Alpenfohn Matterhorn Pure CPU Cooler Review

The Alpenfohn Matterhorn Pure costs £29.99 in the UK which is a really great price for what you get. Now in terms of performance the Alpenfohn Matterhorn Pure doesn’t get a chance to fully shine because unlike some of its competitors it doesn’t have really high RPM fans and on LGA 1155 it can’t really use all six of its 6mm heat pipes. Yet despite all of this the Alpenfohn Matterhorn Pure still performed very well in our tests and was very quiet too. While this is my first encounter with an Alpenfohn CPU cooler I am hopeful that it won’t be the last because this product just emanates quality and value for money.

That said, the Alpenfohn Matterhorn Pure isn’t a solution for everyone for a number of reasons. Firstly, it is a very large CPU cooler so for most systems it will only be compatible with standard (PCB height) RAM or low profile RAM, anything with high heat spreaders will not fit properly unless you have a relatively large motherboard and only intend to populate half the RAM slots – which narrows things down quite a lot. Secondly, the unit doesn’t actually include extra fan clips and for me this is a tad disappointing and its not like you can even buy optional fan clips either, I would very much like to see Alpenfohn provide fan clips or offer them to retailers so you can add them to your order for a small fee. Finally, the provided thermal paste didn’t impress me much because it was not only a very small portion but also inside a sachet that made it very hard to apply.

Pros

• Good performance
• Impressive value for money
• High build quality and sturdy construction
• Very quiet
• Six 6mm heat pipes
• Solid mounting kit

Cons

• Blocks one to two RAM slots
• No extra fan clips for second fan
• Only small amount of thermal paste in difficult to apply sachet

eTeknix says: The Alpenfohn Matterhorn Pure is an excellent value for money and high performance cooling solution that is capable of taming all high performance CPUs on the market today, and with high overclocks. Furthermore it is impressively quiet and has solid German build quality emanating throughout the design. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend the Matterhorn Pure to anyone looking for a low cost entrance into the world of high performance air cooling, though I would encourage consumers to be aware of RAM compatibility issues with high profile RAM modules.

Thank you to Overclockers UK and CaseKing for providing us with this review sample.