The Alphacool Eisbaer 240 CPU AIO Liquid Cooler Review
by E. Fylladitakis on August 1, 2016 9:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
- AIO
- Water Cooling
- Cooler
- Alphacool
Testing Methodology
Although the testing of a cooler appears to be a simple task, that could not be much further from the truth. Proper thermal testing cannot be performed with a cooler mounted on a single chip, for multiple reasons. Some of these reasons include the instability of the thermal load and the inability to fully control and or monitor it, as well as the inaccuracy of the chip-integrated sensors. It is also impossible to compare results taken on different chips, let alone entirely different systems, which is a great problem when testing computer coolers, as the hardware changes every several months. Finally, testing a cooler on a typical system prevents the tester from assessing the most vital characteristic of a cooler, its absolute thermal resistance.
The absolute thermal resistance defines the absolute performance of a heatsink by indicating the temperature rise per unit of power, in our case in degrees Celsius per Watt (°C/W). In layman's terms, if the thermal resistance of a heatsink is known, the user can assess the highest possible temperature rise of a chip over ambient by simply multiplying the maximum thermal design power (TDP) rating of the chip with it. Extracting the absolute thermal resistance of a cooler however is no simple task, as the load has to be perfectly even, steady and variable, as the thermal resistance also varies depending on the magnitude of the thermal load. Therefore, even if it would be possible to assess the thermal resistance of a cooler while it is mounted on a working chip, it would not suffice, as a large change of the thermal load can yield much different results.
Appropriate thermal testing requires the creation of a proper testing station and the use of laboratory-grade equipment. Therefore, we created a thermal testing platform with a fully controllable thermal energy source that may be used to test any kind of cooler, regardless of its design and or compatibility. The thermal cartridge inside the core of our testing station can have its power adjusted between 60 W and 340 W, in 2 W increments (and it never throttles). Furthermore, monitoring and logging of the testing process via software minimizes the possibility of human errors during testing. A multifunction data acquisition module (DAQ) is responsible for the automatic or the manual control of the testing equipment, the acquisition of the ambient and the in-core temperatures via PT100 sensors, the logging of the test results and the mathematical extraction of performance figures.
Finally, as noise measurements are a bit tricky, their measurement is being performed only manually. Fans can have significant variations in speed from their rated values, thus their actual speed during the thermal testing is being acquired via a laser tachometer. The fans (and pumps, when applicable) are being powered via an adjustable, fanless desktop DC power supply and noise measurements are being taken 1 meter away from the cooler, in a straight line ahead from its fan engine. At this point we should also note that the Decibel scale is logarithmic, which means that roughly every 3 dB(A) the sound pressure doubles. Therefore, the difference of sound pressure between 30 dB(A) and 60 dB(A) is not "twice as much" but nearly a thousand times greater. The table below should help you cross-reference our test results with real-life situations.
The noise floor of our recording equipment is 30.2-30.4 dB(A), which represents a medium-sized room without any active noise sources. All of our acoustic testing takes place during night hours, minimizing the possibility of external disruptions.
| <35dB(A) | Virtually inaudible |
| 35-38dB(A) | Very quiet (whisper-slight humming) |
| 38-40dB(A) | Quiet (relatively comfortable - humming) |
| 40-44dB(A) | Normal (humming noise, above comfortable for a large % of users) |
| 44-47dB(A)* | Loud* (strong aerodynamic noise) |
| 47-50dB(A) | Very loud (strong whining noise) |
| 50-54dB(A) | Extremely loud (painfully distracting for the vast majority of users) |
| >54dB(A) | Intolerable for home/office use, special applications only. |
*noise levels above this are not suggested for daily use
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ikjadoon - Tuesday, August 2, 2016 - link
This idea just doesn't die.Quieter and cooler and cheaper than a Noctua NH-U14S.
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2016/02/11/arctic_c...
Azune - Monday, August 1, 2016 - link
He should have said best noise/thermal performance for 240mm radiators. Because larger radiator and larger fans will always win in this metric. (H110 is a 280mm)BrokenCrayons - Monday, August 1, 2016 - link
Pass on the water cooling. I don't like the idea of mixing liquid and electricity for no tangible benefit over the HSF that was included in the box. Yes, sure the temperature of the processor is lower, but who cares really? As long as it's not above the manufacturer's spec, temperature makes literally no difference to me. I can understand wanting to cut back on noise and that might warrant an upgraded air cooler over the retail boxed one, but even then, a lot of the reasoning behind that ignores ambient noise of HVAC, other people, and blaring televisions which would drown out the relatively small amount of noise from a stock cooler.ikjadoon - Tuesday, August 2, 2016 - link
Why are you even reading this review? LOL. It's like a guy who drives a Camry walking into an aftermarket parts store: "A turbocharger? I don't like the idea of mixing more air. Sure, the horsepower is higher, but who cares really?"Wrong review and maybe even wrong website, dude. :D
BrokenCrayons - Wednesday, August 3, 2016 - link
What is it with men and comparing everything to a car? Is it really that ingrained into the brain wiring that guys who were given little toys to push around as toddlers that then grow into grade school students who drive imaginary cars down the hallway while making engine sounds with their mouths end up seeing their world as adults through the view of a windshield? Nah nevermind, let's not delve into psychology here, it'd be a waste of time.Anyway "dude," have you read many articles on this site? AT doesn't cater specifically to the audience you think it does and perceive that you fall within. In my opinion, that's one of the nice things about Anandtech. It's writers explore a wider range of technology in greater depth than do the dinosaurs of the desktop computer era that have yet to realize that overclocking and tinkering is now well controlled by hardware manufacturers that manage even that experience to the point where it's basically a walled off sandbox that only leaves buyers with the impression their extra expenditure is giving them something more rather than genuinely rewarding them with something worthwhile.
BrokenCrayons - Wednesday, August 3, 2016 - link
What is it with men and comparing everything to a car? Is it really that ingrained into the brain wiring that guys who were given little toys to push around as toddlers that then grow into grade school students who drive imaginary cars down the hallway while making engine sounds with their mouths end up seeing their world as adults through the view of a windshield? Nah nevermind, let's not delve into psychology here, it'd be a waste of time.Anyway "dude," have you read many articles on this site? AT doesn't cater specifically to the audience you think it does and perceive that you fall within. In my opinion, that's one of the nice things about Anandtech. It's writers explore a wider range of technology in greater depth than do the dinosaurs of the desktop computer era that have yet to realize that overclocking and tinkering is now well controlled by hardware manufacturers that manage even that experience to the point where it's basically a walled off sandbox that only leaves buyers with the impression their extra expenditure is giving them something more rather than genuinely rewarding them with something worthwhile.
JeffFlanagan - Monday, August 1, 2016 - link
I used to liquid cool and overclock, until a tiny leak destroyed a motherboard and CPU years ago.These days my PCs are so fast that I don't need to overclock, but if I wanted to, I wouldn't even try it unless the cooling liquid has a low enough boiling point to be MUCH more effective than air-cooling, like the liquid cooling used in some tablets.
Death666Angel - Monday, August 1, 2016 - link
"like the liquid cooling used in some tablets."You mean vapor chamber technology, which has been in use for several years in the PC space already and is in pretty much no way comparable to water based liquid cooling which is typically meant when talking about liquid cooling? Totally different technologies which shouldn't be conflated at all.
Death666Angel - Monday, August 1, 2016 - link
And I forgot to add to your "MUCH more effective than air-cooling" point. If you indeed mean vapor chamber technology, that is only effective in drawing heat away from the chips that create the heat. That heat needs to be transferred to somewhere where it can be taken out of the system (unless the heatsink attached via vapor chamver is literally the size of the wall around your room) and that is usually done via air cooling, i.e. having a lot of metal fins oriented in a way that a fan can push or pull air through them to cool them. So nothing magical about it.maximumGPU - Tuesday, August 2, 2016 - link
I'd appreciate if anyone can answer this:Can you make a custom loop cool better AND be quieter than a high end air tower?
Unfortunately I can only find contradicting opinions on this, anybody with direct experience cares to pitch in?