W
hile Alpenföhn’s Glacier Water 240
ARGB appears to be fairly basic for a
price that’s just shy of £150, when
other coolers are more lavishly equipped with
software or exquisite aesthetics, it makes up for
this by coming equipped with a wireless remote
control for its digital RGB lighting. It’s the only
cooler on test to do so, making it simple to flick
through colours and lighting effects without the
need for software.
The actual RGB lighting, as you’d expect at
this price, extends not just to the pump housing,
but to the fans too. That’s good, but bear in
mind that this feat is also matched by the far
cheaper Antec Neptune 240. However, the
Alpenföhn Glacier Water 240 ARGB’s lighting
is far superior to that of the Antec, both in terms
of brightness and colour accuracy, with vivid
colours on the fan rings and pump.
The top of the pump has interchangeable
plates too, enabling you to reveal the full force
of the RGB lighting beneath the plate or have
it shining through a logo-equipped pattern.
The lighting can also be hooked up to standard
3-pin digital RGB headers on a motherboard
or controller.
Rather than pre-apply its thermal paste,
Alpenföhn has instead equipped this cooler
with a generously sized tube of the highly
regarded Thermal Grizzly Hydronaut thermal
paste. As a result, you’ll be good for several
ALPENFÖHN GLACIER
WATER 240 ARGB /£145 inc VAT
SUPPLIER overclockers.co.ukinstallations of this cooler,
and you won’t have to worry
about paste quality either.
We were impressed with
the build quality of the fans
too, which feel solid and use fluid dynamic
bearings, although at 2,200rpm, they’re not the
fastest we’ve seen. Sadly, there are no extra
screws for mounting an additional row of fans,
which are included on Corsair’s cooler, but at
least it was simple to deal with the mounting
mechanism on both of our CPU sockets.
Our Core i9-11900K is a toasty beast when
it gets going, but the Alpenföhn Glacier Water
240 ARGB prevented it from throttling, even
with Adaptive Boost Technology enabled,
resulting in a delta T of 70°C. Its fans were also
very quiet despite their speed, but both the fans
and the pump, while very quiet, weren’t that
powerful in terms of cooling. This cooler’s Intel
delta T was by far the warmest on test – the
cheaper, but slightly louder Lian Li Galahad
240mm was more powerful in this regard.
The Alpenföhn fared better with our cooler-
running Ryzen 7 5800X, though, keeping pace
with the other coolers and being only a few
degrees off the top spot. Its delta T of 54°C
wasn’t too far off the 51°C for the Lian Li Galahad
240mm and Corsair iCUE H100i Elite Capellix.Conclusion
The Alpenföhn’s remote LED lighting control
is a great feature, and the lighting itself is vivid,
accurate and easy to control, although it doesn’t
actually extend to the fan blades themselves.The inclusion of good quality thermal paste
also adds points, as do the quiet pump and fans,
as well as the reasonable performance in our
AMD Ryzen system.
However, it was poor when dealing with the
Intel Core i9-11900K, producing the highest
CPU delta T on test, which in spite of its features
makes it hard to justify the price, given that the
Lian Li Galahad 240mm has more swagger and
costs £30 less. Ultimately, though, the better-
performing Corsair iCUE H100i Elite Capellix
would be our choice if you have around £150 to
spend on a 240mm liquid cooler.SPEC
Intel compatibility LGA 2066/2011/
V3, LGA1200, LGA115x
AMD compatibility Socket AM4, AM3/+,
AM2/+, FM2/+, FM1, TR4/TRX4
Radiator size with fans (mm)
120 x 52 x 282 (W x D x H)
Fa ns 2 x 120mm
Stated noise 36.8dBAVERDICT
A good-looking cooler, but it’s not the best
performer at this price.GLACIER MINT
+^ Premium thermal
paste
+^ Wireless RGB
lighting control
+^ QuietGLACIER MELT-^ Average cooling in our
Intel system
-^ Lighting not as
extensive as
competition
-^ Expensive
COOLING
31 / 40
DESIGN
17 / 20FEATURES
13 / 20
VALUE
12 / 20OVERALL SCORE
73 %
COOLING
35 / 40
DESIGN
17 / 20FEATURES
13 / 20
VALUE
12 / 20OVERALL SCORE
77 %
FITTING
EasyFITTING
EasyLGA 1 2 0 0AM 4