If all that sounds like Swahili…. a 355ml (12oz in freedom units) aluminum can of (the typical) adult beverage has about a 33mm bend radius. So if you stick a (unopened/empty) can of adult beverage up to the bend on the ALF III Pro, and it is tighter than the bend on the can… It’s too tight a bend. If it is about the same or slacker than a wide-mouth mason jar it’s above 45mm bend radius, and you should be GTG (almost) regardless of material used for said tubing.
Once again, these kinds of ‘fiddly bits’ that can kill a build (in the long term) have been thought of and proactively ‘fixed’ by Arctic, just underscore the type of commitment to long-term customer satisfaction is one of the big reasons why we consider them, and their 3rd gen ALF, class leaders. One that we wish more companies (like Asetek) would follow.
That… that is about it, to what has changed with the Pro vs non-Pro ALF 3 3x120mm model.
The form factor is obviously the same. But for those who have only used dual-fan-based radiator models (“240” and “280”), here is a picture so you can get a better idea of the scale of the “360-class” in general and the ALF 3 Pro 360 in specific.
Yes. That is the ALF 3 Pro 360 sitting on top of the previous generation’s 280 box. Which it out and out dwarfs. This absolute unit may not quite be as wide as said box, but it is a whopping ~6cm longer. That is a lot of extra real estate to deal with. So if you have never used a triple rad before, they are big. Not as big as the mega 420-class models… but big.
Also not changed is the paint job. Still, that creamy goodness, white and deep, dark black being the “only” two options. Yes, we would like to see Arctic be the trendsetting ‘bellwether’ in this area too and offer more than two options… but if you can only choose between two options, at least they are these two options. Put simply, not only will these two colors cover off the vast, vast… vast majority of builds, but Arctic’s paint job is second to none, with thick scratch-resistant coating being evenly applied to the entire rad. Just as it was in the ALF 3 and the ALF 2 before it. Which is a good thing, as too many companies are taking the Enshifitcation route and making previously “Known Good” options and turning them into manure.
Moving on.
One of the biggest claims to fame the ALF series has always had is the VRM cooling fan baked into their waterblock. With the ALF 2 it was a small centrifugal blower (aka ‘squirrel cage’). It was better than nothing as did kept many an overheating VRM (especially on LGA2011s) from overheating. It was however ,loud and really did not move all that much air. The ALF 3 swapped that out for a Big Arsed Axial Fan (trademark pending). One that moves a ton of air, and yet does not need to run at mega-RPMs to do so.
So has anything changed, or been improved, with the Pro series? No. The ALF 3 Pro’s axial fan is the same as the non-Pro’s. Right down to the ‘Rev 1.0’ on the PCB. Furthermore, Arctic has not improved the coverage and allowed this beef boi to cool M.2 heatsinks along with the VRM. To be blunt, this is because the covering for said fan has the exact same design as the exact same “shadow”. Yes, that shadow is on the block inlet/outlet side… but plastic can be molded. They could have added in an air channel to… bend some of that airflow around and towards the M.2 slot. They did not, and thus the largest negative of the ALF 3 design is still in full effect: NVMe M.2 cooling compromises(… on some CPU sockets).
On the positive side… at least your DDR5 RAM will get a bit of air flow. Yeah. Yippee. Hyperbole aside, this is an issue, but at the same time is a nitpick. Most AIOs don’t do VRM cooling. Cooling that the motherboard manufacturer’s design team still assumes is going to be there. As such, the ALF 3 is still class-leading. It just is not perfect and needs a redesign. Either in this fascia covering’s air flow… or in mounting orientation limitations. Either works for us. Either must be enacted in a future design.
Overall, and much like the ALF 3 Pro 420 before it, the 3×120 variant offers noticeable, tangible tweaks to the ALD 3 blueprint. Enough tweaks that we can honestly say that we like the direction the Arctic ALF 3 team is going and can see a lot of potential in this new revision. Still not perfect, and still plenty of room for improvement… but it is a better, more refined design now than it originally was. Now… let’s install this beast and see if these tweaks translate into real-world performance gains!
