ARCTIC Alpine 12 Passive - Silent Intel CPU Cooler for Intel Sockets 115x and 1200, up to 47 W, Pre-Applied MX-2 Thermal Paste, 95 x 96 mm - Black

I've had this ARCTIC Alpine 12 CO thing boxed up and sitting in the closet for ages. I honestly can't recall why or how I ended up with it. I may well have been drunk-shopping at some previous time (not recommended) and just knee-jerked the purchase. This is the very same way I ended up with a 60-gallon fish tank that arrived unexpectedly one day from China. I don't even fish.But back on track...Out of nowhere the other day and typical of the world-changing and historic ideas I'm constantly dreaming up, I had an epiphany! This high-level mind fart came on like a punch to the face, shaking me to my core and I recall having to actually lie down briefly just to process the staggering implications of what I was considering. About seven hours later, after recovering, I remembered the Alpine 12 CO idea..."Why not just haxor that Alpine 12 CPU cooler over my sweaty DDR5 DIMMS?" So that's what I did.As it turns out, the ARCTIC Alpine 12 CO worked like a magic trick as a repurposed active cooling solution for my DDR5 RAM. I'm using it to cool a 32gb (2x16gb) kit of Corsair DomPlat RGB DDR5 6000mhz CL36 DIMMS which I run at 6800mhz CL32 with a middling bit of extra juice sent to them (1.57v). See attached pic...Any idea I personally implement usually ends up working exceptionally well (except for drunk-shopping) so I wasn't the least bit surprised to see a solid 10c drop in my DDR5 load temps after fixing the Alpine 12 CO cooler in place and running some tests (Anta777 Extreme2 hr).I had previously been using a 140mm fan plopped down on my 4090 GPU backplate pointed directly over the DIMMs which worked well too but it was huge and a bit noisy at full speed. I do admit to being humored by watching it boost off the back of my GPU and tumble down into the bottom of my case when it hit max speeds but this became annoying after a while.This AC Alpine CPU hack is much more ideal. It cools just as well as the previous 140mm fan solution and has a 4-pin PWM connector which is also handy. It's also amazingly quiet, even at full speed.Unfortunately, I can't speak towards the Alpine 12 CO's usefulness as an actual CPU cooler but I'd suspect it would do just fine compared to a stock Intel CPU cooler. But it works really well as a RAM cooler, that's for sure.Feel free to quote any of the above or otherwise mention me in any regard. Branding is everything...;-)

I am using the Alpine 12 Passive with stock thermal compound atop an unmodified *84W TDP* Intel Xeon E3-1226 v3 (Haswell Refresh); paired w/ an ASRock H81 BTC Pro R2.0. I run this as an experimental storage server in my home lab. Installation was easy, due to the board already being removed from my case. Most importantly to note: My application has the heatsink actively cooled. The main exhaust for the case pulls directly over this cooler. That one exhaust fan is a beefy one; a re-pinned 12x3.8cm San Ace server fan. To keep the noise tolerable, the fan is controlled in BIOS (I do *not* recommend plugging a server blower into a motherboard header under most circumstances). Under all sustained loads (other than Small FFT Prime95), the fan rarely gets loud, and the CPU does not throttle. However, under p95 smFFT 'power virus', the solid Aluminum passive cooler gets totally heatsoaked within 10mins even with that 120x38mm axial blower screaming. Considering that is an extreme scenario, and that it takes sustained excessive load to even begin to be an issue, I find this acceptable performance in my uses. Overall, I was pleasantly surprised to find my unreasonable expectations met. Sorry for no temperature figures. Know that when actively cooled by nearby temperature-controlled fan, you will get quietperformance well exceeding the advertised TDP rating.tl;dr:+Looks good, 0 component clearance issues.+Will perform beyond TDP rating *if actively cooled w/ a (temp controlled) high-CFM fan*+Pre-applied TIM isn't bad at all.+Affordable, considering application/target market.+/-Easy to install / Only If mobo is already out of the case+/-Is entirely black anodized Aluminum. Keeps costs and board weight down / Incompatible with Liquid Metal TIM.