 Welcome to my unboxing and first look at the Apple G HD from Swift Tech. I spilled some Alfredo sauce on it, but I assure you that should not actually affect the cooling performance of this particular water block, which is, according to Swift Tech, and I tend to believe them at this point, they kind of know what they're talking about, which is actually, apparently, about two degrees better than the Apple G XT Rev 2, which was their last generation block that, in my opinion, actually looked more ballin' out than the HD, and that was partly because of the metal construction, which looked amazing, but was obviously costing them a fortune to produce. So it is apparently a couple degrees better than that guy, which was already about as good as it gets. I mean, there's only so much you can do at this point to improve blocks that are already pretty much cooling your CPU as much as they can, or however you want to say that. So included with the Apple G HD is a couple things. First of all, you've got mounting hardware for LGA 2011, which looks like is all that is included with this particular version of it, although there are multiple versions of Swift Tech blocks available. Nope, that is not all that's included. Looks like it includes all of the Intel sockets, so that's outstanding. So right here is LGA... this looks like LGA 2011, and then the one that's actually on it looks like LGA 1156 or 1155. So what I'd like to do is verify that before I go any further. And I nubbed out! LGA 2011 doesn't need a backplate at all, so this is a 1366 backplate, which seems kind of redundant to include at this point. And then this is an 1156 backplate, so that is going to work on 1155 as well, which means you'll be able to mount your Ivy Bridge processors on here, and then your Sandy Bridge E processors are just mounted on LGA 2011 using the screws. So those go right into the backplate that's built right into the board. So why does the HD perform better? It performs better because of the baseplate design, which we'll get to in just a moment. You can see I'm undoing the screws here for the mounting mechanism. Swift Tech does such a good job of their mounting mechanisms. They are just sort of perfect in every way. The screws are calibrated so that they're putting the appropriate amount of pressure on the CPU as long as you do them up all the way. So you just go until it stops, and that's pretty much it. You don't have to think about it beyond that. They also clip into place on the hold down plate that goes over top of the block. That doesn't change anymore. It used to be you had to swap those out on blocks, older blocks like the Apogee, Apogee GT. Now they just clip into place using...please come off...thank you for that. They clip into place using little retention clips right here, so you can pop those off. They are reusable. Then you pop on the LGA 2011 one, and they will be held into place. So that means you don't have to fuss around with them. You don't have to pop them through the back of the board. You don't have to do anything like that. You just put them in place, hold it on. You actually can...see these sticky pads here? You can actually take these off, stick this to the back of the motherboard so it doesn't move, and then the whole process is actually simpler than most of those prefab liquid cooling kits. So there you go. Put that in your sort of hat and wear it as a feather or whatever else the case may be. Swift Tech has dramatically improved the options that they have in terms of fittings over the last couple of years. So these right here are just your kind of standard stubby fittings...well, standard fittings because they're barbs, but they're stubby, which means that they're going to be sort of a less of a straight stretch required coming off of the block, which makes it easier to make curves off of it. So the only thing to be careful of with stubby fittings and with any fittings is making sure that you're using an appropriate mechanism to secure it. So you can see here we've got worm drive clamps that are included with the block. These are not necessarily the easiest to use, but these are the safest way to secure your tubing in such a way that it is not going anywhere. You can see the size of them is appropriate for 1 half inch ID 3 quarters inch OD tubing, which is what most enthusiasts are using, although personally I'm more of a 3 eighths inch tubing advocate. Swift Tech includes a high quality thermal compound. It looks like...yeah, we've seen this stuff before with any number of labels on it. Yes, it's good stuff. So there, that's pretty much all there is to say about that. And the obligatory test...look at that, there's a little L on the bottom. I'm going to go ahead and be narcissistic and assume that's for Linus because this block is special for me. No, it's probably not. So the obligatory finger test shows that it is extremely shiny, although it should be noted, guys, that that is not necessarily the strongest indicator of thermal performance. In fact, it's not. One thing I would like you guys to check out though, actually, if I can get the angle changed a little bit here, I need to go here. There we go. So watch this. You see how the line of the table there actually bends at the bottom? See how it goes like that? And then at the top, it goes the other way, this way. The reason for that is the base is going to be slightly convex. So once you tighten it down, the copper will flatten and make the best possible bond against the CPU IHS itself. The aesthetics of this block are outstanding. I mean, we've again come to expect this from Swift Tech. There are two different options for inlet and outlet. You can either go, or rather, there's three different options for the outlet and then there's one for the inlet here. So this is in and then the way the block is structured inside, it's actually can come out here, here, and here. So that means you can actually split it out to different components directly from the CPU block or you can use different options if you want. Now, it should be noted that you can only use three quarter inch OD compressions on the primary inlet and outlet. You can't use them here, but most people aren't going to be using multiple outlets from the block anyway, so I wouldn't worry too much about it. There's a matte finish on the hold down plate that looks absolutely outstanding and you can see here that you can actually move these, there you go, back and forth. So that is going to cover your entire range of Intel sockets. If you do need AMD mounting options, they are available, but they are sold separately or as a different block. Most people doing high performance builds these days are using Intel anyway, so I agree 100% with Swift Tech's choice to not bother including the AMD mounting kit because sort of 95%, 99% of people would probably end up throwing it out. So thank you for checking out my unboxing and first look at the Apple GHD from Swift Tech. Don't forget to subscribe to Linus Tech Tips for more unboxings, reviews, and other computer videos.