Alphacool at the 2024 International CES showed us their latest full-copper radiators, distribution plate reservoirs, and CPU water blocks, under its new Core brand that it debuted with the Core 1 series CPU blocks. The Core XT45 radiator series come in popular sizes, and are noticeably heavy since they're based on a heavier metal than aluminium. Besides the use of copper, the Core XT45 also features a denser fin structure, while their steel frames feature a silicone diffuser for RGB lighting.

Next up, are the Core 1 LT series CPU water blocks. These are a "lite" version of the Core 1 series blocks Alphacool announced in 2023; featuring less elaborate tops, but without compromising on quality or cooling performance. While the Core 1 series comes with premium brushed metal or carbon fiber finish tops; the Core 1 LT uses simpler LED-studded acrylic tops, some of which have vinyl panels and other inserts. The block underneath remains nickel-plated copper, with the same cross-slot base and 3D jet-plate. Since the top has close to no role to play in the cooling except structural, the performance is unchanged.Up next, is the Core 2 Tube Reservoir. This is a traditional cylindrical reservoir, with its main tube made of glass (not acrylic), featuring 1/4" nickel-plated brass connections. The bracket is rotatable, so you can make in-place final adjustments. It's compatible with the company's D5 and VPP pumps. We now move onto what people are mostly using for reservoirs these days—distribution plates that line up with tempered glass panels in their cases. The new Core series Distroplates come in variant sizes to match full-tower, mid-tower, mini-tower, and SFF cases, with storage volumes comparable to cylindrical reservoirs; and mounts at just the right places so you can run hard tubing to your CPU and VGA blocks, and to the radiator. All Distroplate models come with 1/4" nickel-plated brass connectors, and preparation for Alphacool's D5 series pumps, and are studded with addressable RGB LEDs, so you can directly connect the plate to your lighting controller.At CES 2024, Alphacool is also debuting the APEX light of flagship liquid-cooled PC products. We'll tell you more about the APEX chassis and fans in a separate article; but from among its liquid cooling product lineup, we have the APEX 1 CPU water block, the APEX 1 CPU+VRM monoblock, and APEX 1 RAM cooler. The APEX 1 CPU water block comes with a thicker primary material than the Core 1 series; and with a larger microfin lattice, for added surface area for heat dissipation to the coolant. The block appears to be topped off with an acrylic top that has some metal/alloy inserts. The acrylic top is studded with addressable RGB LEDs. The connections are nickel-plated brass. The APEX 1 monoblock is a scaled-up version of this, with coolant channels passing over the regions of the block that cool the CPU VRM. The company also has memory module coolers based on this concept and design scheme. Unlike the CPU water blocks, the monoblocks are specific to motherboard models (since they vary in their VRM layout). We were shown one designed for a GIGABYTE Z790 AORUS Master/Xtreme motherboard.