Also firmly in the “it’s insane how bad it makes both the previous generation and the rest of the industry look” category… is the waterblock. Make no mistake the ALF 2 did have an advanced waterblock. It just was not perfect.
One could argue its main claim to fame was not CPU cooling performance but the fact that it came with an integrated VRM cooling fan. That would be fair, as the ALF 2’s pump performance was… decent. Not industry-leading, but it’s one of the few non-Asetek options… rather good. We will circle back to the pump in a moment but the VRM cooling fan deserves all the time attention it is going to get, as it is arguably as groundbreaking, possibly even more, than the previous generation VRM fan.
Yes. We understand that is a rather bold proclamation. Having an integrated VRM cooling fan was a fresh idea and was extremely innovative. We would even argue that it alone made many a system builder opt for an ALF 2 over the typical Asetek options. However, going hand in glove with those positives was the fact that the ALF 2’s integrated fan was small. When it comes to air movement, like most things in life, size matters. Thus to move even just a modicum of air it had to run at insanely high RPMs. Which in turn made it loud.
The ALF 3’s VRM fan is neither integrated nor ‘small’. Instead, it is rather large and is end-user replaceable… and when we say “end-user replaceable” we mean end-user replaceable in the real world and not just theoretically “end-user replaceable”. To be precise, thanks to mounting magnets (and contact pins+pads configuration for the fan’s connectors) this bad boy pops on and off with ease. Such ease that Artic has you install it after you mount the block to your motherboard.
Furthermore, it is not just easy to install it now longer just sits at one end of the block. Instead, it is the full size of the waterblock… as it sits on top of said block. This increase in size of the fan, and its better location pays massive dividends in the total amount of air it can move, the amount of (relatively) fresh (i.e. not recycled/hot/etc) air it can move, and the whisper level noise levels it can offer. So much so that even at 50% it can cool even the most hoopty of motherboard VRM heatsinks… and do so better than the ALF 2’s running flat out. Now that is a 1-2 combination everyone will like.
Sadly, while a major step in the right direction this new VRM cooling configuration is not perfect. Close… but… Artic may have gotten a little too fancy with the new VRM cooler design. To be precise, while it could easily offer ~290+ degrees of cooling coverage, only about 100-110’ish gets covered. The rest? It’s physically blocked by the thermo-molded plastic fan housing of this big VRM fan. This is a shame as this device could have easily offered active M.2 cooling. Which in the coming years could be a big enough feature to make 3rd party heatsinks a thing of the past, which in turn could have freed up ~20 bucks in the budget for other things. Like justifying a 360 instead of 280 ALF 3. Needless to say, hopefully, a future revision will open up the VRM fan’s airflow zone and allow it to cool more than justthe VRM heatsink(s). In the meantime… a ¼ drill bit and a bit of time can get you in the same ballpark as the eventual official revision will. If you don’t mind voiding its warranty that is.
Moving on.
