Introduction
ALPHACOOL after introducing HPE series radiators started rolling out Eisbaer series liquid coolers based on HPE radiators. We have earlier tested Eisbaer AURORA HPE 360 LT versions of liquid coolers. This time we are taking a look at ALPHACOOL’s premium liquid cooler, Eisbaer Pro HPE Aurora 360 CPU AIO. These high-performance, high-end coolers are only available in 360mm and 420mm versions. These are also available in non-HPE radiators. Pay attention when looking at the naming nomenclature.
Since these are Eisbaer line of products, they retain key features:
- Modular
- Expandable
- Full Copper Radiator
- G1/4” threaded ports
- Quick-Disconnect Fittings
- Refillable using a dedicated Refill port
- Brass Compression Fittings
The name AURORA indicates that these coolers pack digital lighting solutions. They are still using the DCLT-2 pump rated for up to 2600 RPM. So, what makes these two coolers that special? ALPHACOOL has provided extensive socket coverage in their PRO series coolers. They are compatible with Intel: 115X / 1200 / 1700 / 2011 / 2011-3 / 2066 / 3647 SQUARE & NARROW / 4189 and AMD AMD: AM4 / AM5 / TR4 / sTRX4 / sWRX8 / SP3 sockets. See, that is the prime reason and to make this happen, the nickel-plated copper base measures 78×60 meaning there is a full-length coverage for large surface CPUs.
Product: Alphacool Eisbaer Pro HPE Aurora 360 CPU AIO
Price: €219.98 [At the time of this writing]
Alphacool Eisbaer Pro HPE Aurora 360 CPU AIO Specifications
Dimension
Packing
The cooler is shipped inside a cardboard box finished in white and black colors. ALPHACOOL has listed the salient features of this cooler on the box. The cooler has digital RGB lighting.
ALPHACOOL has stated socket compatibility with specifications on the box.
Opening the box shows that items are placed in an egged carton. There is a user guide placed over top along with a white color Styrofoam.
Contents
The mounting hardware is provided in a black and transparent container which is labeled as Accessories.
We have:
- 3-way PWM Splitter cable
- 1x Sub-Zero thermal paste
- 1x Plug removal tool
- 1x set of mounting brackets for TR4
- 1s set of AMD AM4 and other sockets brackets
- 4x Long Screws
- 4x washers
- 4x Long Screws for TR4
We have:
- 2x Brackets for LGA1700/1200/115x
- 2x Brackets for 3647 socket
- 2x Brackets for 4189 socket
- 1x Alen Key
- 4x Stand Offs
- 4x Long Screws
We have:
- Metallic Backplate for Intel LGA1700 and other sockets
- 4x Screws for Intel LGA1700
- 1x User Guide for this socket
We have:
- 4x Thumb Nuts
- 4x Springs
- 4x 0.5mm washers
- 5x Nuts
- 12x Long Fan Screws M3-30
- 12x Radiator Mounting Screws M3-5
ALPHACOOL has provided a comprehensive user manual for ease of installation.
Alphacool has provided a dedicated A-RGB controller with the cooler. They have also provided 4x zip-ties which is a nice have as we are dealing with plenty of cables with this cooler. ALPHACOOL is using standard 3-pin 5V interface pins on the controller. This controller is SATA powered. Optionally, users can connect pump’s connector with a 2-pin socket provided with this SATA cable to power the pump directly. There is a digital RGB adapter cable that allows users to connect digital RGB elements (fans and pump’s housing) with motherboard.
The controller has three buttons:
- Mode button changes the lighting mode
- Speed button changed the speed of dynamic lighting modes
- Light button change the static colors
The controller has a 3-pin interface. The provided A-RGB cable can be connected to the controller if the lighting control is needed from the controller.
Closer Look
We have already covered HPE design in detail in previous contents hence we won’t repeat it here. Here is what ALPHACOOL is saying about this cooler. “The Eisbaer Pro HPE Aurora 360 CPU AIO water cooling features the extremely powerful NexXxos HPE Performance all-copper radiator equipped with the high-throughput Aurora Rise 120mm fans. All of the components used come from the classic DIY water cooling range and are also used for the most part in enterprise products for servers. The Eisbaer LT Aurora can be expanded with additional components thanks to the quick-release fastener. Alphacool’s Eisbaer Pro HPE Aurora 360 CPU AIO is a high-performance all-in-one water cooling system that is as easy to install as an AIO, but offers the performance of a pre-assembled and pre-filled custom loop.”
Let’s start.
The dimension of the radiator is 391.5x124x30mm (±3%). The thickness of the radiator is 30mm. the actual thickness of the fin stack is less than 30mm which is normal on these liquid coolers. The overall thickness of assembled cooler would be 66mm including heads of screws. The radiator has 18 fins per inch (FPI). There is a gap of 105mm between any two fan mounting holes on the radiator. The assembly is in the black color finish with better build quality. The radiator is made of copper material and has two G1/4” threaded ports. It has total of 14 channels for water flow.
The overall build quality is quite good. The fin assembly is in a nice shape and we did not observe any bend fin on the radiator.
There is a protective plating that runs on both sides at full length. This plating serves as a protective barrier in case longer screws are used which may damage the fins.
The housing of the radiator is also black color. There is an Alphacool HPE branding on both sides of the frame.
The far block is not a rectangular design with a rounded frame. There is no sticker pasted here.
As mentioned above the radiator features two G1/4” threaded ports. There is a sticker on this end showing the serial number of the unit. Alphacool is using HF Compression TPV fittings which are made of brass measuring 12.7/7.6mm. This radiator is tested for 0.8 Bar pressure head and has a maximum temperature value of 60°C (Coolant’s temperature).
This cooler has Alphacool’s premium TPV (EPDM/PP) hoses. The TPV hose is extremely resistant and is also used in the Enterprise Solution series for servers and workstations. I appreciate the matte black color on the tube as compared to the previous generation of Eisbaer coolers. These tubes have a length of 400mm which is sufficient.
Alphacool is keeping the quick-disconnect fitting on the AURORA series of the Eisbaer coolers which is a nice touch as it gives the expanding functionality to the unit. The fitting is also in the matte black color and has a length of 95mm. This quick coupling is compatible with a 12.7/7.6mm tube and is made of Nylon material. Please, note that a few drops may spill over when disconnecting the quick coupling which is normal.
The housing design on Eisbaer PRO is different than the non-PRO series. Dimension of this housing is 64x79x54.3mm. This 79 mm is the length of this unit. 54.3mm is the height of this unit and 64mm in width. The housing is made of nylon material and is quite stylish. We have a black color finish with a lining pattern for pleasing aesthetics. ALPHACOOL branding is on the center. Eisbaer Pro is written towards lower right side near angular edge.
There is a diffuser underneath which lights up these line patterns and Eisbare Pro text. This looks good in person though the picture is not doing any justice.
The front of this housing has nothing on it but cables are coming out from this side. This is rather strange because the way it is, this side will always be facing the PCIe slot so that pump does not run dry. See the RGB picture above. This implies that one would need to be creative for challenging cable management.
Looking at the side of this housing, we can see a see-through window towards right side. This is a cutout in the housing which faces the acrylic body of reservoir. We can see coolant level inside.
The above picture shows the rear view of the housing. There is another see-through view here. We can see the ceramic bearing of the pump.
The above picture shows the top view of rear side. We have two G1/4” ports here. One is labeled IN and the other is labeled OUT. There is a third G1/4” port that has a plug cover. It is labeled as Fill. This is a dedicated port that lets the users refill the unit easily in case coolant level drops or maintenance is done on the unit.
The above picture shows the 3-pin connector on the pump’s power cable. This can be connected to the 2-pin socket on the provided A-RGB controller or can be connected to the motherboard directly.
Alphacool is using proprietary connectors for digital lighting. They have provided a 3-pin connector and a 3-pin socket. The block can be daisy chained with the fans to ensure synchronized lighting effects on the unit.
The base of the block has nickel-coated copper measuring 78x60mm. This plate has a thickness of 3mm with 0.4mm fin stacking.
Here are the specifications of the pump:
| Pump | DC-LT2 |
| Speed | 2600 RPM (±10%) |
| Control | DC |
| Voltage | 6~13.5VDC |
| Power Consumption | 3.2W |
| Maximum Flow Rate | 72 L/H |
| Maximum head | 1m |
| Maximum Temperature | 60°C |
| Pressure Tested | 0.8 Bar |
ALPHACOOL is using 3x Rise AURORA 120mm digital RGB fans in this cooler. Each fan has 9x blades. Each blade has a tear-off edge design to further reduce the vibrational noise. The blades are in white translucent color. The hub has 8x A-RGB LEDs whereas the frame features 12x A-RGB LEDs for brilliant lighting. The frame is thicker as it houses dual rings which run in parallel for some vivid light show. Each mounting corner has a black color cut-to-size anti-vibration rubber pad.
The side of the frame has a single diffuser showing in the center in the ring design. We could not spot the arrow symbols which give visual aid in determining the direction in which the blades spin and direction of airflow.
The backside of the fan has a 4-arms assembly. One of the arms has an inset on which the wires are placed.
Fan’s motor is powered by a 4-pin PWM connector cable.
Like the pump’s housing, each fan has a proprietary 3-pin JST connector and socket for digital LEDs.
Specifications of these fans are:
| Size | 120x120x25mm |
| Speed | 0~2500 RPM (±10%) |
| Bearing | Sleeve |
| Connector | 4-Pin PWM and 3-pin JST |
| Current | Max 0.72A |
| Static Pressure | 3.17 mmH₂O |
| Air Flow | 118.9 m³/h |
| Noise | 31.5 dB(A) |
| LEDs | 20 |
Installation and Clearance
We are no longer covering the details of the installation. The user guide is there for that matter. We give our verdict if the installation is convenient or otherwise. The installation mechanism is the same as we have seen on the other ALPHACOOL CPU coolers. We are dealing with 19 items to install the block on the motherboard. There is no clearance issue with respect to the DIMM slots and the first PCIe slot. Make sure your chassis has clearance for a 360mm radiator with 65mm clearance for the thickness of the unit.
Digital RGB Lighting
Alphacool is using proprietary 3-pin connectors on the pump housing and the fans. They have provided a sync cable allowing the daisy-chain setup to be controlled from the motherboard or using the provided dedicated controller. We have used the GIGABYTE RGB FUSION 2.0 to control the lighting. The complete unit was synchronized and responded seamlessly to the change in the lighting modes. Here are a few pictures.
Thermal Testing
We have used a below-mentioned configuration for this testing:
- Intel i7 13700k
- GIGABYTE Z790 AORUS ELITE AX
- Sabrent Rocket DDR5 2x16GB @ 4800MHz CL40 kit
- Colorful GeForce GTX 1050Ti 4G [For Display]
- Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus 2TB NVMe SSD
- be quiet! Straight Power 11 850W Platinum PSU
- Thermaltake Core P6 TG Snow Edition converted into an open-frame layout
Here is the settings table for testing:
| P-Cores Clock (MHz) | 5300 All Cores |
| E-Cores Clock (MHz) | 4200 All Cores |
| Voltage (V) | 1.260 |
| Turbo Boost | Disabled |
| C-States | Disabled |
| Speed Step | Disabled |
| Thermal Paste | ALPHACOOL Sub-Zero |
| Thermal Paste Application | Dot Method in the center. |
| Test Run Time | 30 minutes |
| Idle Time | 10 minutes |
| Fan Speed | 100% PWM Duty Cycle |
| Pump Speed | Full speed |
| Header | CPU_Fan/Pump headers |
| Stress Software | CINEBENCH R23.2 |
| Monitoring Software | HWInfo64 |
Before we move on to the results, let me write a few lines on the new platforms from both camps. We have seen AMD AM5 and Intel Alder Lake S CPUs taking more power and this time both sides have aimed at reaching the maximum clocks regardless of thermal limit. In fact they run into thermal limits right away depending on the cooling solution and the clocks being used. This has made testing of CPU coolers challenging because viewers/readers are not used to a new nomenclature which is what clocks are sustained under a given load using a particular cooler. That is if the cooler is capable of providing enough cooling head to sustain the high frequencies. Traditionally we are used to go the other way around which is which cooler is better in terms of thermal capacity. Despite this, we are using temperatures as a base for measuring this unit.
The ambient temperature was in the range of 14.4°C to 14.8°C. Since the variation in the ambient temperature is below 1°C, we are reporting absolute temperatures in the graph. The testing is done on an open-air bench system. Once inside the chassis, the temperatures are expected to rise and would largely depend upon the optimal airflow inside the chassis.
Let’s take a look at the results.
Result
This test was done using Intel’s default settings with power limits imposed. The CPU was drawing roughly 225W power so this is a 220W domain result.
The maximum temperature under heavy workload was 77°C. This is a good performance from this cooler. Though these fans at full speed at quite loud.
Conclusion
We have tested ALPHACOOL Eisbaer Pro HPE Aurora 360 CPU AIO. This is a high-end, high-performance liquid cooler available in 360mm and 420mm versions. The PRO series coolers are also available in the non-HPE configurations as well in 240mm, 280mm, and 360mm sizes. PRO in HPE is the flagship liquid cooler from ALPHACOOL and there are three main reasons for that:
- HPE radiators are high-performance ones
- Extensive Socket Coverage in PRO series coolers
- Full block coverage of IHS
They are compatible with Intel: 115X / 1200 / 1700 / 2011 / 2011-3 / 2066 / 3647 SQUARE & NARROW / 4189 and AMD AMD: AM4 / AM5 / TR4 / sTRX4 / sWRX8 / SP3 sockets. Now, you can see why these coolers are so feature-rich and high-performance editions.
The radiator size is 391.5x124x30mm (±%). The frames of these radiators are made of stainless steel whereas the fin stacking and channels are made of copper. Threads are made of brass material. The complete assembly is in the black color coating. Despite this coating, we can see copper shimmer in fin stacking. This radiator has 14 wide channels and narrowed but more fins. The FPI count is 18. This radiator is tested for 0.8 Bar pressure with a maximum temperature tolerance of 60°C (coolant temperature).
ALPHACOOL is using HF Compression metal TPV fittings in 12.7/7.6mm with G1/4” threaded ports. This cooler has Alphacool’s premium TPV (EPDM/PP) hoses. The TPV hose is extremely resistant and is also used in the Enterprise Solution series for servers and workstations. These tubes have a length of 400mm. Another salient feature is quick-release fitting. The fitting is made of nylon material and has a length of 95mm. This quick coupling is compatible with 12.7/7.6mm size fittings.
We are seeing a new design on pump’s housing. It has a dimension of 64x79x54.3mm. 54.3mm is overall height of this unit and 79mm in length. The tubes are installed using straight fittings on top side of this housing. There is a dedicated fill port having a G1/4” threading. IN and OUT are also labeled. There is subtle digital RGB lighting on this housing which looks quite pleasing and is not done in an overly manner meaning we still get to keep the stealth outlook with minimalistic lighting.
This cooler is using the same DC-LT2 pump that is rated for up to 2600 RPM (±10%). It has a 3-pin connector to power the motor taking 6~13.5VDC and consuming 3.2W power. Its flow rate is 72 L/H with a tested pressure head of 1m. The copper base is nickel plated and measured 78x60mm. The jet plate has 56 fins stacking in 0.4mm size.
ALPHACOOL has provided 3x Rise AURORA series 120mm digital RGB fans. These fans can spin up to 2500 RPM producing a maximum airflow of 118.9 m³/h using a static pressure rating of 3.17 mmH₂O. These fans have Sleeve bearings and are rated for 50,000 hours at 25°C. These fans have 20 digital RGB LEDs with hub having 8x LEDs and the frame having 12x LEDs.
The installation mechanism of this cooler is similar to what we have seen so far with ALPHACOOL coolers. We are dealing with 19 items to install the CPU block on the motherboard (Intel LGA1700). Installation is easy and we don’t have any particular observation except that when this cooler was put on AMD system, it was hard to take off the AMD mounting brackets which is not the case for Intel brackets.
Alphacool has provided a dedicated controller for the light control on the pump housing and the fans. The fans and pump housing have to be daisy-chained first and then the user can choose either to use the dedicated controller or the motherboard-based control using an adapter cable provided in the box. Alphacool is using proprietary JST 3-pin connectors for digital lighting. I would love to see the standard 3-pin, A-RGB, 5V connectors instead. We have tested the digital RGB lighting using GIGABYTE RGB FUSION 2.0 app and they were working flawlessly.
The ALPHACOOL Eisbaer Pro HPE Aurora 360 CPU AIO is listed at €219.98 at the time of this writing. This is a steep price but given the extensive features, wide socket compatibility with a powerful thermal paste, and 3-year warranty, one can put a hole in the wallet. I would love to see a 5-year warranty on these flagship coolers. Thermal performance is excellent but fans at full speed are loud. A custom fan curve is suggested.
Thanks to ALPHACOOL for the provision of the test unit.
