Alpenfohn Brocken CPU Cooler Review

Alpenfohn’s Brocken CPU cooler is currently retailing for a very reasonable, £32.99 making it a much cheaper option than some of the other CPU coolers on the market that it outperforms. I’d say it is capable of performing closer to some £40-50 dual fan coolers yet costs nowhere near that much and has just a single fan. It seems that Germanic companies just do it better and I’ve seen nothing but good things from Be Quiet (German), Noctua (Austrian) and Alpenfohn (German) in recent times. The Alpenfohn Brocken joins the Sella and Matterhorn Pure in being another excellent CPU cooler that performs above its price point, is well priced, is quiet and is high quality.

I did have a few concerns with the Alpenfohn Brocken the first being that the mounting solution for LGA 1155 has no backplate. The provided backplate is for LGA 775 and AMD sockets only. This means the rather hefty Brocken heatsink is sort of just dangling there without any backplate to absorb the stress. This means the motherboard is under more stress than it should be, which isn’t necessarily a huge problem but it isn’t desirable. I know the Brocken 2, the latest revision of the Brocken, comes with a proper backplate for all sockets. My last concern was with RAM compatibility. Since this CPU cooler will most be used with single RAM are platforms, aka they have four RAM slots all on one side of the CPU cooler (LGA 1155, AM2(+), AM3(+), LGA 1156, LGA 775 and so on). This means Alpenfohn could of considered having an off-centred design to give better RAM compatibility on the RAM side.

Pros

• Excellent performance
• Very reasonable price
• Good build quality of both fan and heatsink
• Acoustics, typically silent under all usage scenarios
• Extra fan clips for push-pull

Cons

• No backplate for LGA 1155, unnecessary strain on motherboard
• Poor RAM compatibility, have to use low profile RAM
• Fan cable not fully sleeved
• Only half tube of thermal paste

Subjective Issues

• UV Purple LED fan, no switch to turn off

eTeknix says: The Alpenfohn Brocken is a premium high performance tower heatsink that doesn’t have a premium price. At £32.99 it is easily one of the best value for money high performance air CPU coolers on the market today and ticks most of the right boxes with its price, performance, acoustics, build quality and attention to detail. There are a few details that Alpenfohn could do with tweaking and tuning but nothing that should make you not want to buy this product.

As always we would like to say a big thank you to Overclockers UK and CaseKing for providing us with this review sample.