Swiftech Storm Waterblock

Waterblock Test – Joe

SUMMARY: Excellent choice for CPU cooling with high power waterpumps.

The good guys at Swiftech were nice enough to send a Storm waterblock to test. The Storm is a pure jet impingement design which uses 35 mini jets to direct water at a high velocity into individually matching cups:

As such, this waterblock has a high pressure drop and requires a waterpump of sufficient power to extract top performance.

The Storm features:

• Two sets of 3/8″ and 1/2″ nylon hose barbs
• Upper body of CNC machined Delrin ® Acetal
• Lower body of CNC machined Delrin ® Acetal with 35 mini jets
• Universal mounting plate for Intel 478, 775, 603/604, AMD Socket 462, 754, 939 and 940 CPUs

The Storm arrives un-assembled and with enough mounting hardware to open a Home Depot:

You decide which nipples to install – the choice is 3/8″ or ½” barbs; for this test, I used the ½ barbs – use a wrench to install – hand tightening is not sufficient. I must say the Storm is one of the prettiest waterblocks I’ve seen – without the nipples, it almost looks like a hot-rod:

The base is typical Swiftech:

Anyone trying to improve on this with hand-lapping is going to be sorry – it’s about as good as it gets.

The Storm was tested using the CPU Die Simulator and Waterblock Test Rig.

Test Results indicate that the Storm’s pressure drop (or head loss) across the waterblock is high; resistance such as this means that Storm needs a large waterpump to extract maximum performance, especially if other components in the system are restrictive.

I found that performance degraded by about 2.0ºC at a flow rate of 0.5 gpm; my test system could not generate a flow rate of 1.5 gpm, so there is no reading.

For a comparison of the Storm’s performance to other waterblocks tested to date, see Overclockers.com Waterblock Test Results.

Swiftech’s Storm waterblock is an excellent choice for CPU cooling, although extracting top peformance requires a high power waterpump. If other components are connected in series, top performance will be compromised.

Thanks again to Swiftech for sending this our way.

Disclosure: Joe Citarella has a financial interest in a company developing thermosyphon products for electronic chip cooling.

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