Swiftech MCW462-UT / MCW478-UT

Company: Swiftech
Product: Intel / AMD compatible water-block w/226w TEC
Street Price: ~ $110.00 USD
Date Reviewed: September 9, 2002
Reviewed By: Joey C. aka Chong345

Testing & Results (Cont):

At this point the water in my reservoir was getting warmer. After all the testing and benching I had come to the conclusion that my system simply could not keep the water in my reservoir cool enough. If I could have kept it cool, I'm sure I could have gone higher but my water setup couldn't dissipate the heat that the hot side of the pelt was producing. Perhaps it was the fact that my Radiator followed the reservoir allowing the heat to get built up inside. Maybe if I had the reservoir after the radiator I could have gotten better results. I think by the end of all this, my water temps were over 35C. Theoretically speaking if I could have kept the water temps 10C cooler then the CPU would have been 10C cooler. Either way 2.76 GHz was 100% stable. Even though I was at 33C on the CPU temp keep in mind that the probe I am measuring from is an internal diode on the CPU die. Some other motherboards might report lower temps because they use an external probe mounted on the motherboard. Anyway this still blew right past my maximum overclock on air with this same chip which was 2.57 GHz. I gained 190 MHz just from using the Swiftech MCW462-UT as opposed to conventional air cooling.

2.56GHz (Max Air-Cooled Overclock):

2.76GHz (Max Swiftech Cooled Overclock):

These results are quite impressive since it was my first attempt at using a TEC to cool my CPU. It was much easier than I thought it would be. At first I was intimidated by using MCW462-UT water-block. I had heard so much about condensation that I was really nervous about putting this on my own computer but the Swiftech directions were very easy to follow. Installation was simple and Swiftech also provided just about everything you need except for the dielectric grease.

Extra Info:

Just for fun since I am a 3DMarks fan I decided that I just had to really test out my MCW40-T and the MCW462-UT as well. The MCW40-T module has an 80W TEC on it and is made for NVIDIA cards. After having such good results with the MCW462-UT I figured I had the tools I needed to go for the front page of MadOnion's 3DMark. From what I learned from this review I used chilled water this time. I bought bags of ice and dumped them directly into my reservoir. Water temperatures were around roughly 0.6C-1C. I used a Pentium 4 2.26 chip and the rest of the rig mentioned earlier. Because the MCW40-T cools so well, I was able to do a volt modification to my card to change the default GPU voltage from 1.66V to 2V. This would help me gain some stability and overclock my video card higher.

I didn't measure any temperature on the CPU or GPU because they were completely covered in foam to keep the blocks from having condensation. I also had to cover all my tubing to make sure that the tubes didn't sweat either due to the cold water temperatures. After I had prepared my rig I turned it on and started to max everything out. I was able to get my 2.26B to bench stable at 3.23GHz with 1.8V on the Vcore and my video card was able to do 371/783. And what did all this add up to? Front Page! At the time when I set this score, it put me in the #11 spot. Basically that means that this is one fast machine.

Conclusion:

Overall I would have to say the Swiftech MCW462-UT is a great water-block. It is easy to install and use. As you can see it gave me good results when I was just using ambient temperature water. Then when I went hardcore and chilled the water the Swiftech truly showed of how well it performed. If you water-cool and are looking for an item that can lower your CPU temperatures and/or give you a higher overclock then I highly recommend using the Swiftech. Another thing is if it's your first time water-cooling Swiftech also provides a complete kit that includes everything you will need to have a water-cooling system. I would like to thank Gabe at Swiftech for sending me the MCW462-UT for review. You can stop by their site and check out all of Swiftech's products.

Here's some links in the Forum of Chong's 3DMark Adventures:

• 3DMark Tweak Guide - Posted 07-22-02
• Friday Night OCing: Got To See This 15k and 3.4ghz - Posted 08-31-02
• How's This For a Water Chiller? - Posted 09-08-02
• I Broke 18K! - 09-11-02

Pros:
  Superior cooling over air AND regular water-blocks
  Quieter system vs. air cooling
  Price is reasonable (considering you get the block w/TEC + hardware & gaskets)
  Available for both AMD & Intel
  Zero condensation issues using gaskets provided

Cons:
  Requires dedicated power supply for 226w TEC (Not really a con, but will cost extra.)

Talk about this in the Overclockers Forum!

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