MaximumPC 2008 09

Nobody ever said that

coolers have to look crazy

to perform well.

VERDICT

$17, http://www.arctic-cooling.com

8

Very inexpensive;

performs better than

a stock cooler; easy to

install.

Not for serious over-

clockers; a bit dull

looking.

BLACK DIAMOND

ALPINE 7 PRO

BUNNY HILL

IN THE LAB^

REVIEWS OF THE LATEST GEAR AND SOFTWARE

Alpine 7 Pro

Look no further for a gentle upgrade to your stock Intel cooler

IN THE LAB^

REVIEWS OF THE LATEST HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE

G

iven its small size, we didn’t expect

maximum cooling performance

from Arctic Cooling’s Alpine 7 Pro.

And while the Alpine 7 Pro doesn’t set any

performance records, in some situations it

does match the capabilities of our cooler

of choice, Thermaltake’s DuOrb. Given

the sheer size difference between this

9x9x3cm cooler and the, well, monstrous

DuOrb, the Alpine 7’s performance was a

pleasant surprise.

The Alpine 7 Pro does an exceptional

job of cooling when your processor is

idle—it even ran head to head with

the DuOrb in this capacity. Both

coolers dropped the temperature of

all four cores of our Q6700 to 36 C,

but when we cranked up our pro-

cessor to 100 percent usage rates,

the Alpine 7 faltered.

As always, our burn-in test

separated the lion from the lamb.

The DuOrb is reasonably quiet and pro-

vides fl awless cooling. The Alpine 7 Pro’s

attached 9.2cm fan is similarly silent—far

less audible than a beastly cooling appara-

tus like the Zalman CNPS9700. It just

doesn’t cool as well. We appreciate

the Alpine 7 Pro’s ability to off er better

cooling than a stock Intel cooler, but as we

expected from the get-go, this is not a high-

performance cooler.

The cooler supports the Intel LGA775

spec to a T. Prior to this, we had never

tested a cooler that included

all four installation prongs that

Intel stock coolers have. The

inclusion of these prongs

eliminates the need to

remove the motherboard

to install the cooler. It’s

a welcome relief from a

tiresome process that we

could really do without.

All air coolers that fit an

LGA775 motherboard

should come with a

four-prong mounting

system—period.

Overclockers might

want to steer clear of

the Alpine in favor of a

bulkier cooler, but the

Alpine 7 Pro’s smidgen of

additional cooling over a

stock part and superlow

price make it a fantastic

value. –D A V I D M U R P H Y

Best scores are bolded. Idle temperatures were measured after an hour of inactivity; load temperatures were measured after an hour’s worth of CPU Burn-In

(four instances). Test system consists of a stock-clock Q6700 processor on an EVGA 680i motherboard.

BENCHMARKS

Alpine 7 Pro Thermaltake Duo Orb StockCooler

Idle (C) 36.0 36.0 46.0

100% Burn (C) 66.5 52.0 74.0

80 |MAMAMAXIMXIMXIMXIMUUUUMMPPPCC|SEP 08 |www.maximumpc.com