrated so that they're putting the appropriate amount of pressure on the CPU as long as you do them up all the way so you just go until it stops and that's pretty much it you don't have to think about it beyond that they also clip into place on the hold-down plate that goes over top of the block that doesn't change anymore it used to be you had to swap those out on blocks older blocks like the Apple G Apple GGT now they just clip into place using please come off thank you for that they clip into place using little retention clips right here so you can pop those off they are reusable then you pop on the LGA 2011 one and they will be held into place so that means you don't have to fuss around with them you don't have to pop them through the back of the board you don't have to do anything like that you just put them in place hold it on you actually can see these sticky pads here you can actually take these off stick this to the back of the motherboard so it doesn't move and then the whole process is actually simpler than most of the those prefab liquid cooling kits so there you go put that in your sort of hat and wear it as a feather or whatever else the case may be so if tech has dramatically improved the options that they have in terms sittings over the last couple of years so these right here are just your kind of standard stubby fittings most standard fittings because their Barb's but they're stubby which means that they're going to be sort of a less less less of a straight stretch required coming off of a block which makes it easier to make curbs off of it so the only thing to be careful of with stubby fittings and with any fittings is making sure that you're using an appropriate mechanism to secure it so you can see here we've got worm drive clamps that are included with the block these are not necessarily the easiest to use but these are the safest way to secure your tubing in such a way that it is not going anywhere you can see the size of them is appropriate for one half inch ID 3/4 inch OD tubing which is what most enthusiasts are using although personally I'm more of a 3/8 inch tubing advocate Swift tech includes a high quality thermal compound it looks like yeah we've seen this stuff before with any number of labels on it yes it's good stuff so there that's pretty much all there is to say about that and the obligatory test that there's a little L on the bottom I'm gonna go ahead and be narcissistic and assume that's for Linus because this block is special for me now it's probably not so the obligatory finger test shows that it is extremely shiny although it should be noted guys that that is not necessarily the strongest indicator of thermal performance in fact it's it's not one thing I would like you guys to check out though actually if I can get the angle change tool over here I need to go here there we go so watch this you see how the line of the table there actually bends at the bottom see how it goes like that and then at the top it goes the other way this way the reason for that is the base is gonna be slightly convex so once you tighten it down the copper will flatten and make the best possible bond against the CPU IHS itself the aesthetics of this block are outstanding I mean we've again come to expect this from Swift tech there are two different options for Inlet and outlet you can either go or rather there's three different options for the outlet and then there's one for the inlet here so this is in and then the way the block is structured inside it's actually can come out here here and here so that may you can actually split it out to different components directly from the CPU block or you can use different options if you want now it should be noted that you can only use three quarter-inch OD compressions on the primary Inlet and outlet you can't use them here but most people aren't going to be using multiple outlets from the block anyway so I wouldn't worry too much about it there's a matte finish on the hold down plate that looks absolutely outstanding and you can see here that you can actually move these there you go back and forth so that is going to cover your entire range of Intel sockets if you do need AMD mounting options they are available but they are sold separately or as a different block most people doing high performance builds these days are using Intel anyway so I agree 100% with Swift X choice to not bother including the AMD mounting kit because sort of 95% 99% of people would probably end up throwing it out so thank you for checking out my unboxing and first look at the apogee HD from Swift tech don't forget to subscribe to Alanis tech tips for more unboxings reviews and other computer videos