Swiftech's APD2: It's Here!

[grouchon]

It is with no small measure of pride and satisfaction that I can finally introduce to you the long-awaited Apogee Drive II integrated pump & water-block.



"Like a phoenix rising from its ashes, the Apogee™ Drive II integrated pump & waterblock returns to take its place at the helm of Swiftech's CPU waterblock product line. "









A little bit of history..


Derived in general concept from the original Apogee Drive initially released in 2007 and discontinued in 2009, the Apogee Drive II much differs from the original in terms of its execution.

The original Apogee Drive was conceived as a relatively low cost unit, using injection molding for its body, and the entry-level MCP350 pump. It came with the bare essentials. But from a manufacturing stand-point though, the concept turned-out to be the product's Achilles heel: upgrading the body to accomodate new CPU socket form factors was impractical and we just couldn't cost-justify it.

In contrast, the Apogee Drive II is conceived as a luxury vessel: its uses the MCP35X, the best pump in our line-up , a precision CNC machined water-block body that lends itself to easy upgrades for future socket form factors, adjustable inlet and outlet ports, a heatsink to further cool the pump, LED illuminated logo in a choice of 3 colors, braided cables, and our now famous retention system. The only concession to cost that we made was to not bundle all the retention systems into one sku, and to make 3 separate product versions.

And how does it perform ?


Performance wise, the charts below speak for themselves. The Apogee Drive II is undeniably the new King of the Hill:




The following two charts compare thermal performance while the Apogee Drive II is added to an existing loop, for a total of two pumps in operations:






The following chart compares thermal performance of a conventional setup versus one where both water-block and pump have been replaced by an Apogee™ Drive II (1 pump in operations):


And now for the long-awaited internals:







Well, this pretty much concludes this product introduction. There is a bit more information on the product web page, so just head over there if there is anything I didn't cover here.

I hope you guys will like using it as much as we enjoyed making it. I also want to take this opportunity to publicly thank Stephen, our thermal engineer whose brain-child this is, and Alex our plant manager for working so hard at producing another great quality product!

[miicah]

If those numbers stack up in the real world this will be an amazing pump for mAXT system builders that don't want to use an off the shelf all in one.

[mrbean_phillip]

The numbers will stack up if used in cascade-mode, i.e retaining your old pump, and adding this in the loop too.

It is a beautiful device, and I am awaiting the Swiftech store to make them available to Australia - I have 4 sitting in the Cart I will be using one each in my NAS, and then the Wife's mini-ITX rig, and 2 running in series in my Blackbird setup. In all my systems, they will also be in series to GFX waterblocks.

As mentioned over at XS, well done, Gabe and Team, this will be my favorite for years to come.

[Creekin]

Originally Posted by mrbean_phillip

The numbers will stack up if used in cascade-mode, i.e retaining your old pump, and adding this in the loop too.

yeah see that just doesn't make sense to me, and the graphs above explain why.
30% increase in flow by adding 100% more pumping power..
it would be 100% more if it was split into 2 loops.. just sayin...

the look kinda reminds me of a Space Invader
and im a bit suss that combing a pump and block is a good idea, im not a fan of hybrids in general, i do love novelty gimmicks though and this sure looks like one to me
would be handy for mini builds, like the Prodigy
def keen to check it out

[^catalyst]

Gotta love graphs that don't start at zero; marketing dept. must have taken all morning to make those...

[kambo_rambo]

Dont see the point of pump/block combos when you already have pump/res combos. That is, unless you use both of these.

[^catalyst]

Didn't we get over flowrate a while ago though?

[miicah]

Originally Posted by kambo_rambo

Dont see the point of pump/block combos when you already have pump/res combos. That is, unless you use both of these.

Pump/block combo takes up less space is the first thing that comes to mind.

[VeritronX]

You could use this and a 1x5.25" bay res in cases that only have one optical bay mounting or only have two but you need a dvd drive etc.

[rowanr]

Should we trust them if they can't even put the RAM in the right slots?

Also those temps are measured to 2dp which is pointless. IMO temp differences of a few degrees is actually negligible due to slight differences in installation (e.g. thermal paste), plus my temps are constantly fluctuating but that's probably due to the multipliers changing all the time on the 3770K. Happy to be proved wrong though.

[kambo_rambo]

Originally Posted by rowanr

Should we trust them if they can't even put the RAM in the right slots?

They did it right here:

[tunksy]

will be super handy for matx and itx systems.

[Creekin]

Originally Posted by ^catalyst

Gotta love graphs that don't start at zero; marketing dept. must have taken all morning to make those...

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0393310728

[Concept CBF]

Lol so from the graphs im getting that it performs worse by itself than a system with only a MC220 drive would. So what is the point?

[miicah]

Originally Posted by Concept CBF

Lol so from the graphs im getting that it performs worse by itself than a system with only a MC220 drive would. So what is the point?

Worse = very similar

Not all cases have room for a pump (or they do, but people want a cleaner look).

This will be an amazing pump to recommend to people who are considering getting those all-in-one doohickeys, as this can expand in the future.