Final Thoughts
In the end, Alphacool’s Eisbaer Extreme is a bit of a conundrum. On the one hand it delivers massive performance and is a really high quality product as well. On the other it’s a massive cooler that simply isn’t going to fit in a lot of today’s modern, smaller, mid tower cases. When it comes to quality watercooling components, Alphacool is right at the top. What they’ve done here is apply that knowledge in their own creative way and the result is an apex AiO cooler. From one end to the other it’s nothing but great off the shelf parts. From the NexXxoS ST30 280mm copper core radiator to the fantastic Eisblock XPX CPU block with the Eispumpe VPP775 v.3 keeping things flowing in between it’s all top shelf. Every one of those parts would be a great choice when putting together a custom watercooling loop. But Alphacool doesn’t stop there. No AiO is complete without a choice set of fans and they are serving up nothing but the best. You get a pair of 140mm bequiet! Silent Wings 3 fans juiced up a little by Alphacool and boy do they do what they were made for. Whisper quiet with just the right amount of flow and pressure if they aren’t on your top fan list they should be. All that sweet sweet cooling power packaged in a high quality aluminum enclosure coupled with quick disconnects that allow for easy expansion of your loop. That’s a serious advantage when you consider that most AiOs lock you into only CPU cooling and no upgrade path. Really, let’s not forget the most obvious feature, this thing just looks like a beast.
As impressed as we are with this cooler, unfortunately there are a few things that have us a bit concerned. The biggest would be the condition of the sample we received. There are scratches on the sides and windows that look like the unit was slid on a table at one point. They certainly aren’t terrible, but truly when a new product shows up at your door you expect it to be 10/10 condition. Then there is the small amount of markings on the surface of the blocks base. We’ve seen this block ship in great shape in the past, this one not so much. We also found the short cables to be fairly frustrating and confusing as to why they are so short. It’s a massive cooler, a more generous helping of power wires would be nice. Finally there is the lack of software. It’s not a huge ding, as this unit runs border between AiO and custom loop pretty firmly. However custom software control is pretty much a standard that we expect from the best AiOs. Yes you can easily get by without it, but all the top level coolers are now coming with it.
Overall ThinkComputers gives the Alphacool Eisbaer Extreme an 8 out of 10 score! If it weren’t for a few minor production issues this could be a 10/10 cooler.
Pros
– Huge performance
– Top level components
– Super quiet
– Expandable
Cons
– Finish quality is lacking
– Short power wires
– No software
