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Swiftech Apex Ultra

Josh Norem — Sat, 18 Mar 2006 13:16:07 -0600

When Swiftech said it was sending us the most extreme kit it has ever built, the drooling commenced. The kit arrived, and sure enough, it’s extreme—and it performs extremely well, to boot. But while it’s the best-performing kit we’ve ever tested, it’s not perfect.

The Apex Ultra uses Swiftech’s Apogee universal water block, and it feeds that beast via fat, half-inch tubing and a high-flow, five-speed pump, thus bucking the low-flow trend common to most of today’s kits. The kit also includes a transparent reservoir and a dual-12cm radiator that hangs off the back of your PC using Swiftech’s patented Radbox design.

The numbers the Apex Ultra posted in testing are astonishing. On our Athlon FX-55 CPU, it registered an idle temp of a mere 29 C, and a load temp of just 36 C. (The stock air-cooling temps are 40 C at idle, and 54 C under load.) We were able to overclock our processor by 235MHz—the highest overclock we’ve ever achieved on our zero-point platform.

Impressive performance, for sure, but there are a few issues with this kit. First, installation requires you to drill two holes in your case above the I/O shield, to route the tubing from the radiator. Not everyone will want to drill holes in their case, so you can flip the Radbox upside down and route the tubing through an empty PCI slot, but no bracket is provided to do so.

Second, attaching the tubes to the pump is a cast-iron bitch. We had trouble getting the tube over the barb even after we used a ton of hand soap as lubricant. There’s no reason why installation of the tubing has to be this difficult. None. The installation manual is as user-unfriendly as any we’ve seen, which has always been Swiftech’s Achilles’ heel.

While its cooling performance is second-to-none, the installation seems overly difficult. It’s certainly an “extreme” kit, in every sense of the word.

Month Reviewed: April 2006

+ TUBING: Insane cooling, good looks, and an adjustable pump.

- NOOB TUBING: Instructions are unclear, and attaching tubing is difficult.

VERDICT: 8

URL: www.swiftnets.com

Corsair Nautilus 500

Josh Norem — Fri, 17 Mar 2006 13:41:27 -0600

Corsair claims its new Nautilus kit is both affordable and easy to install, while providing exceptional cooling performance. And we’re happy to report that the kit meets most of Corsair’s claims.

The kit is housed in a plastic enclosure that sits atop your case. It features an integrated reservoir, a 12cm radiator/fan assembly with two speeds (high and low), and a pump. It includes a CPU water block and uses UV reactive 3/8-inch tubing, along with neon-green anti-algae mix to give your coolant an alien-slime look.

The Nautilus’ installation has some issues. You don’t need to remove the motherboard to install the kit (it supports every late model socket), but there’s a catch. Installation on a Socket 939 requires a back-breaking amount of force. We feared for our mobo’s life during the process. Installing on LGA775, however, is simple: You just push down four pins to secure the water block, but you have to remove the motherboard to remove the block, which is annoying.

In our tests, the Nautilus 500’s cooling performance was superb. We achieved a 194MHz overclock on our FX-55 processor, which is damn good. CPU temps were chilly, but not as impressive as the Apex Ultra’s scores. You can also toggle fan speed from high to low, and it’s reasonably quiet in either mode. In “quiet” mode its very silent, though there’s a barely audible whine from the pump.
Overall, the Nautilus delivers on its promises. We don’t like how much force is required for a Socket 939 install, and it’s not totally silent, but it’s easily the best entry-level water-cooling kit we’ve tested.

Month Reviewed: April 2006

+ NAUTILUS: Terrific cooling, and it installs in 10 minutes.

- NAUGHTY-LUS: Pump is somewhat audible, and S939 installation requires undue force.

VERDICT: 9

URL: www.corsair.com

Thermaltake Tide Water

Josh Norem — Mon, 27 Feb 2006 12:11:22 -0600

Now that GPU temperatures are exceeding CPU temps, water-cooling has become a much more appealing way to deliver exceptional cooling to your videocard without a lot of noise. The problem is, no one has built stand-alone GPU water-cooling kits—until now. Thermaltake’s Tide Water is an innovative product that indeed succeeds at cooling your GPU in silence. Trouble is, the omission of RAM heatsinks means that while your GPU will be chillin’, the rest of your videocard will be suitable for grillin’.

Installation is relatively easy. You install two posts to whatever card you have (the kit fits both ATI and nVidia cards). Then you place the water-block on top of the GPU core and secure it with two screws that attach to adjustable arms. While this isn’t the best design, the straightforward directions, if followed, will prevent you from causing any damage to your GPU.

Next, you attach the radiator/fan assembly to two empty PCI slot covers. The cooling unit is rather large, but it’s well-designed and includes a massive copper heatsink, a central fan that sucks air out of the fins and then exhausts it from your case. The last step is to select whether you want the cooler to operate in “quiet” or “normal” mode by toggling a small switch. The Tide Water comes prefilled with coolant, so you needn’t mess with that aspect, and a water-level indicator lets you monitor the coolant level.

As stated previously, the Tide Water’s GPU cooling performance is exceptional, registering 46 C at idle and 57 C under full load. These results are considerably better than the stock cooling apparatus achieves on our 6800 Ultra test card. The absence of any heatsinks for the board’s RAM, however, is a major problem. Our card’s capacitors and memory chips became so hot during testing we feared for the safety of our board. Running your card at these temperatures for prolonged periods is sure to decrease its life span. Thus, we cannot recommend this product unless you use aftermarket heatsinks for the memory chips.

As it stands, the Tide Water is a decent way to water-cool your GPU, but it costs twice as much as the Zalman VF700, but performs worse, so we’re not big fans.

Month Reviewed: March 2006

Verdict: 6

URL: www.thermaltake.com