Swiftech H20-220 Ultima XT CPU Water Cooling
July 10th, 2010
Bottom line up front: Highly recommended!
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Swiftech H20-220 Ultima XT
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This kit delivers the goods! Five or six years ago I tried water cooling (WCing) and was disappointed. When compared against the top grade heat sink (HS) I was using at the time, the kit only shaved about 2-3C off my CPU load temps. So, I was a little leery of getting back into WCing again, especially with the recent advances in air cooled heat sinks and fans (HSFs). Compared to a Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus HSF, at a 3.6GHz OC this kit dropped idle temps by a couple degrees and at least 10C off load temps -- that's serious cooling!
The kit includes EVERYTHING; nuts, bolts, grommets, TIM (I used Artic Silver 5), you name it. The included installation instructions are complete, easy to understand, and simplifies the process. The radiator mounts outside the case, just behind the rear panel fan, which makes sense to me. Never did understand why many mount their radiator(s) inside the case, in there with all the hot air. You will need at least a mid-tower sized case with two holes in the back panel for the tubing to and from the radiator (see pic below). I have a full tower case but it wasn't pre-drilled for water cooling. Luckily, I had a 1" hole saw and drilled the holes just above the rear panel fan opening (see pic below). And the two needed grommets are included in the kit.
If you've never done WCing before, fitting the tubing over the barbs is problematic, but needs to be so. You need a secure, tight fitting to prevent leaks. I've found that lubing the barbs and tubing helps ease the tubing over the barb (a little spit goes a long way :)) ). The kit includes all the clamps needed to help secure all the fittings.
Before installing, flush the radiator with a 1/2 vinegar and 1/2 water solution at least twice, shaking the radiator to help dislodge any stray flux, etc. The final flush should be with distilled water.
Use only distilled water and the supplied biocide/galvanic prevention solution in your loop -- 4 tablespoons equals the 2 ounces recommended by Swiftech.
Swiftech recommended tube routing:
Connect:
Pump discharge to radiator inlet
Radiator discharge to CPU cooler inlet
CPU cooler discharge to reservoir inlet
Reservoir discharge to pump inlet – MANDATORY!
Alternatively,
Connect
Pump discharge to CPU cooler inlet
CPU cooler discharge to radiator inlet
Radiator discharge to reservoir inlet
Reservoir discharge to pump inlet – MANDATORY!
To aid in priming the pump and bleeding/draining the loop, try to mount the reservoir at the highest point in the loop and the pump at the lowest point.
ALWAYS leak test the loop installed in or close to its permanent position without mobo, vidcards, HDDs, CD/DVD drives, etc installed. To start the PSU, use a paper clip to complete a circuit between any green and black pins of the 20/24 pin power plug. If you bend the paper clip just right it will stay in the pins. Run this leak test at least overnight. If the overnight test is successful, install only the minimum components needed to boot up your system, and run another leak test.
Block and 1156 backplate, comes with 1366 and 775 backplates too. AMD socket mobo brackets are available.
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Rad on left comes with kit and includes barbs
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MCP655 12v pump
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MCRES-Micro-R2 resevoir
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The block, pump, and res installed, ignore wires, cables, shot taken during 2nd leak test (had NONE).
Case: Lian Li PC-G80B
Mobo: ASUS P7P55D-E
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The rad installed. I added the "pull" fans; the "push" fans come with the kit.
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Some results:
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