Swiftech Apogee Drive II Integrated Pump and Waterblock Review

Installation and Finished Product

To get to this all you need to do is set the back plate in place and screw the thumbscrews in alternating to keep it level. All I had to do next was tie up a bit of wiring for the 4-pin fan connector I placed on the CPU header. The Molex connection running over the top will get connected later.

In the back, with the screws all the way in, the only thing you may need to worry about is placing the notch in the correct spot as not to bind on the socket screws. On top of this one, just like the 1366 version, there are four white pads to isolate it from the motherboard.

I just wanted to take a picture from this angle to give you an idea of the overall height. What you are seeing is a block with a pump on top that is still shorter than some of those fancy heat spreaders on memory.

I raised the angle just a bit to show you what I was talking about. Even with the inlet and outlet hanging off the sides, I am well within the CPU constraints, but I can also still populate all of the memory slots.

I went ahead and grabbed some black half inch ID, three quarter inch OD tubing to use for testing purposes. You can see that with the plastic clips provided it is no problem to get them around even the thickest of tubing choices out there.

Powering up the PC brings the Apogee Drive II to life. Along with an ever so slight hum of the pump at 4500 RPM, the LED inside of the heatsink illuminates and is pretty darn bright. You can easily see it in any rig as long as the tubing doesn't block the angle of view.

Here we have the loop filled and all the components ready for testing. You may also notice another component that I will be doing the review for here in the next day or so. Keep your eyes peeled for that one.