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moddersinc · 6 years ago

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EKWB-Supremacy Classic RGB - Nickel + Plexi Waterblock Review

EKWB's Supremacy CPU blocks have been a favorite of may water cooling enthusiasts and overclockers. With the launch of the Quantum line of products, EKWB also launched their Classic Line. The Classic line retains a familiar look of EK blocks of the past with minor aesthetic updates. The updates include an RGB LED strip under an aluminum cover on the water block. The Supremacy Classic still uses the jet-plate style cooling engine of previous blocks and has been updated for easier maintenance. Packaging With cost-conscious consumers in mind, EKWB chose a plain cardboard box for the Supremacy Classic. There's no flash or flair here, just straight down to business. A small line art drawing of the block is on top while the socket compatibility is now listed on the side of the box.

Inside, you'll find the installation kit in the first compartment, the water block and thermal paste below that, and underneath the last bit of foam is the rubber gasket and EK's back plate. This review will cover the Intel block and the installation kit reflects as much. Included in the kit are standoffs for both desktop and HEDT (x99/X299), plastic washers to electrically isolate the stand-offs from the motherboard, tension spring, caps, two replacement jet plates, and a hex key used to tear down the block for cleaning and maintenance.

Technical specifications: - RGB cable length: 30cm - RGB connector classic 4-pin (12+ R G B) CPU socket compatibility: - Intel LGA-1150/1151/1155/1156 - Intel LGA-2011(-3) - Intel LGA-2066

Enclosed: - EK-Supremacy Classic RGB CPU block A Closer Look At The EK-Supremacy Classic RGB The Supremacy Classic has the looks of the older EK water blocks. However, there are subtle differences. There are no designs in the plexi that adorned the past blocks but there is an aluminum cover over the lower edge of the block. This cover hides the RGB LED strip. EK has made it so you can remove the aluminum cover and replace the RGB strip with one of your own choosing if you so desire.

The water block uses standard G1/4 ports for fittings. Each port is marked in and out. The inlet for the block is designed so the coolant hits the jet plate and is forced across the fins on the way to the exit.

What is a water block without RGB? The Supremacy is compatible with all the motherboards using a 4-pin (12+GRB) connection. The pigtail for the water block is about a foot long and should give you plenty of room to run to the RGB headers on the motherboard and if not there are 3rd party extensions that can be used.

Flipping the water block over, you'll be presented with a large yellow caution sticker advising you to remove it before installing the water block. Under the sticker is the cold plate for the water block. The cold plate is nickel plated copper. The finish on the block is like a mirror. No machining marks were visible and the reflection of the screwdriver below is dang near perfect. EK made the Supremacy Classic easy to tear down and clean. Simply remove the four hex screws on the bottom of the water block and pull apart. EK also included a hex key to do so. The water block consists of essentially four parts; the acrylic top, cold plate, jet plate, and mounting bracket. One of the problems I've had with other blocks is getting the o-ring back in place and having it stay while re-assembling. The o-ring for the Supremacy Classic can either sit on the cold plate or can sit in the groove in the acrylic top. During re-assembly, there was no movement of the o-ring.

The jet plate works in conjunction with the fins on the cold plate to force the water across them in order to transfer heat. The fins are machined into the block in order to increase surface area.

One of the differences with the Supremacy Classic and older EKWB blocks is the plastic mount for the jet plate is no longer removable which makes assembly a bit easier. The Jet plate can only go back on one way.

All that's left is to put the cold plate back on. Before screwing the parts together, it's a good idea to check and make sure the o-ring isn't pinched.

Installation Unlike the previous budget water block, the Supremacy MX, you will not have to remove the stock Intel back plate in order to Install the Supremacy Classic on the Intel 11xx platform. You will, however, need to install the rubber gasket between the motherboard and the EKWB back plate. This will electrically isolate the back plate from any pins protruding from the motherboard. Make sure to line up the 3 holes in the back plate with the screws from the Intel socket.

Next up, you'll flip the motherboard over and install a washer on each of the longer standoffs and screw them into the back plate. The plastic washers act to protect the motherboard's traces. This will need to be done four times. If you're installing the Supremacy Classic on the HEDT platform, you will not need to use the included EKWB back plate. The shorter standoffs will screw into the stock Intel CPU brackets.

Once the standoffs are installed, you'll need to add a dab of thermal paste to the top of the CPU and set the block on top. I tend to use a small drop in the center of the CPU and then allow the water block to spread the paste as it is tightened. Then you'll take the four springs and place them on the standoffs with the ears of the water block below the springs. Finally, you'll take the caps and screw them down on the standoffs. Tighten them until they stop. Be sure to tighten in a criss-cross pattern to ensure even thermal paste spread.

Test System and Results Test System: Component Product Name Provided By Processor Intel Core i7-8700K (Retail) reviewer Motherboard Gigabyte GA-Z370-Gaming 7 Gigabyte Memory G.Skill SniperX 2x8GB @ 3400MHz 16-16-16-36 (XMP) G.Skill Drive Samsung 240 EVO 256GB SSD, Crucial MX500 1 TB SATA III SSD reviewer Video Card Nvidia RTX 2080 Founders Edition Nvidia Radiator(s) EKWB EK-Coolstream PE 360 EKWB Pump EKWB EK-XRES 140 SPC PWM Classic EKWB Fans EKWB EK-Vardar F4-120ER EKWB Fittings Bitspower 7/16 ID, 5/8 OD compression Titan Rig Tubing XSPC FLX Clear UV 7/16 ID, 5/8 OD Titan Rig Thermal Compound Noctua NT-H1 Noctua Case DimasTech EasyXL DimasTech Power Supply Cooler Master Silent Pro M2 1500W Cooler Master Operating System Windows 10 x64 Pro with latest patches and updates The test was conducted on a DimasTech EasyXL open-air test-bench. For this review, I ran two sets of tests. The Stock test was run with the CPU set to the stock settings in the BIOS. The radiator fans and pump were set to the normal setting in the Arous BIOS. This allows the fans and pump to spin up and down based on temperature. The stock temperature curves in the BIOS were used. I chose to do this for the stock test to mimic a low noise set up. I wanted to fans and pump to be quiet with at the same time get good cooling performance. The Overclock test was done with custom settings. I set the voltage for the CPU at 1.249v for Vcore and set the multiplier on all cores at 48. The pump and radiator fans were set to full speed in the BIOS settings. The EKWB radiator had just been cleaned using Mayhem's Blitz kit. The loop was filled with fresh distilled water (no additives) and was run without load until most of the air worked its way back to the reservoir. To monitor loop temperature, I used two XSPC inline temperature sensors. During the test, I waited for the coolant temperatures to stabilize (about 30 minutes). From there the statistics were cleared and another 15 minutes were put on the clock before the last minute average. Coolant temperatures were taken at the same time as the CPU temperatures. Temperatures are averaged (last minute) from individual core temperature results monitored by AIDA64 after 15 minutes using the default CPU, and Cache simultaneous load. AIDA64 is able to use the latest instructions including AVX and AVX2, etc unlike other older CPU load tests so it is also a lot more “future proof” as more software start to utilize it. PU-only load average is used to simulate worst case scenario load levels similar to Intel Burn Test or OCCT. Please keep in mind that this test is brutal and not even close to real-world load (especially not that constant for that amount of time). Results marked “100″ and in red means, the thermal limit was reached and the CPU throttled, even for just but a second. This includes results where even just the first core reached the limit and even if it briefly happened. It is marked as 100 in red in the review if it happens three times. Three runs are conducted per cooler and a fourth run is done after a remounting to verify. Last minute average is taken instead of peak because it represents the averaged behavior of the thermal performance instead of worst-case scenario or a snapshot. Temperature delta results are used to account for variance in the cooling system. Room temperature is set at 19°C. With the Intel i7-8700k using the motherboard defaults and the fans and pump set to "normal" in the Aorus BIOS settings, there a few degrees of difference between the Supremacy Classic and EKWB's previous generation "budget" waterblock; the Supremacy MX. However, when we pour a bit more heat into the system by using the FPU test, the gap between the block widens a bit. The delta temperatures confirm that there is a slight difference when running the Aida64 stability test stressing CPU, Cache, and FPU. But as more heat is applied, the Supremacy Classic is the clear victor.

For the Overclocking tests, I set the fan and pump speeds to the "full speed" setting in the BIOS and set the CPU multiplier at 48 on all cores. After a bit of tweaking, I got the CPU to run stable at 4893 MHz with a Vcore of 1.249. Any less voltage and the system would crash the test or blue screen. As the frequency went up so did the temperatures as expected. We see a similar pattern with the new EKWB block besting the old, again, as expected. The Supremacy Classic extends its lead even more which leads me to believe, that I can still get this CPU even further and maybe crack 5 GHz with my retail sample.

Conclusion EKWB recently released their Quantum line of products which included the Vector CPU water blocks. These are aimed more towards the enthusiast water cooling level. The EKWB Classic line is aimed at being budget-friendly and aims to bring back some of the "classic" EK look while still offering good performance. I think on the aesthetic side of the block EKWB has done a great job. The Supremacy classic forgoes any flash except for a single RGB strip and instead takes the stance of "walk softly and carry a big stick".

On the performance side of things, I am so far, impressed with the Supremacy Classic. A few of my other water blocks are in use on other projects at the moment and the Velocity waterblock review is coming up shortly. Time will tell how well the block does against other water blocks on the market. In my testing, the waterblock actually kept temperatures lower than I was expecting especially during the FPU torture test. Honestly, I expected the performance to be closer to the Supremacy MX. Not once did I have an issue where the CPU throttled in either the stock or overclocking tests. Overall, I think the Supremacy Classic RGB is a pretty decent value at $70.00. It brings features such as a machined acrylic top and RGB lighting that consumers have been asking for at a lower price point than the top tier offerings from EK. Read the full article

#acrylic #customloop #EK #EKWB #rgb #WaterCooling

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