Installation and Lighting

Installation is extremely simple given the socket-specific nature of the block and its user-friendly installation mechanism. Separate the block and mounting bracket as we did on the previous page and apply TIM on the CPU IHS. Then carefully position the block over the CPU and then orient the mounting bracket from the back to align with the screws poking through the holes. Now you can finger tighten the mounting nuts to secure into the screws as much as possible, before using the provided Allen key to go around in a diagonal manner until you run out of thread and there is uniform mounting pressure from the back, akin to a monoblock. This allows for a very clean CPU block without any exposed screws and just the massive top to view, that ends up taking almost the entire room available on this ASUS ROG Z690 Formula board that was used previously in our coverage of the EK-Quantum Momentum² VRM bridge which also relies on this very CPU block. I found it easier to do this without any RAM installed but it's not a deal breaker either way. Now simply connect the LED cable to a compatible header on your motherboard or standalone controller and you are done!


Seen above is the block lit up using a simple LED controller to demonstrate how the side-mounted LEDs work in practice. It's better than on some previous gen EK blocks despite the larger footprint here, and yet you can see how there is a gradient in the lighting brightness going from the nearest surface to the furthest one.