Alphacool Eisbaer Aurora 360 HPE AIO Cooler

[crazyeyesreaper]

Alphacool revamps the Eisbaer Aurora 360 with the new HPE, or High-Performance Edition. Sporting an entirely new copper radiator design, higher-performance fans, and exceptional performance, it remains one of the few and best examples of a pre-filled AIO that can be expanded and serviced.

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[GreiverBlade]

nice review although that cons :"ARGB lighting may not be to everyone's taste" imho, it shows how, when it come to RGB, weird peoples are it should be a pros : "ARGB lighting can make it fit to anyone's taste"

as it give the mean to select a single preferred color (or none, it can be turned off, right? depending on the product tho...) and switch that color to any other if changing the color theme of the build later, without needing to rebuy a full set of non RGB fans (as i would have to do for my 2 led white stripes and 3 Corsair ML140 white, since now i have 2 Masterfan MF120 Halo, 1 for the exhaust and 1 for the ETS-T50 CPU cooler, if i ever want anything else than pure white for my build and they are not even really much more expensive than the regular one ... tbf the ML140 were almost double the price or the MF120 Halo )

that remind me that i have an old Eisbaer, 1st gen or something, somewhere, probably stashed alongside my H115i and Raijintek Triton core 240

 

[kapone32]

That is like $80 more than the original with maybe 1-2 C difference in temps.

 

[Space Lynx]

@crazyeyesreaper all I ask is that you please review the Noctua 7 heatpipe version whenever it comes out later this year. (I heard someone on the forums say this Fall possibly)

I am very curious about it

also it would be interesting to you review the $500 custom tube water cooling kit Corsair just released. would be interesting to see if custom tubes really do improve temps more than AIO or not. never seen many professional reviews on that for some odd reason. hard to standardize the custom water cooling kit I suppose. but I'd still like to see it.

 

[crazyeyesreaper]

nice review although that cons :"ARGB lighting may not be to everyone's taste" imho, it shows how, when it come to RGB, weird peoples are it should be a pros : "ARGB lighting can make it fit to anyone's taste"

as it give the mean to select a single preferred color (or none, it can be turned off, right? depending on the product tho...) and switch that color to any other if changing the color theme of the build later, without needing to rebuy a full set of non RGB fans (as i would have to do for my 2 led white stripes and 3 Corsair ML140 white, since now i have 2 Masterfan MF120 Halo, 1 for the exhaust and 1 for the ETS-T50 CPU cooler, if i ever want anything else than pure white for my build and they are not even really much more expensive than the regular one ... tbf the ML140 were almost double the price or the MF120 Halo )

that remind me that i have an old Eisbaer, 1st gen or something, somewhere, probably stashed alongside my H115i and Raijintek Triton core 240

Its a pro and a con because some people detest RGB and the fact they pay for a feature they don't need. There is also the fact that most ARGB fans have either RGB lighting in the frame or the hub which typically results in one or the other being larger. This reduces overall fan blade dimensions and results in lower fan performance. This can be mitigated with various designs but not all. So depending on brand / fan blade design / etc some get a "feature" that to them isn't a feature at all. Thus the pro and con aspect.

@CallandorWoT I plan to look into it same with the newly release cooler but I am swamped in samples right now. Both CPU cooler and test system wise ( 3 coolers in process and 2 systems) so am juggling 5 reviews right now.

 

[DemonicRyzen666]

does the original not have this close6.jpg (1024×768) (techpowerup.com)
Nickel plating is an insulation layer compared to just having a copper plate.
Copper ftw.

 

[watzupken]

I wonder if swapping out the fans for higher quality fans from say Noctua, will improve this AIO. Having said that, the performance seems underwhelming despite this being a full copper loop. The cooler itself looks very attractive nonetheless.

 

[TechLurker]

I feel the expandability is the best selling part about this; at least compared to a number of other AIOs. The next best following are the kits like from EKWB or Corsair, but they require the loop be set up, rather than already set up, filled, and almost ready to use out of the box.

If anything, the original version of this AIO was my first real entry into watercooling, and the expandability allowed me to add a waterblocked Vega to the loop without having to really rebuild it.

 

[GreiverBlade]

Its a pro and a con because some people detest RGB and the fact they pay for a feature they don't need. There is also the fact that most ARGB fans have either RGB lighting in the frame or the hub which typically results in one or the other being larger. This reduces overall fan blade dimensions and results in lower fan performance. This can be mitigated with various designs but not all. So depending on brand / fan blade design / etc some get a "feature" that to them isn't a feature at all. Thus the pro and con aspect.

i saw it being noted as a pro and a cons, hence my revised pro version... to me ARGB is a pro only, because : "i do not want it? i turn it off" "any color i want? yep..."

ok, for the performance result i can see the cons (although most ARGB fans i have perform same or better than previous fans i had )
imho the rest is illogical in many case ... it's just a trend of hating a "trend" for the sake of hating ... ("" around the second trend because RGB/ARGB is not a trend but a solution? eh... )

but paying for a feature they did not ask: that argument is a bit old, since last time i saw a RGB (and not ARGB, heck even just fixed color) piece of kit being more expensive than a non RGB was quite some time ago ... as i said a MF120 Halo was cheaper than a ML120/140 white or the ETS-T50 ARGB is one of the cheapest, yet still good performances with the stock fan or a MF120 Halo, CPU cooler i had in decades (even my GMMK with the switches and keycap, is cheaper than any other equivalent non RGB TKL keyboard i see at my retailer, aside Deltaco, their 60% keyboards are between 64 and 88chf ... impressive considering a p.o.s like the Huntsman is double that ... )

tbf i hated RGB when it was R G B and not addressable, individually in keyboard also ... because it was not practical, but with progress made on them i changed my point of view because i see the advantage while all the inconvenient almost disappeared

oh well i am probably nitpicking, because i see the hate as a side effect of "can't teach an old dog new tricks"

I wonder if swapping out the fans for higher quality fans from say Noctua, will improve this AIO. Having said that, the performance seems underwhelming despite this being a full copper loop. The cooler itself looks very attractive nonetheless.

Alphacool have excellent non RGB radiator fans in their offer (including GT type ) or Arctic eventually with the P12 ... no need to make that thing pricier with some overpriced Noctuas
3 Noctua NF-F12 iPPC-3000 PWM (108chf) = 12 Arctic P12 PWM = ~5 CoolerMaster MF120 Halo = 4 and a third Corsair ML120Pro (well ... no one need one extra third on a 360 ... but figuratively speaking you could still spare a third of a ML120Pro)

would be good to not forget to recycle the original 120mm Alphacool fans as case fan to mitigate the fact that one would buy 3 more 120 for the sake of improving that cooler

That is like $80 more than the original with maybe 1-2 C difference in temps.

actually i only paid 29.99$ less, for the 240 bog basic version some years ago (but i never added extension in the loop, which explain why later i stopped worrying about expandable kit like the Eisbaer and went on other AIO and then back to a air cooler)

 

[LocutusH]

I just recently built one of their AIO's on my 3080TI FE. The AIO is great, performs great. Only downside are the fans, as previous reviews also showed, these cheap chinese fans are nowhere near competition.
So i ended up replacing the fans on mine too, with Arctic P12's. No problems.

 

[MachineLearning]

I really like this concept of an open or closed loop cooler hybrid. I also really appreciate the all-copper design, mainly from a reliability standpoint - no chance of bungling anti-corrosion agents. And performance is theoretically better.

In my eyes, the only two things that need to be changed are the crappy fans and high price. The price I could maybe swallow more easily if the fans were high-quality, or if there were six of them. But as you mention in the review, they have circular frames, making them sub-optimal for this application. A company which specializes in water cooling should know better. In fact, they do.

 

[kapone32]

I feel the expandability is the best selling part about this; at least compared to a number of other AIOs. The next best following are the kits like from EKWB or Corsair, but they require the loop be set up, rather than already set up, filled, and almost ready to use out of the box.

If anything, the original version of this AIO was my first real entry into watercooling, and the expandability allowed me to add a waterblocked Vega to the loop without having to really rebuild it.

This: I have not looked back since I got mine. I actually had 2 Vegas. One was the one with the pump on the GPU block.

I really like this concept of an open or closed loop cooler hybrid. I also really appreciate the all-copper design, mainly from a reliability standpoint - no chance of bungling anti-corrosion agents. And performance is theoretically better.

In my eyes, the only two things that need to be changed are the crappy fans and high price. The price I could maybe swallow more easily if the fans were high-quality, or if there were six of them. But as you mention in the review, they have circular frames, making them sub-optimal for this application. A company which specializes in water cooling should know better. In fact, they do.

I once bought the 420MM variant for $85 on their class b sales