Aftermarket Cooler

[Resident]

Hi,

I want to change my CPU cooler but I have a restricted budget and some required specs so I am choosing to defer to those with greater knowledge than my own.

I have a Gigabyte GA-M68MT-S2P (AM3) mainboard - Link

Fan on cooler must be 4 pin and if possible cooler should be able to have a 2nd fan fitted to create a push-pull config at a later date

My budget is around £20 although I could push to £30 IF there's a decent thermal paste included with the cooler.

I was thinking something like this:

Alpenfohn Matterhorn Pure Edition

However it doesn't state whether it's 3 or 4 pin

Please help me guys.

 

[Resident]

Decided. The Matterhorn wins. And with that, my first ever order with OcUK is placed.

Just a shame I didn't qualify for free delivery. Still if I get some haribo I'll be happy lol.

 

[Resident]

Vortez says K2 uses same fan clips... not that it helps much
Wonder how good Alpenfohn customer service is? I know Noctua and Phanteks are great about helping with missing bits.

Found this email address for Alpenfohn: [email protected]

There are a few complaints online regarding how they reply to emails but being a German company and the complainees who's first language is English, I'm going for the benefit of the doubt that it's a translation issue that's caused the problems.

 

[Resident]

Ok I have just spoken to someone at Alpenfohn and they have informed me that they are planning to release the same Wingboost fan that is currently bundled with the PURE separately in retail. The second fan will come with a second set of fan clips.

Nicely done fella.

Did they have any release schedule as to when that will be ?

 

[Resident]

Two weeks time from what they told me.

Lol. Forever skint

 

[Resident]

Matterhorn PURE arrived this morning. Gotta say I expected it to be big, I wasn't prepared for it to be this big lol.

Packed really well too though I'm disappointed I didn't get any Haribo

 

[Resident]

Right. I now have it installed. Had to lose a side case fan as under-estimated the sheer size of the unit, there's now only 6mm between the top of the heatsink and my side panel.

But I digress.

The Alpenfohn Matternhorn PURE comes very well package with dense polystyrene holding the heatsink firmly in place in the box. Fan is packaged in it's own box inside the main box as are the mounting brackets/screws/mounting rubbers & comes with a small amount of unbranded thermal paste.

Fitting the mounting plates was easy once I'd worked out the instructions which could have been clearer and with larger diagrams. I feel to save money they skimped on squeezing all the instructions (in various languages) onto the one A4 sheet.
Fitting the fan to the heatsink can also be tricky.

However those are only minor gripes probably due to this being the first time I've installed a cpu cooler that didn't come with the cpu.

Operation:

To say that I'm impressed is an understatement. Since fitting this unit I've gotten a 10°C drop in my idle temps (28°C > 18°C)

At full load I was only able to run a quick 10 min session using Prime95

Max temp was 35°C where previously using the stock cooler I'd be hitting around 49/50°C for the same session length

My one concern is the fan speed. The box states the 500rpm is it's minimum but as you can see it's dipping as low as 423rpm. Is this likely to cause a problem ?

I was planning on purchasing a second Alpenfohn fan for a push/pull when they release it later this month. Not sure I need to bother tbh.

My system:

AMD Athlon II X3 460 @3.4GHz (stock)
Gigabyte GA-M68MT-S2P
4GB Corsair RAM
AMD Radeon 6570 HD 1GB
LG Optical
Seagate Barracuda 500GB SATA HDD
Alpenfohn Matterhorn PURE CPU cooler/fan
3 x 120mm generic case fans (2 in, 1 out)
1 x 80mm Antec Spot over chipset heatsink


Many people may be wondering why I've such anagressive cooling system on a stock clock setup. I do intend to start OC'ing further down the line but I'd prefer to know that there's more than sufficient cooling in place before I do.
Much in the same way as I fitted huge brakes to my old car before I dropped the big turbo lump in, made sure I could stop before I made it go.