ARCTIC has had quite a few mainstream CPU coolers in their portfolio. So it's time that we're going to test one of these coolers and check if they're any good. In this case we went for the Alpine 64 Plus, which should offer more cooling capacity and lower noise level compared to the AMD boxed cooler. 
On the following pages we will show you what the ARCTIC Alpine 64 Plus is capable of.
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Preview
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Specifications and included in delivery
Specifications
| Model | ARCTIC Alpine 64 Plus |
| Compatibility | AMD: FM1, AM3+, AM3, AM2+, AM2, 939 Intel: N/A |
| Material | Aluminium |
| Dimension (D x W x H) | 115 mm x 98 mm x 70 mm |
| Weight | 430 g |
| Fan | 1 x 92 mm PWM (0.22A, 12V) |
| Rotation speed | 600 - 2'000 rpm |
| Noise level | 0.4 Sone |
| Warranty | 6 years |
| On the manufacturer's website | Alpine 64 PLUS (UCACO-AP60301-BUA01) |
Included in delivery
- Cooling block + Fan
- Manual
The ARCTIC Alpine 64 Plus comes in a very simple papercard box with the fan already mounted on the heatsink. The base is covery by a stiff plastic protection in order to protect the pre applied thermal compound ARCTIC MX-4. The bundle includes no more than a manual.
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Construction and design
Construction
The ARCTIC Alpine 64 Plus is made from a single block of aluminium. Therefore the base consists of aluminium as the fins. Furthremore you'll find preapplied Actic MX-4 thermal compound. The base plate is very simple. It hasn't ben lapped or polished and there is a hairline structure instead of a glossy surface. The heat is dissipated through 32 aluminium fins offering a cooling capacity of 100 Watts. The cooler comes equipped with one 92x20 millimeter PWM white fan.
Design
We did not see any manufacturing mistakes on our sample, and it seems that is has been well made which means that manufacturing is on a high level. It is a mainstream cooler but it doesn't look as cheap as the AMD stock cooler at all. It looks better, it is bigger, the thermal compound is a reference product and the fan is also bigger and more silent.
Fan
ARCTIC equips the Alpine 64 Plus with one fan, measuring 92 millimeters in diameter. Featuring white colour and PWM facility. The rotation speed of the fan is quite large, from 600 rpm up to 2'000 rpm which is quite fast. Furhtermore this fan has a fluid dynamic bearing which allows the fan to operate almost noiseless at low rotating speeds. Once the fan is dirty you can even disassemble it and wash it with floating water.
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Mounting
To mount the Alpine 64 Plus onto your processor you don't need any fixation kit as it is quite the same as the AMD cooler. Meanwhile you will need a screedriver to release a bit the fixation then screw it back again to ensure a very good pressure on the processor. That's it, it takes less than one minute to mount this cooler.
This cooler only compatible with AMD systems has been therefore installed on a Llano system. You can compare it to the AMD cooler on the pictures bellow. As you can see it won't hurt your oversized memory. Our Kingston HyperX memory kit that has got very high heatspreaders can still fit in the closest slots to the socket.
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Testsystem and testroutine
Testsystem
| Mainboard | ASUS F1A75-V Pro |
| Processor | AMD Llano A8-3870K |
| Memory | Kingston HyperX DDR3 KHX16000D3T1K3/3GX |
| Graphics card | AMD Radeon HD 6550D |
| Hard disk | Samsung SSD 830 Series 128 GB |
| Power supply | Enermax Revolution 85+ 1050 Watt |
| Thermal grease | ARCTIC MX-4 Pre-applied |
Testroutine
The CPU is being evaluated using the monitoring software available in the AI Suite II from Asus and with Prime95 we reach nearly 100% load on the CPU. For measuring the noise level we use a Voltcraft SL-200 decibel meter, which is positioned one meter from the CPU cooler with the fan mounted.
- PWM idle & load
- 12 volts idle & load
- 7 volts load
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Results PWM
idle Temperature
Load Temperature (Prime95)
Fan Speed idle
Fan Speed Load (Prime95)
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Results 7 volts
idle Temperature
Load Temperature (Prime95)
FanSpeed
Noise Level
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Results 12 Volts
idle Temperature
Load Temperature (Prime95)
Fan Speed
Noise Level
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Performance/Noise & Performance/Price
Price
Performance/Price
Performance/Noise
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Conclusion
| General | + | - | |
| ARCTIC's mainstream cooler Alpine 64 Plus appeared to be better than AMD's stock cooler in any scenario. For 15 $, ARCTIC offers you the opportunity to afford a small cooler that has better cooling capacity and at a lower noise level. Furthermore this cooler features a PWM fan which means that it will be regulated according to the processor's temperature in order to keep your system at a low noise level most of the time. | -
Performance - Price - PWM fan |
- Noisy at 12 V | |
| Installation | + | - | |
| Mounting the cooler is very easy and will take you less than one minute. There is no fixation kit needed as it uses the default one already available on all AMD motherboard. The only tool you will need is a little scredriver to release the fix of the cooler in order to fit it then screw it again to provide a very good pressure onto the processor. Thanks to the low profile design of this cooler you will not find any compatibility issues between the size of the cooler and your memory heatspreader. The Alpine 64 Plus doesn't block any of the DIMM slots so you will be even able to install HyperX modules from Kingston reputed for their huge heatspreader. One thing we don't like is the pre applied thermal paste we always like to have it in a tube and apply it ourselves. | - Easy and robust - Won't create any problems with DDR memory modules | - Pre applied thermal paste | |
| Performance | + | - | |
|
If you drive the Alpine 64 Plus at 12v it is quite noisy but stays 1.13x more silent than the AMD Stock cooler. It was able to keep the processor 5°C cooler and didn't reach the 12v fan speed in PWM mode. So it was even more silent than the stock cooler which was running at 12v in PWM mode with higher CPU temperature. At 7v it was twice less noisy than the AMD one but was offering slightly worse performance. The Llano A8-3870K was 3°C hotter under Prime95. But still it is able to handle heavy load on the processor while offering almost noiseless facility. Without any noise in the testing room the decibel meter was displaying 31.8 dB. When we powered the Alpine 64 Plus on at 7v it was tehn displaying 32.9 dB. |
- Better than AMD's stock cooler - silent at 7v - From 600 up to 2'200 rpm | - 7v Performance | |
| Recommendation | + | - | |
|
The Alpine 64 Plus from ARCTIC is a good alternative to the noisy AMD stock cooler which offers better cooling capacity at a lower noise level good for a desktop computer or an HTPC. |
- Desktop-PC - HTPC |
- Overclocker |
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Author: Chrictian Ney c.ney@ocaholic.ch