i7-2600K CPU Swiftech Apogee XT

Internal Photos and Information

Being the science type, I simply can’t help myself but take things apart and look at their inner workings. For starters I wanted to see how the alternate inlet works.  It’s a fairly simple but effective symmetrical plate with an offset inlet hole and shallow channel system.  In the center inlet option configuration, the offset plate hole lines up with the mid-block plate hole.  In the alternate configuration, they are offset and the shallow channel now serves as a conduit to move water over to the mid block inlet opening.  The plate mounts on top of a nice o-ring system using 6 smaller screws.

Inlet plate removed

I like the inlet plate design, while I’m not planning to utilize it for large compression fittings(I’m a barb guy), it works well and I think actually enhances the industrial look a bit.

Moving onto the mid block base interface, the picture below captures that pretty well.  The mid block has an oval-shaped o-ring that helps seal and prevent bypassing of the pin structure, and another outer main o-ring seals the perimeter to the smooth portion of the copper base.  I actually unknowingly turned the base 90 to the mid-block in the photo below, but you get the idea.

Water enters the mid-block inlet hole and is pushed down and through the many micro pines to the perimeter where it is collected by the mid-block perimeter channel and removed via the exit port.  The mid-block appears to be fairly well constructed and machining quality control looks good.

The copper pin matrix is vary large, and I would even question the effectiveness of the portion on the outside 10mm or so.  The pins directly above the IHS core area are generally the only bits actually providing cooling performance. Regardless it is large which isn’t going to hurt anything and probably beneficial for the larger cores to some extent.

Here is a picture of a close up shot of the pin matrix.  I measured roughly .01″ (.25mm) or so pin/gap spacing, so these are very very very fine pins.  Initially I was a bit discouraged by the irregularity of the pins, but then I thought back to my own manually milling “attempts” at constructing a custom block. Micro-channels are easier to cut since they have structure remaining along the fin.  Pins on the other hand bend easily and you can see there is some irregularity to the pins if you break out the macro lens.  I have personally tried cutting pins on my mini manual mill using a slitting saw and struggled on even much larger sized pins than this.  So… regardless of the imperfection, it’s still quite an accomplishment “Machining” pins this small and copper’s difficult to machine nature. Copper is very gummy and soft making this sort of manufacturing extremely difficult.

That’s it for internals, generally I was very pleased with the alternate inlet chamber and a little unsure about the base quality.  While I am understanding about the imperfections of the pins in the base since they are so very very small, I also think it’s important to note.  Some imperfections in the pin base were found in my test sample.

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