Today marks the end of the NDA for Alphacool‘s latest waterblock, the Core 1 CPU. We’ve already been able to discover this new block at Computex 2023. It’s a waterblock designed to keep your CPU cool. You’ll also need to design a cooling loop that includes a radiator, a pump, a reservoir, hoses, the right fittings and so on.
Thanks to Alphacool for allowing us to test this new waterblock with a “Silver Aurora” edition for our copy of the Alphacool Core 1. As you can see from the photo above, the match is perfect with our ROG Z790 APEX motherboard.
[nextpage title=”Waterblock Alphacool Core 1 CPU: “]
As we mentioned on the previous page, we received a “Silver Aurora” model of the Alphacool Core 1. This new block is available in three different colors, two of which can be combined with an aRGB backlight called “Aurora”. So you can choose between five different finishes and colors: black, silver, white, Aurora black (aRGB) and Aurora silver (aRGB). You’ll have no trouble choosing the one that best matches your motherboard!
As its name suggests, this new waterblock is part of the “Core” series. Alphacool has just given its website a complete facelift. We’ve also discovered that the brand will be splitting its range into two series, “Core” and “Apex”. The “Core” range is designed to be more affordable, without compromising on performance.
Here’s how Alphacool defines them: “Apex stands for extraordinary design, which translates into extravagance and uniqueness combined with high quality and innovative ideas. The “Core” line offers optimum liquid cooling for all PC components. Whether you’re a beginner or an enthusiast, all your wishes will be fulfilled.”
The unboxing of our Alphacool Core 1:
New product series means new packaging. Alphacool’s Alphacool Core 1 comes in a brown cardboard box with the waterblock ‘s technical drawing on the front, complete with blue annotations. It’s a real success!
When you open the box, you’ll find the waterblock wrapped in plastic film and inserted in a pre-cut foam block. On the right are the installation instructions for the various sockets in English, German and French. Beneath this is a bag containing the brackets and screws required to install this Core 1.
Alphacool Core 1 waterblock:
We chose an Aurora silver (aRGB) model to match our ROG Z790 APEX motherboard. On the front panel, you can see the two ports and the border around the central port. As you’d expect, this is the aRGB backlight. The central port is your liquid inlet, and the one in the bottom corner is the outlet. It’s essential to respect the direction of your liquid’s flow to benefit from your waterblock ‘s performance. You’ll also find the brand logo in the top left-hand corner. The shape is unusual in that, as you can see from the photo, the lower right-hand corner has a more pronounced curve.
The base of the waterblock is protected by a transparent plastic sticker, but stamped with an inscription in red letters: ” Warning! Please remove, before using! The idea is to draw your attention to the fact that this must be removed before installation on your processor. Yes, yes, it’s happened before that some people forget to remove it and don’t understand why their temperatures are catastrophic.
The Alphacool Core 1 is compatible only with the latest AMD and Intel sockets, i.e. AM5 and LGA-1700. According to Intel’s fixation, LGA-1200 support seems to be taken into account as well. This may seem a pity, but there’s nothing to suggest that Alphacool won’t be offering other bindings compatible with older sockets in the weeks to come.
As this is an Aurora version, a cable is inserted into the waterblock. This terminates in two plugs to power the RGB and connect it to your motherboard.
And to make sure you never go the wrong way, Alphacool has engraved an “OUT” inside the output port! It really is a superb idea. The price is €99.98 (inc. VAT) for the Black/Silver versions, €109.98 (inc. VAT) for the White model and €119.98 (inc. VAT) for both models: Black/Silver Aurora. They are available in the online store by following this link.
Several new features for this Alphacool Core 1 waterblock:
The Core 1 CPU cooler belongs to the latest generation of Alphacool waterblocks. It features a new 3D-printed flat jet for improved cooling performance compared to the previous generation XPX models. Alphacool informs us that the Core 1 has been specially optimized for the latest Intel and AMD processors. Now let’s take a look at the Core 1’s inner workings.
After removing the six screws, we discover the base of our waterblock, i.e. the part in contact with the processor’s IHS. On the inside, we can see a whole series of grooves designed to increase the liquid’s contact surface with the base. We counted 65 grooves horizontally and 11 vertically.
Two 3D-printed elements are then revealed, with the famous flat jet and a second element which is placed on the upper part inside the block. Please note that we disassembled them after our tests, so as not to compromise them.
Finally, before we begin our tests, here’s an exploded view of the waterblock to give you a better understanding of the design.
[nextpage title=”Installation on our ROG Z790 APEX: “]
As we mentioned during unboxing, we opted for a Silver Aurora model to blend in perfectly with our ROG Z790 APEX motherboard, whose color code revolves around metallic gray and white. Installation is straightforward, thanks to the instructions available in three languages and the fact that each bag is labelled according to the type of installation, AMD or Intel.
The first step is to identify the support plate which will be placed behind the motherboard and into which 4 threaded rods will be screwed. Alphacool recommends sliding a foam washer between the PCB and the threaded rod. We didn’t think this was a good idea, as even if we tightened the threaded rods by hand and not with a tool, the foam would crush. So we opted straight for 4 thin plastic washers to ensure even tightening.
Some waterblocks come with thermal paste pre-applied to the base, which is not the case here, but Alphacool supplies a syringe of APEX thermal paste as part of the bundle. For our tests, we’ll explain our procedure on the next page. Here it is, set up on our test configuration.
All that remains is to connect the aRGB cable to take full advantage of this Alphacool Core 1 waterblock. As you can see, the combination of Core 1 and motherboard really works!
Let’s move on to the protocol we’ve set up to compare the performance of our three waterblocks.
[nextpage title=”The test protocol: “]
To test the performance of our Alphacool Core 1, we’re going to pit its results against two other waterblocks we use regularly: the EK-Quantum Velocity² and the Optimus Foundation. These are the two waterblocks I use most often in my tests, so it seemed logical to pit the Alphacool Core 1 against them. For lack of time, we haven’t yet had a chance to add the other waterblock we received from Alphacool, the Eisblock XPX Pro Aurora. We’ll tell you more about it when we test the Eiszeit 2000 chiller.
Test configuration :
Our three waterblocks will be tested on a ROG Z790 APEX motherboard, combined with an Intel i9-13900KS processor. This processor has 8 P-Cores and 16 E-Cores for a total of 32 threads. For the tests, and to prevent the boost frequency from distorting the results, we’ll set the P-Core frequency at 5.6 GHz, the E-Core at 4.0 GHz and the voltage at 1.20 volts, with the LLC at level 7.
Temperatures will of course be high, as we’re going to use a stress test that will load our processor at 100% continuously for 10 minutes with Cinebench R23. Of course, in everyday use of your configuration, it’s never the case that all the cores are called upon for such a long time at the same time! But the idea here is to have an identical basis of comparison for all 3 blocks.
Cooling loop components :
We’ve already presented them in our three tutorials on installing a liquid cooling loop. The radiator is an EK-CoolStream XE 480, measuring 520 x 130 mm and 60 mm thick. It is equipped with four 38 mm thick EK-Meltemi 120ER fans. These fans feature extremely high static pressure and are ideally suited to XE series radiators .
Still with a view to comparative tests, these will run at maximum speed during our tests, in order to maintain an identical protocol with the three blocks. The same applies to pump speed.
Waterblock position:
Unless otherwise specified by the manufacturer, the waterblock will be positioned so as to be visually “straight” when your motherboard is inserted into your case. We have of course respected the manufacturer’s input and output specifications for each block.
Testing each waterblock :
While we were thinking about setting up this protocol, the question of thermal paste came up. Firstly, we won’t be using the pre-installed paste or the supplied syringe, but will opt for an identical paste. Our choice is Noctua’s NT-H1 thermal paste. We will carry out three series of tests. We clean the IHS of our processor with Noctua NA-SCW1 wipes between each test.
Stress tests with R23 :
The software we’re going to use to warm up our i9-13900KS is the Cinebench R23 benchmark. The special feature of this benchmark is that it can be repeated in a loop, and the user can choose the length of the loop, which in our case will be 10 minutes.
Once the waterblock is in place, we’ll let the configuration run for 30 minutes to allow the water temperature to stabilize. We will then carry out a 10-minute stress test to take the first reading.
The configuration will then rest for 15 minutes, before running the second 10-minute stress test. We’ll do the same for the third reading.
Several readings will be taken during this stress test:
- Liquid temperature, using a probe placed in the tank and our Fluke 51 II thermometer.
- The temperature of our processor via Core Temp software version 1.18, which will give me the temperature of each core and enable me to calculate an average. As the tests are carried out three times, we’ll have three averages in all.
Current temperatures :
It’s never easy to take temperature readings in the heatwave we’re currently experiencing in Belgium. Fortunately, we carried out our tests last Sunday, a rainy day, but we still had a temperature of 24.5°C in the lab. Having also received the Alphacool Eiszeit 2000chiller , we’re certainly thinking of using it for our next comparisons, by locking the water temperature at a certain level.
[nextpage title=”Results and conclusion: “]
Now it’s time to share our results with you. Finally, the good news is that the temperature in the lab remained virtually unchanged throughout the series of tests on the different waterblocks . We also noted that the temperature of the liquid in the reservoir reached a maximum of 30°C, to within a few tenths, for all our tests. Let’s start with the temperatures recorded on the 8 P-Cores and read in Core Temp version 1.18.
First observation: for our three waterblocks, the logic of the coolest core and the three hottest is well respected. We can also see that the difference between the coolest and warmest core is 9°C in all three cases. We then averaged the P-Cores and E-Cores, and here are the results, bearing in mind that the water temperature at the end of each run varied by 0.4°C from 59.9°C to 30.3°C.
Finally, the table in the form of the performance delta, i.e. the average temperature from which we have subtracted the water temperature.
As you can see, the performance of our Alphacool Core 1 is excellent. It performs almost as well as the EK-Quantum Velocity² model, but at a much more attractive price. The differences between the EK model and the Optimus are similar to those we observed when we received the EK waterblock. Bear in mind that temperatures will of course depend on your cooling loop.
Alphacool Core 1 waterblock:
We’re under the impression that our Optimus Foundation waterblock is about to retire, and from now on it’s the high-performance Alphacool Core 1 that will equip our test configuration with the Intel i9-13900KS processor and the ROG Z790 APEX. Priced at 119.98 euros, this new Core 1 block delivers on all its promises. Installation is a breeze, the aRGB backlighting is perfectly balanced, and the small border is more than enough. The three colors available in Alphacool’s catalog allow you to choose the color that best suits your configuration. In our opinion, this new waterblock in the “Core” series is almost faultless. Finally, Vertex has received a copy of the Alphacool Core 4090 GameRock, which we’ll be testing very soon.
Many thanks to Alphacool for making this Core 1 CPU available.
We liked :
- The very good performance/price ratio compared to the competition
- The perfect design of this Core 1 CPU model
- The quality and finesse of the aRGB backlighting
- The quality of the waterblock design
- The “OUT” engraving in the port – a small detail, but one that makes all the difference
- The Core 1 CPU’s compact format
We would have liked :
- Plastic washers instead of foam ones.