About Swiftech

Swiftech was founded in 1994 by Gabriel Rouchon as a Maintenance and R&D Organization for high-end Unix computers and imaging systems.

Early 1998 when Intel® Corporation introduced the Celeron®, we immediately became heavily involved in overclocking. Our engineering background allowed us to develop our own cooling solutions, using OEM products with the introduction of the MC2 sandwich cooler. By the fall of 98, we realized that air cooling was not going to satisfy our clients ever increasing need for speed, and during the course of investigating thermo-electric (Peltier) cooling technology, we immediately recognized the potential application to CPU cooling.

Since there was no serious implementation of this technology commercially available to the personal computer industry, we started our own assembly, focusing on engineering specs rather than economics. The result was the first commercially available Active Cooler using thermo-electric technology to actually perform as intended: the MC1000, introduced in the spring of 99, which quickly became a world standard.

The year 2000 became a turning point in our growth. AMD had just introduced their latest generation Duron and TBird processors, Intel® was coming out with the Pentium® 4, and these new processors radiated twice as much heat as their predecessors. Because we had engineered heatsinks capable of dissipating the combined heat generated by a CPU and a Peltier element, we found ourselves in an excellent position to offer high-end, air-cooled solutions to dissipate the heat generated by these new processors. A string of articles written by leading hardware review sites on the Internet recognized Swiftech socket coolers as the most effective cooling solutions available on the market. Following the sky-rocketing demand, we developed our own manufacturing facility in Southern California in the fall of 2000.

Swiftech is now 20 people strong, and operates in a 6,000 Sq Ft facility located in Signal Hill (Southern California). All our heatsinks and water cooling solutions are entirely machined on site, using state-of-the-art CNC equipment. Total control of our manufacturing tool allows us to pay particular attention to critical quality items such as:

- High thermal conductivity materials including C110 copper, 6063 and 1100 aluminum alloys

- Exceptional heatsink base flatness (better than .001") and micro surface finish (8 MSF or better)

• CNC machined, C110 copper base, 3"W x 3.3"L x .500"H, flatness better than 0.0003", micro surface finish 8 or better.
• 374 Helicoid Pins made of High Thermal Conductivity Aluminum Alloy, press fitted in the base.
• Heatsink base dimensions 3"x3.3"x1.66"
• Heatsink top dimension 3 3/4" x 3 1/2"
• Weight: 22 oz (620g)
• Overall height (with an 80x25mm fan and fan guard): 2.83"

Swiftech describes their product this way, 'The MCX775-V™ heatsink is a high performance-low noise thermal solution for Intel® Pentium 4™ (socket LGA775) processors'. So what exactly does this mean in layman's terms? It basically means that you have a heatsink with a large enough mass setting on top of your processor which has been engineered and built well enough that you can get by using a low output fan with it.  Reading this it should give you a very good indication of what to expect when it come to performance.
 

If you look at the mechanical drawing of the heatsink above you can see that the base of the MCX775-V is a whooping .50" thick, this massive piece of C110 copper will offer superior cooling and with this will come the benefit of a system that is much more stable. One of the keys to great cooling is high surface area, the more surface area you have the more air that can come in contact with it and thereby remove the heat from the heatsink.  So what Swiftech has done is take the .50" copper plate we talked about earlier an populate the entire top of the heatsink with their patented aluminum helicoid pins.  These thin aluminum pins promote increased turbulence for more efficient heat dissipation compared to traditional fin extrusions. (For those of you unfamiliar with the term, helicoid means 'resembles a screw'.)
 

One thing I found very interesting is that Swiftech has several patents pending for their design of the concentrically aligned rows of pins.  The patent also covers the multiple angles at which the pin at set in the copper plate. The spacing and angles between the concentric rows has been precisely calculated to optimize cooling and reduce noise at air flow levels as low as 22 CFM and 23 dbA.

The helicoid pins play such a major part in the in overall performance of Swiftech's heatsinks they have taken the time and trouble to patent their design.  If you would like to learn more about them here is a link to the US Patent Office where you can read a bit more on the subject.

Located on the four corners of the MCX775-V are the spring-loaded nylon screws that will used to attach the heatsink to the motherboard once we have our standoffs attached. We will talk more about these pins and the installation process in the following pages.