Can the big brother do everything better? – Corsair iCUE XC7 RGB Elite LCD water block review including teardown and test loop 2.0

1 - Intro and test loop 2.0 2 - Unboxing Corsair XC7 RGB Elite LCD 3 - Teardown and comparison with XC7 Pro 4 - iCUE software options 5 - Performance LGA1700 – Intel Core i9-13900KF 6 - Performance AM5 – AMD Ryzen 9 7950X 7 - WLP-Abdrücke und Montage-Erfahrungen 8 - Lessons learned, summary and conclusion

TIM impressions and field reports on the installation of the water blocks

Despite the very simple procedure, there are a few small stumbling blocks when installing the XC7 Elite. If you have a mainboard with heatspreaders to the south of the socket, as with the Z790 Apex, or if you turn the block with the USB port towards the heatspreaders of the mainboard, you may have to connect the USB Type-C cable before installing the block on the socket. There is enough space in the keep-out zone for the connection itself, but not for plugging and unplugging.

If you mount the block with the outlets towards the RAM slots, the fittings could also collide with the RAM modules. The G.Skill Trident Z5 RGB can just about be threaded past the connectors into the slots, but for larger modules such as Corsair Dominator models it could be too tight. However, these are not so much points of criticism, but simply experiences that I wanted to pass on to all potential users to save some frustrations.

I also have the impressions of the thermal paste for you from each block, on each platform, from the 2 mounts that passed the plausibility test (see comment on Performance AM5). The highlight here is also the combination of Aquacomputer cuplex kryos NEXT and Watercool Heavy Backplate – I have rarely seen more even and beautiful TIM impressions and this is also reflected in the performance diagrams.

kryos_heavy_lga1700_mount1

kryos_heavy_lga1700_mount2

kryos_lga1700_mount1

kryos_lga1700_mount2

heatkiller_heavy_lga1700_mount1

heatkiller_heavy_lga1700_mount2

core1_lga1700_mount1

core1_lga1700_mount2

xc7elite_lga1700_mount1

xc7elite_lga1700_mount2

xc7pro_lga1700_mount1

xc7pro_lga1700_mount2

kryos_offset_am5_mount1

kryos_offset_am5_mount2

heatkiller_am5_mount1

heatkiller_am5_mount2

core1_perfkit_am5_mount1

core1_perfkit_am5_mount2

xc7elite_am5_mount1

xc7elite_am5_mount2

xc7pro_am5_mount1

xc7pro_am5_mount2

I would also like to mention that one of the screws broke off again when I was installing the Aquacomputer cuplex kryos NEXT with the original backplate. The reason for this is simply that the standoffs cannot be completely screwed into the backplate before the block is actually mounted. The rubber base of the backplate creates so much resistance for the standoffs that even the hexagon socket of the soft brass standoffs gives up beforehand. The half-screwed standoffs are therefore only tightened completely indirectly with the spring-loaded screws and the screw with the M3 head then effectively tightens the M4 thread of the standoffs. It is clear that this will not work well sooner or later. Aquacomputer should really reconsider the backplate design, especially as the counterpart from Watercool is the best example.