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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HomeworldFound - Tuesday, August 2, 2016 - link
I've used quite a lot of watercooling gear and actually own quite a few Alphacool products. 6 radiators from 360mm to 480mm at the least. I think the company is overlooked a lot but the products they offer are sound. I'm not sure about their All-In-One coolers but as a long term watercoooling part provider I would trust them more than brands with no experience.HomeworldFound - Tuesday, August 2, 2016 - link
P.S I trust Alphacool far more than say.. EKWB.. that company has had so many scandals that it tried to brush under the rug and even blamed its customers for its manufacturing failures.ikjadoon - Tuesday, August 2, 2016 - link
Ouch. How did EKWB, a huge brand in terms of custom water-cooling, release a product that leaks more often than a Corsair kit, which came from Asetek anyways?http://www.guru3d.com/news-story/ekwb-issues-recal...
Do you have any info on blaming consumers? I can't seem to find that online.
Frangelina - Tuesday, August 2, 2016 - link
Exciting to see Alpha keep going. Alpha was the Beatles of cooling in the 90's. I am sure Anand remember. Alpha said "adios" to the "default" cooling from Intel or Amd. I bet it is an excellent product. My brain does not have as much time for the games anymore, but I felt I had to write something positive coming from my memories. They inspired Thermalright!know of fence - Thursday, August 4, 2016 - link
It's nice that AT now uses a heating plate setup to test coolers. I'd like to see some line graphs next, even if it doesn't include direct comparisons to other coolers, it still shows how performance increases with ramping RPMs.Also some on the BOX information, like the wattage of Pump and Fans would be nice, after all these AIO plumbing solutions consume more electricity in idle than a CPU at this point!
Is there any info on the MTTF.
Do they throttle down when my CPU runs 0.8 GHz and 0.8 V or they still continue to tirelessly push liquid in a circle? How do you set up a FAN profile considering the delay, that is inherent to any water based system.
Will we ever get apples to apples comparisons, is it possible to fix other meaningful variables than Wattage (and even less meaningful like FAN Voltage), for instance compare different noise at the same thermal resistance or compare thermal resistance at a constant dBA level?
wylie102 - Monday, August 29, 2016 - link
Okay so if we assume modern CPUs don't require as much cooling and air coolers can be roughly as effective as liquid AIO options. Also GPUs should potentially be the focus of our cooling setup.Given this is there any benefit to the fact that you can arrange the AIO cooler to vent the warm air directly or of the case therefore reducing the ambient temp in the case and enabling the rest of the case ventilation to better cool the graphics card(s)?
Wouldn't this be a more cost effective option than buying water cooled GPUs given that AIO options are widely available and aren't too much of a cost increase?
For example I read a bit around running graphics cards in SLI and there are documented performance improvements when 1. The cards are spaced more widely and 2. One is a blower and one open air (as long as they are arranged correctly).
This suggests that ambient case temperature around the cards affects performance. Surely since an AIO cooler vents heat out rather than in there could be some benefits to the GPU From water cooling the GPU for less money than upgrading to a water chilled GPU?
wylie102 - Monday, August 29, 2016 - link
Edit: I'm typing on a tablet and autocorrect screwed me.Last sentence should hypothesise there's a benefit to the GPU From water cooling the CPU and that this might be more cost effective than water cooling the GPUs themselves.
Thoughts on this?
SeanJ76 - Tuesday, October 25, 2016 - link
Hyper Evo best $25 coolerElcs - Saturday, November 26, 2016 - link
No 120mm and 360mm review?