Conclusion

With funny productnames and a well thought designs EKL wants to sell its "Alpenföhn" products in the highly competitive high-end CPU cooler market.

With a big cooling area and a silent 120 mm fan this cooler is suitable to hold an actual CPU at adequate temperatures. In our test field the Alpenfoehn Brocken on average reaches the fifth place and is therefore able to place itself far in front of the other coolers also coming from EKL. The new backplate allows a an easy and tight mounting on every single CPU. EKL either did its homework very well or the Brockens weight of nearly one Kilogramm forced them to do so.

If you drive the fan with 12 volts it is subjectively audible and a 25 percent clock increase can easily be done. At 6 volts the performance is still good amd sufficient to hold the CPU at adequate temperatures. The noise level in this case we describe as subjectively silent.

Because of its good performance, an attractive price of CHF 59.- and the well thought installation the Brocken recieves our top hardware award.

You can buy the Alpenföhn Gross Clock'ner for CHF 59.- at Digitec.ch.

Author: i.gigier@ocaholic.ch Revised by: m.buechel@ocaholic.ch