When news broke of Alphacool's new Core 1 CPU blocks, I was immediately hit with requests to review the blocks as soon as possible. Marketing used in the press release made it seem very good and this was even before people knew what the blocks would cost. The blocks had arrived just as I left for Computex, meaning my first time actually taking a look at the CPU blocks was in Taiwan at the Alphacool booth. There was a lot being shown off there and we are in for an exciting 2023 from Alphacool, but no doubt one of the more popular items there was the Core 1 CPU block.

As it turns out, the hype being built up around these blocks was for a valid enough reason. Alphacool has priced the Core 1 CPU blocks very competitively in a world where we have blocks that sells for 3x as much. Having a single block cater to the mainstream Intel and AMD sockets is also nice for longevity albeit that does result in potential thermal performance left on the table when compared with socket-specific designs, such as with the EK-Quantum Magnitude. The Core 1 uses a full metal top and housing regardless of which version you go with and that helped performance to an extent as this block still managed to best the Magnitude in my testing! Add to that the different colors and RGB options at a very reasonable up-charge and we have a CPU block that has the best thermal performance, about average when it comes to coolant flow restriction, and offers good value for money too. It's an easy recommendation from me and I look forward to seeing what Alphacool has cooking in its higher end Apex product line too.