Might be a few days before I get a chance to test it out fully. I'm away over the weekend and with the pesky kids home all day I'm not getting the time I need. Plus I have to remove my motherboard from my case so need an afternoon/evening to do this. I also want to get a decent baseline temperature with my current setup.
Round 2: Fancy testing an Alpenföhn Brocken CPU Cooler? Let us know...
- Thread starter mishima
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Got everything I need just need to make a few touch ups to my review as it is on my Domain. There is a fair couple pictures on there that's why I chose to use my own domain. Will get it ready and post the link tomorrow.
Still looking forward to seeing everyone else's
Still looking forward to seeing everyone else's
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I have finished my Review. As there are a lot of pictures I asked Mishima if it was ok to put things on my Web Domain and he said that was fine . Please feel free to comment me with any questions,comments or concerns. Also, you should be able to click on all pictures to view them full size. Great product here and thanks to OcUK and Alpenfohn for lettings us do this test on this product.
Alpenfohn Brocken Review Click Here
*Edit* Please not this is my first ever review of a product so may not be the best which I do apologize for. Also not the page does take a bit to load up will all the images.
Alpenfohn Brocken Review Click Here
*Edit* Please not this is my first ever review of a product so may not be the best which I do apologize for. Also not the page does take a bit to load up will all the images.
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Nice review there, hopefully Alpenfohn are an upcoming brand, I like the sticker in on the fan
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I am sure there will be some better reviews but thanks for the comments guys
Very well done Enos,
I think my one is lost in transit or something no delivery for nearly 2 weeks now. First time I won something online and it doesn't show up! lol
Well I just wanted to thank OP for the lottery and I hope everyone enjoy theirs!
I think my one is lost in transit or something no delivery for nearly 2 weeks now. First time I won something online and it doesn't show up! lol
Well I just wanted to thank OP for the lottery and I hope everyone enjoy theirs!
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I read this title as "Anyone want to test a Alpenföhn broken cooler?"
Soldato
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How do I keep missing these threads damn it! 
Looks good though. Hopefully there are more products to test
Looks good though. Hopefully there are more products to test
Nice product placement (Strongbow and MX4) I am sure Alpenfohn got their moneys worth from you. A readable review with believable results.
Thanks, andy.
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I'd be interested to see how this cooler compares to the Alpenfohn Nordwand that is in my system, especially as I seem to be one of the few people on this forum who actually already own a Alpenfohn cooler
If I remember correct I had a look around the internet before I received me cooler to see what they were like as I had never even heard of Alpenfohn at the time. The results I found if memory serves me is nordwand was on average about 3c cooler than the brocken due to having the 5th heat pipe.
Just tried to use stuff most people reading the thread would have around to compare to.
So here's my little review and impression of the Brocken cooler by Alpenföhn.
Firstly the name. 'Brocken' It can mean lump, chunky or sometimes boulder in German but to an English speaking Welshman it just sounds too much like Broken, which isn't good. I wonder what Alpenföhn were hoping for with that name.
So to the packaging. A large white box with a nifty picture of what you are getting on the front.
On the side we get a plastic film window to see some of the fins of the cooler.
An information panel in friendly script greets you on the back with some specifications.
Here are all the parts laid out for all to see. The cooler is a few years old so doesn't state that it fits 1156/1155. Fortunately I have a 1366 system which is supported, kind of, we'll come to that.
A couple of close up and beauty shots.
I'm intrigued by the 3 fins and then a short stumpy one. I'm sure it's just for visual impact.
A good solid base.
The heatpipes rely on an interference fit to the cooler's fins rather than a soldered or sintered joint.
Before installation I wanted to familiarise myself with the mounting machanism of the cooler and it was here that I got a tad concerned. Coming from a Noctua cooler which has a very strong mounting mechanism of steel and strong bolts I was a little preturbed by the plastic and seemingly weak mechanism designed for LGA1366 use.
Here you can see how the cooler is mounted. This is the full extent of the LGA1366 mounting kit.
The gap is where the motherboard is to sit.
This will be the view on the rear of the motherboard.
I don't know it just seems a bit slight compared with the huge X shaped metal assemblies in other coolers.
The fan.
The fan is a black semi transparent purple LED fan. The cooler comes with just the one fan but the kit does include 2 additonal fan wire clips and 4 additional soft grommets for additional mounting.
It has a 4 pin PWM cable and is rated (according to label) to run between 850 and 1500rpm.
The braid covers all 4 cables and is black of the one strand weave variety with a fair amount of light penetration.
The fan has 4 Purple LEDs fitted, one in each corner in standard fashion. It also has some interesting white silicone rubber noise and vibration absorbers.
I always intended this review to be a comparison with the Noctua NH-U12P SE1366 cooler so after removing Noctua from my machine I took some comparison photos to demonstrate how large this cooler is.
Here you can plainly see the Brocken is a good 4 fins taller than the Noctua. The Brocken is on the top.
In a bit closer to see the difference.
You can see in this image that the heatpipes are thicker and more spread out as they enter the cooling fin array. Brocken is on the right. I'd imagine that heat transfer would be better if the heat is spread out across a metal fin, as with the Brocken rather than having the heat all slapped into one spot as with the Noctua.
Here you can see the Brocken is fatter by a good amount.
Here's the nice clean LGA1366 socket the cooler will be fitted to.
Installation was simple enough but I did need to remove the motherboard as Antec in their wisdom decided that the hole in the motherboard tray on the P183 case should be incorrectly positioned for my Gigabyte EX58-UD5 motherboard.
I was sure to smear some MX-3 on the direct touch gaps before proceeding.
So here we go straight to the installed and fitted shots.
With the cooler fitted normally and with the fan and silicone grommet fitted the fan just about fits next to my Patriot Viper RAM heatspreaders. In fact the fan clips have to go between the fins on the heatspreaders to fit.
And a few shots with an without my Orange case lights switched on.
Yes I know my wiring is all in the way and messy but I didn't bother to manage the cables as I will probably be switching fans back to the Noctua once I pimp them up with some Orange LEDs. A perfect opportunity.
This view is from the front of the case with a couple of drive bay covers removed.
Notice how close the cooler is to the side panel, it is literally about 5mm from being in contact with the side.
The Purple LED seems Blue for some reason in all these shots. Trust me it is quite Purple. I do like the way the fan catches the light from the Purple but also from the Orange too.
Now onto the important stuff, the results.
First up I let the fan run at automatic speeds based on whatever my motherboard determins as appropriate.
I must say that at 1433rpm (max I could get) the fan does make a good bit of noise but to be fair the next fastest fan in my system is just 950rpm so it will always be noisy to me at that speed. Temperatures with a Prime95 burn settled at 64 degrees.
This sort of fan noise is not going to happen in my system. Any fan running over 1000rpm is intolerable for me. At 1000rpm the fan is still audible but far less unsettling. At idle, coupled with my Speedfan settings I have it running at 550rpm which is near silent. My idle temps are up a degree or two but this is probably because the fan is running at 80rpm less and it's replacing the ariflow of push-pull.
To make this a fairer comparison I slowed the fan down to 1040rpm (+/-10rpm) to match that of the Noctua NF-P12 fans I was using before.
Temperatures now topped out at 70 compared with the 72 I had with the Noctua. I'm unable to standardise my temperatures in my room but if anything I feel that today was warmer than the days I tested the Noctua.
In all I'm impressed with this chunky cooler and feel that if I were to fit the Noctua fans to it I could probably reduce the temperatures further due to the improved fan.
So basically I'm happy enough to continue using the cooler in my rig rather than the Noctua so that's a result for Alpenföhn (and it's not just because I can't be bothered to whip out my motherboard again)
So thank you to Alpenföhn and Mishima for giving me this opportunity.
Note: I may add to this review with results of dual Noctua fans as and when I can run the tests.
Edit: I set up a single Noctua NF-P12 (in push and at 1000rpm) on the Brocken today and ran the Prime95 test as before. This time temperatures topped out at 69 degrees. Not much difference really and shows that the Alpenföhn fan is pretty decent, albeit a tad noisier than the Noctua due to the material differences.
Firstly the name. 'Brocken' It can mean lump, chunky or sometimes boulder in German but to an English speaking Welshman it just sounds too much like Broken, which isn't good. I wonder what Alpenföhn were hoping for with that name.
So to the packaging. A large white box with a nifty picture of what you are getting on the front.
On the side we get a plastic film window to see some of the fins of the cooler.
An information panel in friendly script greets you on the back with some specifications.
Here are all the parts laid out for all to see. The cooler is a few years old so doesn't state that it fits 1156/1155. Fortunately I have a 1366 system which is supported, kind of, we'll come to that.
A couple of close up and beauty shots.
I'm intrigued by the 3 fins and then a short stumpy one. I'm sure it's just for visual impact.
A good solid base.
The heatpipes rely on an interference fit to the cooler's fins rather than a soldered or sintered joint.
Before installation I wanted to familiarise myself with the mounting machanism of the cooler and it was here that I got a tad concerned. Coming from a Noctua cooler which has a very strong mounting mechanism of steel and strong bolts I was a little preturbed by the plastic and seemingly weak mechanism designed for LGA1366 use.
Here you can see how the cooler is mounted. This is the full extent of the LGA1366 mounting kit.
The gap is where the motherboard is to sit.
This will be the view on the rear of the motherboard.
I don't know it just seems a bit slight compared with the huge X shaped metal assemblies in other coolers.
The fan.
The fan is a black semi transparent purple LED fan. The cooler comes with just the one fan but the kit does include 2 additonal fan wire clips and 4 additional soft grommets for additional mounting.
It has a 4 pin PWM cable and is rated (according to label) to run between 850 and 1500rpm.
The braid covers all 4 cables and is black of the one strand weave variety with a fair amount of light penetration.
The fan has 4 Purple LEDs fitted, one in each corner in standard fashion. It also has some interesting white silicone rubber noise and vibration absorbers.
I always intended this review to be a comparison with the Noctua NH-U12P SE1366 cooler so after removing Noctua from my machine I took some comparison photos to demonstrate how large this cooler is.
Here you can plainly see the Brocken is a good 4 fins taller than the Noctua. The Brocken is on the top.
In a bit closer to see the difference.
You can see in this image that the heatpipes are thicker and more spread out as they enter the cooling fin array. Brocken is on the right. I'd imagine that heat transfer would be better if the heat is spread out across a metal fin, as with the Brocken rather than having the heat all slapped into one spot as with the Noctua.
Here you can see the Brocken is fatter by a good amount.
Here's the nice clean LGA1366 socket the cooler will be fitted to.
Installation was simple enough but I did need to remove the motherboard as Antec in their wisdom decided that the hole in the motherboard tray on the P183 case should be incorrectly positioned for my Gigabyte EX58-UD5 motherboard.
I was sure to smear some MX-3 on the direct touch gaps before proceeding.
So here we go straight to the installed and fitted shots.
With the cooler fitted normally and with the fan and silicone grommet fitted the fan just about fits next to my Patriot Viper RAM heatspreaders. In fact the fan clips have to go between the fins on the heatspreaders to fit.
And a few shots with an without my Orange case lights switched on.
Yes I know my wiring is all in the way and messy but I didn't bother to manage the cables as I will probably be switching fans back to the Noctua once I pimp them up with some Orange LEDs. A perfect opportunity.
This view is from the front of the case with a couple of drive bay covers removed.
Notice how close the cooler is to the side panel, it is literally about 5mm from being in contact with the side.
The Purple LED seems Blue for some reason in all these shots. Trust me it is quite Purple. I do like the way the fan catches the light from the Purple but also from the Orange too.
Now onto the important stuff, the results.
First up I let the fan run at automatic speeds based on whatever my motherboard determins as appropriate.
I must say that at 1433rpm (max I could get) the fan does make a good bit of noise but to be fair the next fastest fan in my system is just 950rpm so it will always be noisy to me at that speed. Temperatures with a Prime95 burn settled at 64 degrees.
This sort of fan noise is not going to happen in my system. Any fan running over 1000rpm is intolerable for me. At 1000rpm the fan is still audible but far less unsettling. At idle, coupled with my Speedfan settings I have it running at 550rpm which is near silent. My idle temps are up a degree or two but this is probably because the fan is running at 80rpm less and it's replacing the ariflow of push-pull.
To make this a fairer comparison I slowed the fan down to 1040rpm (+/-10rpm) to match that of the Noctua NF-P12 fans I was using before.
Temperatures now topped out at 70 compared with the 72 I had with the Noctua. I'm unable to standardise my temperatures in my room but if anything I feel that today was warmer than the days I tested the Noctua.
In all I'm impressed with this chunky cooler and feel that if I were to fit the Noctua fans to it I could probably reduce the temperatures further due to the improved fan.
So basically I'm happy enough to continue using the cooler in my rig rather than the Noctua so that's a result for Alpenföhn (and it's not just because I can't be bothered to whip out my motherboard again)
So thank you to Alpenföhn and Mishima for giving me this opportunity.
Note: I may add to this review with results of dual Noctua fans as and when I can run the tests.
Edit: I set up a single Noctua NF-P12 (in push and at 1000rpm) on the Brocken today and ran the Prime95 test as before. This time temperatures topped out at 69 degrees. Not much difference really and shows that the Alpenföhn fan is pretty decent, albeit a tad noisier than the Noctua due to the material differences.
Last edited:
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Cameras don't always do well with purple. I won't go into the rather boring details, but basically due to the design of the sensors and the combination of red and blue light that makes up some shades of purple they tend to record it as more blue than it is to the human eye. Lots of the time it's automatically corrected in camera these days if I recall.
Very nice review, plenty of detail included. If you do strap on the Noctura fans I'd be interested to see your new temperatures.
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Nice review
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Great review
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2 reviews and 2 of us keeping the cooler in our rigs. Can't wait to see what the rest have to say.
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Good stuff guys!