Packaging and Accessories

Alphacool's product packaging has improved greatly with the whole Eis overhaul, and the Eisblock XPX 1U is no exception. The box uses a thick two-piece cardboard design with the company and product name on the front, alongside a product illustration, albeit of the original block and not this 1U variant. On the back is the certification and information clarifying that the block was designed in Germany and manufactured in China. There are two seals on the sides that keep the packaging intact, which need to be broken to access the contents inside, and the top can simply be lifted off as seen above.


Opening the box, we are greeted by an instruction booklet that is the manual for installation on all compatible CPU sockets (online copy here), which again is taken directly from the original Eisblock XPX, but thankfully, the installation process is identical here. It comes with details in English and German, but is not very good in actually describing each step, especially to a novice user. Note also that some things are specific to the metal frame/plastic top version and not the 1U black acetal version I have here, which again is an issue the previous nylon top version had. The other accessories come packaged inside a large zip-lock pouch with more pouches to separate the various items inside. Alphacool includes mounting hardware for both Intel and AMD platforms, including metal springs, locking nuts, and washers, and a tube of thermal paste, which is nice to see.


The Intel-marked pouch comes with an Intel socket installation backplate, the two-piece Intel mounting bracket, a note about specific LGA 2011 motherboards that may not have cooler mounting holes on the front, and the two sets of four mounting posts for the various Intel sockets. The AMD-marked pouch is simpler in only having a single set of mounting posts, the two-piece mounting bracket, and offsets for AM4 in addition to a note on AM4 installation, as the Eisblock XPX launched before Ryzen was a thing in the retail channel. The water block itself comes wrapped in plastic to keep it pristine and free of dust out of the box.