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Apogee test done at System Cooling

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BJB

Member
Joined
Feb 12, 2003
Location
Wisconsin
I didn't see this posted, so I thought I would share the link. There has been a lot of debate about the Apogee's performance, and I think System Cooling has written a nice review on the block based on a variety of tests. It appears to perform favorably on the Athlon 64 3700+ in the last test, but it doesn't look so good for small die processors.
 
Why such a big difference?
Perhaps RoboTech should lower the simulator to 50W or so... :shrug:

:bang head
 
Notice how the big difference disappears under real CPU load. IMO, each of the blocks will give you roughly equal performace, so you sould buy the cheapest one, or the one with the least restriction. In most cases, the quality of the TIM application will make more difference than which waterblock is used. Thus, if your waterblock is a completely utilitarian device (which it is not to some people) it really makes do difference which is used, in most (but NOT all) cases.

Thanks for the link.
 
wow... one of the few well-done, in-depth water block reviews


but it proved what i already expected - storm wins overall, hands down (cept for on uber-large die processors)
 
The author is being very cautious with his statement that the Apogee does what Swiftech claims it does.
If you hold a beauty contest but then allow the jury to see the candidates only through smoked glass, how valid is the conclusion that all contestants look similar?

The more exacting tests show that the Apogee is worse than a number of other blocks, on both small and large dies. The only valid issue that the AMD test brings up is how relevant this difference is in practice. For many users, the difference between blocks may be too small to notice in their PC, but not to all. The simulator tests give these people the information that they need, the AMD test does not.
 
I am wondering if possibly the lack of thickness for the base plate allows flexing of the plate to create a convex surface. This convex surface would not make as good of contact with small die processors as it would with the larger die processors.

Secondly the problem Lee pointed out with the thinness of the housing around the relief area would be of concern to me. I 'play' with my setup quite a bit which very possibly could cause some flexing of the housing around that area. Leaks are bad after all ;)
 
Sneaky said:
wow... one of the few well-done, in-depth water block reviews


but it proved what i already expected - storm wins overall, hands down (cept for on uber-large die processors)
It doesnt even do that well with a 32mm sq die, and that is HUGE. This clip fromt the article suggests to me that Swiftech did NOT like the results:

"I don’t normally do live CPU waterblock testing as there are just too many variables to control and its hard to collect accurate data. However, while reviewing the Apogee I was specifically asked to conduct side-by-side tests on a popular CPU platform."

Then why do it now? My only gripe.
 
It is a good "Base Reference Point", on a common platform, for all to look at.

-I think possible flexing on smaller dies is possible,
but that's why you need to watch your mounting pressures.

:attn:
 
"I don’t normally do live CPU waterblock testing as there are just too many variables to control and its hard to collect accurate data. However, while reviewing the Apogee I was specifically asked to conduct side-by-side tests on a popular CPU platform."

I think we need more testing on actual platforms. In fact, I would like to see (in addition to the normal testing) some tests on the effect each block has on overclockabilty. I do understand that there are many difficulties with such testing, as the processor's ability adds another variable (among others). For me watercooling is about overclocking, and perhaps other features of the block, such as the extremely concentrated cooling of the storm, change the overclocking characteristics of the setup. I am spending money not on temperatures, but on overclocking results, which is why, IMO the debate is rendered moot for most setups when the actual CPU reads the same temperatures for all the blocks.

Before anyone gets angry, I do think that the testbed evaluations are extremely helpful. However, I think that as a group, the WC community could use some perspective as to what the latest and greatest WC components are actually doing for us. Test on real CPUs could possibly provide this.
 
:rolleyes:
seamadan000 said:
I think we need more testing on actual platforms. In fact, I would like to see (in addition to the normal testing) some tests on the effect each block has on overclockabilty. I do understand that there are many difficulties with such testing, as the processor's ability adds another variable (among others). For me watercooling is about overclocking, and perhaps other features of the block, such as the extremely concentrated cooling of the storm, change the overclocking characteristics of the setup. I am spending money not on temperatures, but on overclocking results, which is why, IMO the debate is rendered moot for most setups when the actual CPU reads the same temperatures for all the blocks.

Before anyone gets angry, I do think that the testbed evaluations are extremely helpful. However, I think that as a group, the WC community could use some perspective as to what the latest and greatest WC components are actually doing for us. Test on real CPUs could possibly provide this.

I agree. This was a good review, but I'm eager to see some other various tests done to determine practical results for OC'ers. I was pretty eager to hear that swiftech had created a more affordable WB after seeing tests of the Storm. Until I see some more real world results, I'm happy with my 6002.
 
Well, it confirmed for me the question that I had in mind as to how the Apogee performs vs. the 6002. The one thing that might at some point interest me in switching is the ability to take the block apart for cleaning, which is something you can't do with the 6002.
 
Interesting results. Much worse than I expected for the die sim, but real-world testing (as accurate as it can be...) gave surprising numbers.

Not a bad block overall I suppose....
 
Why use die simulators for assessing waterblock performance?

Reading around on various forums I see a lot of rhetoric revolving around "real world" vs "artificial" performance. I also see some incorrect assumptions and parallels being drawn. Please allow me to explain the reasons why die simulators are better.

First, let's start with the issues with "real world" CPU's, and just why when we stick different blocks on a CPU, and then we see them all read the same. As we all know the temperatures that get reported by the CPU are being read from thermal probes often located in the coolest portion of the CPU die. A document from Intel details this fact: here (sadly the document has been removed - rehosted here). While I have no link to show AMD is doing the same thing, if one does enough testing we can observe a similar pattern of behavior. The location of the diode means that often what it reports is totally "numb" to what's really going on in the hottest portions of the CPU. It works much like the following analogy. If you have a long rod of metal, and you heat it at one end with a flame, and then run cold water over it in the middle of the rod, and then measure the temperature at the other end of the rod, how representative is the temperature reading of how hot the flame enveloped end of the rod is getting? This is precisely what occurs when you stick effective water-cooling on top of CPU's. The CPU may be getting hot, and waterblocks are pretty good at removing that heat, so by the time the heat gets to where the user readable thermal probe is located, you're seeing a "numbed" picture of what's going on in the hottest sections.

Incidentally, as stated in that paper, Intel have a second TCC probe that controls critical thermal shutdown of the CPU if it gets too hot, and that probe is located in the hottest section of the CPU, but the users can never see what it reports. We can still get an idea of what's going on though. Intel states that the TCC probe is specifically calibrated to thermally shut-down the CPU when it reads 135C, and is also responsible for thermal throttling of the CPU. XBitLabs conducted an experiment, here, which demonstrates the differences between what the user sees via the cool thermal probe, as opposed to what the calibrated TCC probe is doing by slowing/shutting down the CPU at calibrated internal temperatures. This experiment by XBitLabs demonstrates the vast differences between what CPU's report to the user, as opposed to what is actually going on.

Okay, so now that we understand why different waterblocks can report the same temperature on the same CPU, now let's understand why we want to use die sims, and more specifically, bare-die sim (no IHS involved).

When developing waterblock designs, the designer focuses on extracting the maximum possible thermal transfer rate between the metal of the waterblock, and the water flowing through the block. This transfer rate is commonly referred to as the "effective thermal convection transfer efficiency", and is denoted by the letter h in many engineering texts. Its units are W/m²K, or watts of energy, per unit area and degree kelvin (celcius) rise.

By using die sims of known size, and known even thermal output spread and applied to the base of the waterblock, and by calculating the temperature rise of that die sim we can arrive at a fairly confident approximative value for h. The higher the value of h, the more effective the waterblock is at transferring heat into the water flowing through it. When it comes to designing waterblocks for pure performance only, h is about the ONLY thing that matters. Get h up high, then tweak the base-plate thickness of the waterblock to suit your value of h, and you have your high performance waterblock. This is a simplistic description of the design process, but in a nutshell, that's what a waterblock designer/engineer does.

So how does a high h value help? It tells us how well that the waterblock will transfer heat into the water, regardless of what's making that heat, and whether or not an IHS is involved or not. The higher the value of h, the lower the required temperature difference between the heat source and the waterblock to move a certain amount of heat energy into the water for any particular unit of area.

Where IHS's come into their own little world of confusion is this. The waterblock may be doing a fantastic job of transferring heat into the water, but the IHS may not be making even contact between the CPU die and/or the waterblock. How many times have we all seen people with very unflat IHS's? Lots. Almost every single CPU has a non-flat IHS because it is a mechanical joint. Variations in the glue that holds the IHS against the CPU packaging, the manufacturing process and the way that the IHS is formed, and cools, thereby causing warping, all adds up to a piece of metal that sits between your CPU and your waterblock that isn't likely to be contacting both evenly.

This is where testing with IHS's, even on die-sims, becomes an issue. Because the IHS can never be guaranteed to be sitting evenly, it will then be applying heat load to the waterblock in an uneven fashion. As you can imagine, trying to determine what a waterblock's h value is, when there's no guarantee that the surface area that the heat is being applied to is being spread evenly is a total nightmare. This is the sort of stuff that causes people to think that they have a fantastic performing waterblock, especially if they measure only the IHS temperature, and not what's going on at the CPU die level. If you're measuring what's going on at the CPU die level by using a real CPU's on-die diode, then read the second paragraph at the start of this post. It's also telling you next to nothing.

The thing here is that a good waterblock will maximise the convectional transfer co-efficient where the heat is at its strongest. Then it doesn't really matter whether or not people use an IHS, if the waterblock can soak up the heat well, then even though the IHS may be warped you can be sure that your CPU is still be kept cool. Ideally we don't want the IHS there because it can flex, cooling only the edges of your CPU, or cooling only the center and not the edges, and then not transfer the heat evenly to the waterblock either. What is the best waterblock for gnarly IHS's is the subject of another debate, but I can tell you now that IHS's introduce such variability that they can make one block look crap, and another look good. Put the blocks onto a different CPU and the stories can change. That's not consistent enough around which to judge or even design waterblocks with. That's just rolling the dice.

Designers use bare-die's because it is good science, and because it provides the clearest and most succinct indication of how well the waterblock design is performing and how well it is transferring heat into the water over a certain surface area. The use of IHS's, even in testing, and the reliance upon "real world" testing with "numb" thermal probes has heavily clouded this very important point, and that's purely because there are no guarantees with IHS's. They're random. You can form any conclusion you like with IHS's, because every tester will likely come up with a different conclusion on a different CPU. Does that serve the public?

In the end, it's up to the individual to understand the difference between marketing and good science. I hope that some of the above provides further information for people to chew on when considering how relevent "real world" and "IHS bound" tests are.
 
are you gonna test this block vs thw storm using the methods you feel are a fair comparison cathar?
 
rhino56 said:
are you gonna test this block vs thw storm using the methods you feel are a fair comparison cathar?

Not my job. Anything I say about other waterblock's performance is irrelevant anyway, and that's not my goal. My goal is to develop waterblocks with the highest possible heat transfer efficiency and I internally develop to that regime. The above is the explanation for why it is done that way. What others do is not particularly of my concern unless they start preaching bad science and start attempting to blur the focus of actually improving waterblock designs for marketing purposes.
 
I fully understand that the die test if FAR more accurate than a 'real world' test using a CPU. If you want to know which waterblock has the best cooling performance, this is the way to go, there is no real argument otherwise.

However, I could care less about how good the waterblock is at just cooling (that's not entirely true, but bear with me). I have no doubt that the Storm is the better device for heat transfer (the tests on the die simulators prove this), but will it get me a better overclock? As stated above, this is difficult to test, but this is what matters to me. To many folks, cooling performance is a goal of its own, but for me and many other users, cooling performace is a means to an end- a higher overclock. So, what I mean by a 'real world' test is a test to determine if there is any difference in system overclockability when different blocks are used. This is not good science, as there are added variables, which perclude the most accurate of results. But, again, I don't care- I just want to see if the more efficient waterblock will acutually increase my overclock.
 
seamadan000, If you run an AMD with an IHS, if you take the IHS off and use the storm 99% sure you will OC a lot further than with the IHS. If performance and max OC is all that matters to you, remove the IHS.
 
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