Swiftech H220 Water Cooling System Review

Swiftech H220 Overview
By now we are all very familiar with the way a water cooling loop works.  The pump drives water through the tubing into the radiator where fans blow cool air over fins, removing heat from the water before it is pushed back to the CPU block, removing more heat from the source in a continous cycle.

What really matters is how well this process is done, and that comes down to the quality and design of the components used.  Swiftech certainly is known for building well thought out and well built products.

Looking over the H220 the first thing to grab your attention is the pump/cpu block.

Swiftech H220 Water Cooling System Swiftech H220 Water Cooling System

It’s a square design with a honeycomb pattern machined into the plastic of the top. Attached to the bottom is a large full copper base that ensures good contact across any CPU.  It also has a high quality mirror finish.

Swiftech H220 Water Cooling System Swiftech H220 Water Cooling System

From the factory it comes with the standard Intel bracket installed with the backplate attached.  It of course does come with an AMD bracket as well.

Overall while having the same footprint of many AIO pumps it is much taller than most.  This is likely due to the design and quality of the pump.  This is no flimsy pump taken off the shelf because it fits the space requirements.  Designed specifically to have a lot more flow than is needed for the simple loop is comes set up in, this pump is a powerful little design.  At 6 watts the pump is capable of easily supporting multiple additions to the loop.  What do I mean by additions to the loop?  This pump can support anything from additional and multiple radiators, to GPU blocks, to chipset and ram blocks.  Everything that would normally go into a full custom loop is now possible with this one simple loop.

What makes this so easily possible is the design of the thin radiator.  Built into the radiator is an extra chamber at one end called a reservoir.  In a custom loop these are typically made of acrylic so you can see the water level, this is also where the water is added.  Most AIO units simply do not have one.

Swiftech H220 Water Cooling System Swiftech H220 Water Cooling System

In this case the reservoir is built into the radiator and is simply an extra bit of space on one end of the radiator.  In the top of the chamber there is a threaded G1/4 hole (standard hole size for water cooling) with a plug in it.  Removing this plug allows you to drain and refill the loop as needed.  This is done without any more hassle than any other liquid cooling loop.
The hoses on the H220 are attached to swivel fittings that accept inner diameter tubing of ⅜”.

Swiftech H220 Water Cooling System

They are not however replaceable with other G ¼ fittings, as they are not drilled and tapped for the standard hole.  The hoses that come with the unit are ⅜” ID (inner diameter) and ⅝” OD (outer diameter) and straight black.  These specific tubing dimensions ensure that the wall of the tubing are nice and thick and won’t kink easily.  One thing to consider though is that the clamps that come with the cooler, while of great quality, are designed to work only with tubing of this dimension.  Using tubing with thinner or thicker walls will require the use of a different device to secure the tubing to the barbs.

Swiftech H220 Water Cooling System Swiftech H220 Water Cooling System

Also attached from the factory are a pair of 120mm PWM Swiftech fans that sit flush with the top of the reservoir portion of the radiator.  The have black shrouds and white blades.  From the spec page, Swiftech claims they will push 55CFM of air and have 2.29mm of Static pressure (the ability of a fan to push or pull air against something) at 1800 rpm/33dba.  Of  course that would be quite loud so you can also drop them to 800rpm but you will only get 24CFM and fall all the way to .53mm of Static pressure.  Definitely a trade off in noise versus performance.

Swiftech H220 Water Cooling System

The backside of the radiator is bare and can easily be mounted to any standard radiator mount.  Also you could choose to add a second set of fans for more performance.

Swiftech H220 Water Cooling System

The H220 comes complete with everything but a screwdriver to do the installation.  This includes an 8 way molex powered PWM fan splitter, Swiftech Tim-Mate 2 thermal paste and mounting hardware for most every conceivable mounting position you could encounter.