The White Kit Box

Okay, I made up the name for the sake of convenience; this box simply stores the rest of the kit safely. Its official name seems to be EK-Kit A.


This is a plain cardboard box with a simple label on the outside, and opening it, we see two compartments. The outer, smaller compartment houses two sets of mounting hardware in plastic ziplock pouches, an Allen key, and an aluminum pump bracket to help install the provided reservoir/pump combo unit directly to any location with support for a 120 mm fan - your case, the fan-free side of the radiator, etc. The first pouch is labeled to contain the mounting hardware for the ACR SPC-60, the aforementioned reservoir/pump combo unit, which is based off their existing reservoir/pump combo unit using the same pump. Combined with the fan-mounting bracket, you thus have plenty of options to install it as the provided screws fit the threaded holes in the provided radiator as well. The second pouch contains the mounting for the included Supremacy AX CPU block, which too is based off an existing product. Here, we see support for the latest Intel and AMD consumer CPU sockets from the past five years or more.


The inner compartment houses quite a few different items, including their new DuraClear 10/13 mm clear soft tubing on top of other products packaged neatly in shaped foam pockets. We will take a look at some of these separately, but as far as accessories go, EKWB has provided a bunch, all neatly inside separate plastic pouches - a SATA to 2-pin adapter to power the pump directly from the PSU without having to power any of the computer hardware, a 1 gram tube of their Ectotherm thermal paste, a 24-pin ATX cable bridge tool for the PSU to provide power without the 24-pin cable being connected to a motherboard directly, a 4-pin PWM extension cable, and a 3:1 4-pin PWM splitter cable to connect, power, and control the two fans and the pump over a single PWM fan header. I would have liked to see a filling bottle or a funnel adapter included here, although I do concede that the former would have made this a much larger box. Shown in the penultimate image also are two aluminum 10/13 mm compression fittings with black compression collars, which we will see below in more detail.

CPU Waterblock

One of the side effects of going with aluminum over copper is the reduction in mass of the final product, and this was felt immediately here despite the relatively small size of the cold plate. EKWB includes their new Supremacy AX CPU waterblock here, and it has a warning sticker on top reminding users to only use this with other aluminum metal parts. There is also a protective sticker over the EK logo badge you can peel off if you so desire. The block comes packaged with two more of the new aluminum compression fittings, which each have a barbed end with a hex head on the inside to where the provided Allen key will help with installation or removal. With everything removed, we get to see that the Supremacy AX has a thin aluminum top cover over an acrylic top. No LED holes on the side either, as with the Supremacy MX, and as seen above, only the name has been etched in.


Turn the block around and a warning on a sticker reminds us to remove it prior to installation, and then there is the aluminum cold plate itself. No mirror polish here, and at first glance, it even looks rough, but I attribute this to the metal rather than the finishing as the cold plate is cut precisely and is quite sharp at the edges, so be aware of that when handling it. By default, the block comes with the Intel mounting bracket installed, but you can find the AMD mounting bracket, which does support the new AM4 socket as well, in the white box. Also in the box are the Intel and AMD socket backplates and an insulating gasket that will go between the motherboard PCB and metal backplates.


Disassembly is really easy owing to the use of four H2.5 mm screws on the cold plate. Remove these and the pieces come apart, including the top, mounting bracket, and cold plate. The top has multiple pieces as part of the so-called cooling engine, including the jet plate, an acrylic insert, and an acrylic locking pin, which are borrowed from EKWB's Supremacy EVO and Supremacy MX design. There is also the O-ring that keeps the coolant from leaking out of the CPU block. The cold plate appears very similar to that of the Supremacy MX, which is no surprise, with a fairly average 45-46 microfins and microchannels that each measure in at 0.3 mm wide (take that with a grain of salt). Overall, aluminum aside, this would be nearly impossible to differentiate from the excellent value for money Supremacy MX CPU block that was released in 2015 and performs very well even today.

When re-assembling, just remember to put the O-ring back in place if it got dislodged and reverse these steps accordingly. As always, TechPowerUp is not liable for any issues that arise from your disassembly of the waterblock.