Gizmo

ap·o·gee: The farthest or highest point; the apex; a final climactic stage

The APOGEE water-block succeeds Swiftech's award winning MCW6000 series water-blocks with a quantum leap in performance, a universal installation design and competitive pricing resulting from economies of scale.

Using Computational Fluid Dynamics analysis, Swiftech optimized the structure of the Patent Pending Diamond Pin Matrix of Swiftech's MCW55 water-block cold plate to match the thermal and physical characteristics of AMD® and Intel® latest microprocessors. In particular Swiftech took into account the trend for dual core processors which feature larger die sizes thus requiring a different treatment of the heat fluxes.

The resulting product achieves new heights in thermal performance with a lower pressure drop than that of the MCW6000 water-block which was known to be among the least restrictive high performance water-blocks on the market.

As a result the Apogee water-block may outperform the STORM model by a up to 1°C (at 100 Watts thermal load and 1.0 GPM), and further increase its lead in multiprocessor, multi-vga applications due to its low restriction characteristics as can be seen in Swiftech's kit test results.

Performance Data:

The Apogee was tested in Swiftech's labs using the same equipment and testing methodology as was used with the Storm and MCW6000 / 6002 water-blacks and is compared to these products in the graphs on the right. The test equipment and methodology closely follows Intel®'s recommended procedures.

Pressure Drop vs. Flow Rate - It can be seen that the pressure drop of the Apogee is lower than that of the MCW6002 at equal flow rates, and substantially lower than that of the Storm. In the real world where the range of flow rates is limited by the power of the pump, this will also translate into noticeable gains when multiple water-blocks are connected in series. A simple example illustrates this point quite clearly: using the same MCP350 pump, it will take three Apogee water-blocks in series to drop the flow rate to that of single Storm.

Thermal Resistance vs. Flow Rate - Here it is apparent that the Apogee has the lowest thermal resistance at all flow rates and more importantly features a wider performance advantage at "real life" flow rates between .3 and 1.5 GPM.

Thermal Resistance vs. Pressure Drop - From the graph's curve, it can be seen that the Apogee water-block does not necessitate a high pressure pump to be extremely efficient. It yields in fact lower (better) thermal resistance values than the MCW6000 and Storm water-blocks at all pressure drops.

Thermal Resistance vs. Hydaulic Power - Another way to consider the relationship between the water-block's thermal resistance and the pump capability is to plot the hydraulic resistance, which is literally the work that the pump must do. The Apogee outperforms all previous solutions whether a small aquarium pump or a high pressure industrial pump are used.

It should be added that under certain circumstances, the Storm water-block may perform better than the Apogee water-block. Swiftech cites for example earlier generations AMD Athlon XP, MP and Duron processors where the die size is smaller in surface area (100 to 140mm2) than current microprocessors. In such instances, the difference in temperature was found to be 1.4°C at 100 Watts, and at the maximum flow rate allowed by the test equipment (about 3.3 GPM for Apogee, and 2 GPM for Storm).

Motherboard and CPU Compatibility:

The Apogee is essentially meant as a universal water-block. It ships with all the necessary hardware for the following processor (classified by the type of sockets that they use):
Socket 478 (Intel® Pentium® 4)Socket 775 (Pentium® 4 "Prescott")Socket 603/604 (Intel® Xeon™ - 400 and 533 FSB) - see note 1Socket 462 (AMD® Athlon®, Duron®, MP, XP) - see note 2 belowSocket 754, 939, 940 (AMD® 64 bit processors).

Note 1: Intel® Xeon™ "Nocona" processors (800Mhz FSB motherboards) mounting hardware is sold separately under part # AP-NC604

Note 2: AMD® socket 462 (socket A). The Apogee can be used exclusively with motherboards featuring the 4 mounting holes around the socket.

Removal of the motherboard is necessary to install the mounting posts in all cases, except with AMD® Athlon™ 64 and Opteron™ (socket 754, 939 and 940).

Fittings & Tubing Compatibility:

Two sets of Nylon hose barbs are included with the device: 3/8" (10mm) and 1/2" (12mm). The apogee uses NPSM threads.

NPT connectors are not recommended in the Apogee water-block for the following reasons:

Dimensionally the difference between NPT and NPSM is the lack of taper in NPSM; which means that the seal resulting from the insertion of a NPT male into a NPSM female will make contact only at the largest portion of the NPT thread*. Yes, a low pressure seal can be made - but it will have little strength for bending loads from the tubing and will not be reliable.

The threads in the Apogee water-block are ¼”NPSM, the dimensions of which can be seen HERE, and those for NPT threads HERE.

A comparison of the features of tapered pipe joints and straight thread adapters, NPSM, [by the SSP Fittings Corp.] can be seen HERE.

* “The basic pitch diameter for both the external and internal straight pipe threads is equal to the pitch diameter of the American National Standard Taper Pipe Thread at the gaging notch, which is the same as at the large end of the internal taper pipe thread.“ Robert James Sales, Inc.

2/ NPSM and G ¼ Compared

G ¼, or BSPP, fittings will fit, but may not seal; each must be checked prior to assuming that it will not leak just because they fit together.

Both NPSM and G ¼ (BSPP) are parallel thread and nominally the same size, the principal difference being 18 threads per inch for NPSM and 19 threads per inch for G ¼ (BSPP). Since most male end G ¼ fittings have a short thread length they can generally be engaged in the NPSM threads without much difficulty.

The joint seal is effected with an O-ring which for the NPSM barb is in a groove on the water-block top and compressed by the flange nut barb.
G ¼ fittings have the O-ring captured in a groove under the fitting nut.

G ¼ fittings will seal so long as there is a straight portion under the nut flats sufficient to bring the G ¼ fitting’s O-ring into contact with the bottom of the O-ring groove, a depth of 0.080”.


Specifications:

The CNC machined C110 copper base plate is at the heart of Apogee's cooling efficiency. The Patent Pending Diamond Pin Matrix was optimized using Computational Fluid Dynamics analysis to yield the remarkable results recorded by the water-block. In the process, thickness of the base was reduced to 3mm. This resulted in a higher compliance of the base with its mating surface (i.e. the CPU heat spreader) thanks to the base plate added flexing ability.

The housing is injection molded out of Black Acetal. This process is key allow mass production of the water-block, and thus economies of scale.

The universal hold-down plate features mounting holes for all current Desktop and midrange server processors (Xeon™, Opteron™). Optional hardware is available for high-end server processors (Itanium™).

Nylon Fittings: 1/4" NPSM to 3/8" and/or 1/2" barbs

Fitting O-ring: (2) EPDM O-ring AS568A Dash Number 112
Base plate dimensions: 2" x 2" (50.5 x 50.5 mm)
Assembly weight: 6.7 oz (190 g)

Included Parts:
Apogee water-blockhold-down plateretention hardware for Intel socket 478 (Intel® Pentium® 4)retention hardware for socket 775 (Pentium® 4 "Prescott")retention hardware for socket 603-604 (Intel® Xeon™ 400, 533 FSB)retention hardware for socket 462 (AMD® Athlon®, Duron®, XP, MP)retention hardware for socket 754, 939, 940 (AMD® 64 bit processors)two sets of hose barbs (3/8" & 1/2")Arctic Céramique thermal pasteinstallation guide

Installation Guides:

Download English Guide (PDF)

Download French Guide (PDF)

Download German Guide (PDF)http://www.frozencpu.com/ex-blc-245.html?id=CpNYRKmK