Alphacool Eisbaer 360 LT CPU Liquid Cooler Review

Alphacool needs no introduction as they are among the big guns in the market who are providing quality open loop components. Their expertise has seen them giving not only the consumer grade cooling solutions but for the industrial grade as well. They are the OEM of some top brands like Fractal Design, Be Quiet, Cooler Master to name a few. They are also carrying the All-In-One cooling solution for the consumers and their AIOs are assembled using the high-quality open loop components which has enabled them to not only offer the effective cooling solution but also to make it expandable for further cooling requirements. Their Eisbaer is known for its cooling potential along with expandability to cover the Eiswolf and many other compatible products.

Speaking of Eisbaer, we get a chance to grab one Eisbaer 360 LT CPU Liquid Cooler and test it on our test setup to find out what it is all about. This is going to be the very first 360mm cooler on our test setup. This cooler has a slim 360mm radiator made entirely of the copper. The thickness of the radiator is 25mm making it compatible with the majority of the chassis with 360mm mount. They have bundled the Eiswind 12 fans in the box which are their 120mm fans rated for up to 1700 RPM with a maximum airflow rating of 63.85 CFM and static pressure rating of the 1.66mmH₂O. Alphacool is using their DC-LT ultra-low noise ceramic 12V pump in this cooler with 70L/H flow rate and 0.85m pressure head. They are using their standard compression fittings with G1/4” threading. These fittings are made of brass. The tubes are 11/8mm and they have quick closure fittings to make the unit expandable. There is a refill port on the block that would mean the life of the unit can be extended for a much longer time and with easily removable and replaceable pump this is further ensured. This cooler is compatible with the majority of the sockets from Intel and AMD including LGA 2066 from Intel and AM4 from AMD.

Specifications

Packaging and Unboxing

The packing box is of large size and is made of the cardboard box. It is mostly in the black color background. The front side of the box has a picture of the block printed in the center. The model of the cooler is printed on the top along with the socket compatibility information. Brand logo is on the bottom. The backside of the box has a model of the cooler on the top along with the socket compatibility information. Here we saw a different picture than the one on the front side. This picture showing the front chamber of the radiator with the tubes and the compression fittings. Bottom has a serial no sticker on it. The left side has company’s website address printed on it and same is the case with the right side. The opening sides of the box have brand name and logo on them in the middle. When we opened the box, there was a user manual/guide placed on top of the white color Styrofoam. Removing the pad would show the contents of the box placed inside the egged carton. Every component and accessory are placed inside the transparent containers/sheets.

These include:

1 cooler with 360mm radiator and pump/block
3x Eiswind fans
1x Intel bracket
1x Intel backplate
1x AMD bracket
PWM Adapter
Mounting hardware inclusive of the screws and the nuts
1x Thermal Paste

Closer Look

Majority of the AIOs in the market are following the Asetek (OEM) design. They consist of the aluminum based radiator with barbed fittings and copper base. This is understandable to drive the price down. These AIOs are neither refillable nor expandable and should a user encounter any issue with the unit within the warranty time, the complete unit has to be sent for RMA. This is quite a hassle for the user due to the higher lead time involved in the replacement/repair. Despite this, these AIOs offer good thermal performance and recent iterations are coming with RGB lighting on many units as well. Alphacool has taken a different approach with their AIOs. Since they are the manufacturer of some high end open loop cooling products, they are not dependent on other OEMs for their AIOs. Their take is simple. They have picked the stuff from their existing open loop lines like radiators, compression fittings, DC-LT pumps etc and assemble a CPU liquid cooler using these components to make one heck of a cooling solution for the users. This way they are using the same copper based radiators, brass made fittings, pumps that one can buy for their open loop setups. This is not all. They are using the quick lock closure on their tubing which has enabled them to allow other blocks to be included in the same loop. All that is needed is that the other block has same quick lock closure fittings on them as well and without any hassle to do any change user can unplug these fittings and connect with the fittings on the other block. Plug and Play as simple as it could get. There is a refill port on these coolers enabling the user to refill the unit in case of coolant level drops though the user would need to buy the coolant separately for this purpose. Last but not least, as these coolers are using standard water cooling components in them, any such component can be changed or swapped easily or alternatively, the user can convert the closed loop to the open loop by changing the soft tubing to the hard tubing, incorporating reservoir in the loop and many other possibilities.

The Alphacool Eisbaer 360 LT has a slim radiator and pump’s housing as compared to the Eisbaer AIO. This design approach indicates the Alphacool is focused towards providing better compatibility with the majority of the chassis and to drive the cost further down. This is what Alphacool is saying about their Eisbaer LT. “At first glance, the Eisbaer LT looks like a typical CPU AIO solution, but a closer look elevates the Eisbaer LT far above the competition. Thanks to its copper radiator and cooling block, its cooling power is enormous, and the quick connectors and custom water cooling components make it easy to expand on. On top of that, you have product options that can connect to the Eisbaer LT without needing to be refilled at all – such as external radiators, refilled radiators, and graphics card coolers. The portfolio is constantly expanding.”

The dimension of the radiator is 390x120x25mm (LxWxH). As can be seen, the height of 25mm makes this copper made radiator to be of slim design. When fans are installed on it, the ready unit will have a 50mm thickness in total. The entire radiator including the fins, chambers, channels are made of the copper for effective heat dissipation. This is one drastic difference from the aluminum based radiators in the majority of the AIOs in the market. The FPI count is 16 and tested pressure bar is 1.5. The chambers are slim as well in design and overall build quality of the radiator is good. There was no broken or bend fin. The Alphacool has not skipped on the safety of the fins under the mounting holes for the fans. There is a protective sheet placed right above the fins to stop the screws for accidentally damaging the fins. It is suggested to use the provided screws to install the fans on the radiator. The block where the tubing are installed on are divided which does look better in person. The far chamber has no divider in the design but it does not have straight edges. The edges are angular and go in symmetry to the overall design of the radiator. The left and right side of the radiator housing has OCOOl printed on them. The Alphacool is using their standard compression fittings with G1/4” threading. This is another difference between Eisbaer design and the majority of the AIOs in the market. The user of standard G1/4” threading and compression fittings will allow the user to customize the unit as per their own needs if any. We have black color flexible/soft PVC tubing on the Eisbaer LT. Both tubes have anti-kink springs pre-installed to prevent any blockage in the coolant flow. The tubes are 11/8 mm in size. The length of the tubes is 320mm. One of the tube has the quick-lock closure which we have mentioned above. These fittings have enabled the Eisbaer LT to expand by adding other blocks or products like Eiswolf, Eiwand in the loop wihtou any hassle. This quick-lock mechanism is compatible with Alphacool HF quick-lock closures (1010383, 1010394, 1010395, 1010442). This has made the Eisbaer LT coolers compatible with Alphacool Eiswolf GPX Pro, Eiswand 360 Solo, Eisbaer Quick-Connection Extension kit, Eisbaer coolers, Eisbaer ready radiators, and many other products from Alphacool. The length of these fittings are 83mm and 28mm width. To expand the loop, one would need to rotate the plastic knob clockwise till the position when the tubes come separate. Be careful as when you will open the closure, a few drops of the coolant will spill over. The spilled coolant can be added through the refill port if there be any need. Please, take care not to mix up the IN and OUT ports. On the “Eisbaer”, the “outlet” is marked in “red” and the “inlet” in “blue”. On the components to be connected, it is the opposite. The coupling with the “blue” marking denotes the “outlet” and the coupling with the “red” marking is the “inlet”. This is important as in many coolers the flow direction is crucial for optimal cooling performance.

The base of the block is made of the copper and has a dimension of 56x56x3mm (LxWxH). There is a protective sheet on the base which needs to be peeled off before the installation. The copper base is not in a mirror like finishing. Alphacool is using DC-LT Ultra-Low Noise 12VDC pump in this unit. There is a 3-pin cable (approximately 210mm) coming out of the pump housing. Better connect it to the CPU Fan Header or dedicated water Pump headers available on modern motherboards. The pump can be regulated to between 7 and 12V. The pump housing has a dimension of 69x69x39mm (LxWxH). With a height of mere 39mm, we can Alphacool is going for better compatibility and clearance. The pump and reservoir are combined and housing is made of injection molded. There are two G1/4” threaded ports for inlet and the outlet located on the side of the pump housing with 90° fittings. The Eisbaer LT has brushed aluminium plate and silver logo on the top side. Here are the technical specifications of the pump:

Speed: 2600 RPM
Voltage: 7V to 13.5V DC
Power Consumption: 4W
Maximum Flow Rate: 70L/h
Maximum head: 0.85m
Power Connection: 3-pin

There is a refill port on the left side of the pump’s housing. It has G1/4” thread size. There is a spacing between the pump’ housing and the bottom of the block with an inset design. This is done so that the mounting brackets are slided in for the Intel and AMD sockets when prepping the unit for installation.

Being a 360mm radiator, there are three 120mm fans included in the box. These are Alphacools’ Eiswind 12 fans with sleeved bearings and are static pressure optimized. Each fan has 7 black color impellers. At the core of the design, these are simple fans and we don’t see any anti-vibration pads or any sticker on the top side in the center. These fans operate on the 12V DC with 4-Pin PWM regulation. The rated speed of the fans is 550-1700 RPM with ±10%. Their airflow rating is 63.85 CFM with the static pressure rating of the 1.66mmH₂O. Their sound level is rated at 29 dBA. There is a sticker on the backside of the fan on the motor hub. Eiswind – 12 is printed in the middle. Each fan draws 2.2W. The power cable of the fan is black sleeved and has a 290mm length approximately.

Installation

We have tested the cooler on our Asus ROG Rampage V Extreme 10 motherboard using the X99 with socket LGA-2011(3). Here are the steps needed to mount this cooler on this socket:

Take out the screws for the LGA-2011(s) socket they have same M3 threading on them.
Take out the compression springs, washers, and nuts
The Intel bracket consists of two bars. One side of these bars is flat and rough whereas the other side is polished. The polished side has to face up the pump housing.
Pass the compression spring through the threads of LGA-2011(3) screws
Pass the washer through these screws such that compression ring gets sandwiched between the washer and the screw’s head.
Now, pass the assembled screws through the Intel mounting brackets
Use the nuts to secure and tighten the screws enough so that they can be slided across the mounting area.
Slide in the Intel mounting brackets on the area between the pump housing and the base till both snuggle to each other. You will hear a click once it is done.
Install the fans on the radiator.
Apply thermal paste on the CPU’s top surface.
Place the block on the CPU by aligning the screws with the mounting holes around the socket.
Start tightening them diagonally for even pressure.
Connect the 3-pin cable coming out of the pump housing to the CPU Fan Header or Water Pump Header of the motherboard.
Connect the power cables of the fans to the PWM adapter and connect that adapter to the PWM enabled fan header of the motherboard. This would complete the installation.

Being an AIO this cooler has no clearance issues with respect to the DIMM slots and the first PCIe slot. But the user would need to check their chassis for the provision of 360mm mounting.

Test Bench

Below is the test setup: –

Asus Rampage V Edition 10
Intel i7 6850k
Crucial Ballixtics Elite 4x4GB @ 3000MHz
Gigabyte GTX 1060 6GB
Samsung 840 EVO 250GB SSD
Seagate Barracuda 2TB
Corsair AX1200i

Methodology

To stress the CPU, we are using Asus RealBench v2.44. A single run is made for the stress test. Maximum temperature of each core is recorded and an average is calculated by summing them up and dividing with total no of cores. This figure is subtracted from the ambient temperature to calculate the delta temperature and this is reported on our test bench. Chip is tested on stock clocks of 3.6GHz at 1.136V VCore. Then it is overclocked to 4.3GHz using the 1.350V VCore and stress test is run again using the same procedure as mentioned above. RealTemp software is used to monitor the temperature during the stress testing. The thermal paste being used on our test bench is the Noctua NT-H1 thermal paste. The use of a same thermal paste for all the coolers will ensure the standardization and mitigate any performance benefit that may come using the supplied thermal paste. The pump and the fans were made to run at their 100% speeds.

Here are the results.

Results

On the stock clocks, the Alphacool Eisbaer 360 LT was doing 21°C and took a lead over other two coolers that we have reviewed so far. This difference is obvious as LT being the only 360mm liquid cooler on the test bench.

With overclocked i7 6850k at 4.3GHz using 1.350V the maximum temperature on the Alphacool Eisbaer 360 was 36.25°C. Again it took a lead over the other coolers and as explained above it was expected from this 360mm cooler to outperform the 280mm and 240mm coolers tested so far on our test bench.

The summer season is at its peak here and there are certain environmental noises that are beyond our control hence we won’t be measuring the sound level of the fans. Based on our experience, these fans are loud at full speed but there is nothing that custom fan curve profile can’t handle.

Conclusion

Alphacool has taken a different approach with their AIOs. Since they are the manufacturer of some high end open loop cooling products, they are not dependent on other OEMs for their AIOs. Their take is simple. They have picked the stuff from their existing open loop lines like radiators, compression fittings, DC-LT pumps etc and assemble a CPU liquid cooler using these components to make one heck of a cooling solution for the users. This way they are using the same copper based radiators, brass made fittings, pumps that one can buy for their open loop setups. This is not all. They are using the quick lock closure on their tubing which has enabled them to allow other blocks to be included in the same loop. All that is needed is that the other block has same quick lock closure fittings on them as well and without any hassle to do any change user can unplug these fittings and connect with the fittings on the other block. Plug and Play as simple as it could get. There is a refill port on these coolers enabling the user to refill the unit in case of coolant level drops though the user would need to buy the coolant separately for this purpose. Last but not least, as these coolers are using standard water cooling components in them, any such component can be changed or swapped easily or alternatively, the user can convert the closed loop to the open loop by changing the soft tubing to the hard tubing, incorporating reservoir in the loop and many other possibilities. The Alphacool Eisbaer 360 LT has a 360mm radiator with the fins, channels and the channel heads made of the copper. Since copper has twice the heat capacity of aluminum, optimal cooling is guaranteed. Alphacool is using a new ultra-slim radiator having a thickness of only 25mm. The dimension of the radiator is 390x120x25mm (LxWxH). The pump on this unit is their DC-LT Ultra-Low nosie Cermaic 12V DC one which can be regulated to between 7 and 12V. The rated speed of the pump is 2600 RPM. The pump on our unit was over the 2700 RPM. The voltage range is 7V ~ 13.5V DC. The power consumption rating is 4W. The flow is rated at 70L/h. The maximum head is 0.85m. It draws power using the 3-pin connector. The top side of the pump housing has brushed aluminum plate with silver logo on it which looks pleasant in person. This unit has black color PVC tubing of size 11/8mm and has anti-kink springs pre-installed on them. Alphacool is using standard compression fittings with G1/4” threading. There is a fill port with G1/4” threading on the left side of the pump housing. This unit has a quick-lock closure on one of the tube. This allows the users to expand their loop by adding GPU block like Eiswolf or another radiator without any hassle. The use of quick-lock closure fittings and a refill port has made this cooler to be of a greater value to the user plus any component in this cooler can be replaced or swapped it has a user convenience printed everywhere in the design footprint.

We have three Eiswind 12 120mm fans with this cooler. The fans operate on the 12V DC. They are 4-Pin PWM fans with the rated speed of the 550-1700 RPM with ±10%. Their airflow rating is 63.85 CFM with the static pressure rating of the 1.66mmH₂O. Their sound level is rated is 29 dBA. Each fan draws 2.2W. The power cable is black sleeved and has approximately 290mm in length. The product comes in a 3 years warranty.

The Alphacool Eisbaer 360 LT is listed at €104.99 at the time of the review. This is effectively a price range for the 240mm AIOs in the market. Thus Alphacool has created a true value for the users who would like a cooling of 360mm grade yet in the price range of the 240mm cooler. This is too good a price to ignore. The cooler has been tested on the Intel i7 6850k on stock clocks and with overclocking. The cooler has performed admirably well.

Value Award

With Eisbaer 360 LT, the Alphacool has provided users an effective cooling performance in budget friendly pricing without compromising on the quality and selection of the components used to assemble the cooler. This cooler is unparalleled in what it offers which is TRUE VALUE.