Tuesday, September 20th 2022
Alphacool Unveils RTX 4090-series Water Blocks
The new Geforce RTX generation is here and Alphacool obviously offers a water cooler for it as well. The cooler for the new generation is much more than just another Eisblock Aurora GPU cooler. It is the first step towards a new generation of Alphacool coolers that brings significant improvements over the previous Aurora generation.
What's new? Alphacool will be using chrome-plated instead of nickel-plated copper coolers for all graphics card coolers in the future. A chrome plating is significantly harder and more resistant than a nickel plating. Chrome plating also benefits lighting because it is much smoother and reflects light better than nickel plating.
The cooling fins have been reduced to 0.4 mm and the spacing between the fins has been optimized to 0.4 mm. This creates a larger cooling surface and provides lower flow resistance for the cooler, resulting in better performance.
The water routing has been revised to provide a more even flow of water to the jetplate. The jetplate itself is recessed into the cooling fins and is pressed onto them by a new designed inlet with an O-ring. This ensures that the water is reliably pressed through the cooling fins. This also provides a performance plus.
The Alphacool Subzero with 16 W/mk is included as thermal compound. This high-performance thermal compound is one of the most powerful on the market. For the voltage converters and the graphics memory, 1 mm thin 7 W/mk soft pads are used.
In cooperation with board partners from Nvidia, the base of the previous Eisblock cooler has been almost completely reworked. These major changes can be clearly seen in the overall look of the cooler. Alphacool's new Aurora water cooler has been extensively tested on the new RTX 4090 graphics card generation and has gone through a long development phase to provide the best possible performance.
The coolers are currently in production and will start shipping to end customers and resellers in mid-October. An AIO variant in the form of the Eiswolf 2 will of course also follow shortly.
What's new? Alphacool will be using chrome-plated instead of nickel-plated copper coolers for all graphics card coolers in the future. A chrome plating is significantly harder and more resistant than a nickel plating. Chrome plating also benefits lighting because it is much smoother and reflects light better than nickel plating.
The water routing has been revised to provide a more even flow of water to the jetplate. The jetplate itself is recessed into the cooling fins and is pressed onto them by a new designed inlet with an O-ring. This ensures that the water is reliably pressed through the cooling fins. This also provides a performance plus.
The Alphacool Subzero with 16 W/mk is included as thermal compound. This high-performance thermal compound is one of the most powerful on the market. For the voltage converters and the graphics memory, 1 mm thin 7 W/mk soft pads are used.
In cooperation with board partners from Nvidia, the base of the previous Eisblock cooler has been almost completely reworked. These major changes can be clearly seen in the overall look of the cooler. Alphacool's new Aurora water cooler has been extensively tested on the new RTX 4090 graphics card generation and has gone through a long development phase to provide the best possible performance.
The coolers are currently in production and will start shipping to end customers and resellers in mid-October. An AIO variant in the form of the Eiswolf 2 will of course also follow shortly.
24 Comments on Alphacool Unveils RTX 4090-series Water Blocks
I am guessing that many of these waterblock manufacturers have tested various water channel pathway designs (however they call it). The final design is probably a balance between ease of manufacturing, thermal performance, and maybe water resistance (how powerful a pump you need to push coolant through the block).
I have Alphacool Eisblock Auroras on a 2070 Super FE and TUF 3080 Ti. I have no experience with waterblocks from other manufacturers but I am satisfied with the cooling performance of Alphacool's previous generation Eisblock models. I am not using a particularly powerful pump in either build.
All gpu coolers in the future will be chrome-plated. We will not take a technical step backwards to nickel plating. After all, that makes no sense. We don't make pure copper blocks without chrome plating. The demand is basically non-existent and in the end pure copper will always discolor after a certain time and no longer look nice.
The AMD blocks will also be chrome-plated and will be launched on time for the launch on November 3.
You won't be able to compare the temperatures on the 4XXX series voltage converters to the RTX 3XXX series. Since we don't have any comparisons with the competition (water cooler...clear better than air is no problem)..... I can't make any comparisons or say anything meaningful about it.
To be honest... never got or saw an info that there is a "special" Founders Edition PCB layout.
There is the Reference Design, which will also be the basis for many cards, and our cooler currently covers that as well.
The maximum memory temperature was 86°C using the stock cooler. It dropped only 82°C using the Alphacool pads. We have already mentioned the reason for that as Alphacool needs to use 3.0mm thick thermal pads instead of 2.0mm thick pads. We introduced the GELID 3.0mm thick pads and the saw the memory temperature dipping to 62°C. This is a roughly 20°C delta drop.
www.enostech.com/alphacool-eisblock-aurora-acrylic-gpx-n-3080-3090-suprim-x-with-backplate-review-ft-gelid-gp-extreme/
I also noticed they're going to use 1mm pads both on VRM and VRAM this time, thinner pads have less thermal resistance (if the gap is correct!)
www.alphacool.com/download/manual/13429_Alphacool_Eisblock_Aurora_Acryl_GPX-N_RTX_4090_with_Backplate_(Reference)_Manual.pdf
Sure you can drop the temps with custom/better performing pads but this applies to the rest of the waterblocks aswell. I mean it's not like EK stock pads are any good, infact if i had to bet i would bet on Aphacool stock pads being better than EK stock pads yet this doesn't prevent EK blocks from vastly outperforming Alphacool blocks in terms of VRAM temp.
There is definitely something with the Z height of the VRAM section of the coldplate with Alphacool blocks. Hopefully Alphacool has figured it out and adressed the issue with these new blocks .
Let me put it another way. Of course, we have tried to improve the cooling performance in all areas. But I can't make a basic statement about comparisons if you don't currently have a comparison to the competition with our current cooler for the RTX 4090.
With the RTX 3XXX series, there were massive problems with the package height of the GPU itself. The tolerances were extreme there. It was enough if the GPU was 0.2mm higher, then the pads on other components no longer rested so well and the temperatures were higher than they should actually be. There was also the reverse case, that the GPU was lower, then the temperatures on the voltage converters and rams were extremely good, but on the GPU then bad. Exactly how it will be with the RTX 4090, I cannot say. The cooler was tested though various 4090 samples and we had no problems. But how it looks now in mass production, whether there will be large tolerances again, I simply can not answer.
And as I said, you can't compare the results of the 4090 with a 3XXX. Therefore, anything you say about it would just be a guess, marketing blah blah or just plain lying.
And whole honestly.... sure I can say... everything is now super and we are the best and horniest on the market. But that would just be empty words. That's not my way.
I can't tell you whether this is Cr3 or Cr6. Basically, I will not disclose any details about certain techniques we use.
Any news regarding other brands compatibility with the block? Especially interested if Zotac Trinity 4090 is using reference board. Current compatibility file only shows Inno3d.
Thanks!
So just to confirm, will the "Alphacool Eisblock Aurora Acryl GPX-N RTX 4090 Reference w/ Backplate" work with the Founder's Edition?
Hard to tell by the crappy image here what the paths are frankly but yeah 30 series was weird to say the least :laugh:
Founders Edition has a different PCB. We will launch a FE block in the next days.