Offering quality and performance at an outrageously affordable price, the Alpenföhn Matterhorn Pure CPU Cooler drops the frills leaving Pure performance.
Manufacturer and Sponsor: Alpenföhn
Street Price: £30.98 @OCUK
Just over 2 years ago, Alpenföhn announced the Matterhorn, boasting lavish blacked aluminium fins and heatpipes in a new distinctive package. Moving on to the present we have seen Alpenföhn take leaps and bounds in regards to engineering prowess and cooling innovation. Diving into a turbulent world of CPU cooling, (pun intended), we now see the Matterhorn throwing down its gloves and stripped of any unnecessary la-de-da with the ‘PURE’ Edition. The monolithic tower retains the precision engineering and premium quality build you would expect and comes with an iconic 120mm WingBoost fan to blow away the heat. Will the Matterhorn Pure breathe a fresh lease of life into the mid range market? Or will it be Pure… Let’s find out.
Alpenfohn’s take on Matterhorn PURE
What characterizes a good mid-class CPU cooler… Is it a premium-quality finish, a high performance, a low-noise fan or is it the dead easy mounting in nearly every Midi Tower case? With our brand-new Matterhorn Pure we combine all these points and offer the ultimate high-end package at a nearly unreasonable low-price.
Features & Specifications
Alpenföhn Matterhorn Pure
Fin Design
The special trapezoid shaped fins that are placed in a 180° rhythm creating two essential advantages:
– Narrow Fin pitch in the center of the heatsink. This feature increases the thermal surface and ensures a higher heat dissipation
– Wide fin pitch at air inlet area. By having a wide fin pitch at the air inlet area the Alpenföhn „Matterhorn” can be run with very low fan speed as the airflow faces less resistance.
Despite that the “Matterhorn” cooler has closed sides. This helps guiding the air through the narrow fin area and offers better mechanical stability.
Heatpipe/Baseplate
The six U-shape Heatpipes have a large contact area to the full copper baseplate to optimize the heat-transfer from the CPU. By precision CNC machining the surface of the base plate is extremely flat.
120mm WB-Pure Fan:
The award-winning WB-technology maximize cooling and minimize noise due to an optimized fan blade design.
In combination of 4 de-vibration rubber elements and HD bearing the new WingBoost Pure fan is nearly inaudible.
The new “plus-function” gives you the possibility to control a further PWM fan with one PWM connector of the Motherboard.
Socket Compatibility: LGA2011/1366/1155/1156/775/AM3/AM3+/AM2/AM2+/FM1
Heatsink Dimensions(WxDxH): 138x123x158mm
Weight: 657g
Heatpipe: 6x 6mm
Fins: Aluminium
Baseplate: Full copper base
Fan Dimensions: 120x120x25mm
Rated Voltage: 12VDC
Noise: 8-24dB
Speed: 500 – 1500 rpm
Airflow: 108 m³/h
Bearing: HD-Bearing
Auto Restart: Yes
The Matterhorn Pure comes in weighing 113g less than the Matterhorn Rev. B and a huge 440g lighter than the Matterhorn Shamrock making the Pure the lightest in the Matterhorn stable.
Packaging and Content
Box front
The box art features modest styling in the form of a mountain (A running theme with Alpenföhn) with the product name in bold black lettering. At the base we see an image of the cooler itself showing the copper base. The side lists all the product specifications and details a customer would need to know.
Box rear
On the reverse side of the box we see a continuation of the bold mountain art with a repeat product image. The side panel goes into some of the product design details of the trapezoid shaped fins and the precision milled copper baseplate.
Included contents
Accessories laid bare, contents include:
1x Matterhorn Pure Heatsink
1x 120mm fan
1x Backplate
1x Retention plate
2x Wire clips
2x AMD mounting bracket
2x AMD mounting bracket B
2x Intel mounting bracket
4x Nut for LGA2011
4x Nut
4x Anti-vibration rubber parts
4x Insulation pillar
4x Screw bolt
4x Anti-vibration buckle
1x Insulating washer for LGA775
1x Sachet of Thermal paste
Face down profile of the Matterhorn
The Matterhorn Pure with its complex geometry playing havoc with your eyes. The aluminium fins are sturdy, not giving way under the light pressure of general handling. The edges are smooth and doesn’t feel as though you could cut yourself too easily, some coolers have fins that are akin to razors which cause fear in any enthusiast needing to reach into their case to plug/unplug the CPU fan, fortunately, not here.
Closer Look
Front view
From the front we can see a deceivingly dense fin array that looks more open than it truely is. This is caused by the tapered trapezoid fin shapes and allows for better air penetration. From the copper base we can see the 6x 6mm U-shaped heatpipes pierce up through the sides of the fins up to the top plate.
Matterhorn Pure Base
The 6 heatpipes are sandwiched between a copper baseplate and a profiled lump of aluminium. Through the top of the base plate there are some thick fins and at the centre is a thick cut channel to house the retention plate. The heatpipes are slightly staggered in a left to right fashion which helps distribute heat amongst the fins more efficiently.
The baseplate is lapped to a reflective shine
The argument still rages as to whether a direct touch or flat baseplate to distribute heat is better, though I for one prefer a flat mirror like surface and the Pure doesn’t disappoint. The baseplate measures 39mm x 50mm and easily covers a Sandy Bridge-E CPU.
Razor test
The baseplate is perfectly flat in all directions and passes the razor test with flying colours.
The 120mm WingBoost fan
Designed by Alpenföhn themselves, this PWM fan moves between 500-1500RPM moving up to 108m³h (that’s about 63CFM) and has the duty to remove the heat from the tower. An interesting feature here is the ‘Plus-function’ which is an integrated splitter that allows you to ‘piggy back’ another 4 pin PWM fan via the same motherboard header to allow for a controlled push-pull setup. The only downside to this is that only 2 fan mounting clips are included so to use the Matterhorn Pure in push-pull you will need to source another 2 fan mounting clips.
Underside of the fan
On the rear of the fan we can see 4x anti-vibration mounts which can stop any potential noise or rattle while the fan is in operation.
Closer Look (continued)
Face on with fan installed
mounting the fan with the provided clips was easy though its a shame that the height which the fan is mounted is restricted due to the shape of the top plate. The top plate doesn’t have the retention channel cut out for the mounting clips. While this is not a functional issue, it does restrict this cooler in regards to memory compatibility.
Side profile with fan
From the side we can see the turned up edges of the fins which help direct airflow over the fins. The Matterhorn Pure is 123mm thick when the fan is mounted and stands at 157mm tall, which is an average height for a cooler that mounts a 120mm fan.
The top plate with the Alpenföhn logo embossed onto it.
The top plate is attractive and neutral at the same time and is a lot more minimalistic when compared to some more garish cooler designs.
Sizing up against the NH-D14
The Matterhorn is just short of the height of the Noctua NH-D14 which stands at 160mm tall, however, the Matterhorn’s fins stop slightly higher than that on the NH-D14. The Matterhorn is 2mm slimmer than the NH-D14 too.
Installation
Mounting the Matterhorn Pure was very simple and quick on the LGA2011 socket and only required a number of steps.
The LGA2011 socket
Intall the LGA 2011 nuts into each corner
Add the two Intel brackets in desired orientation
Screw down and tighten with the remaining four nuts
To finish, mount cooler and strap down with retention plate which is screwed into the brackets on either side
The fins appear to give good memory clearance
Memory clearance
With the fan installed, the Matterhorn Pure towers over the second memory DIMM and the clips are barely 1-2mm clear of the Crucial Ballistic Tactical memory modules that stand at 35mm tall. Clearance on the reverse side, too, would be limited on the LGA2011 platform if you wish to use an extra 120mm fan for a push-pull configuration. This means that this cooler should only be considered for use with low profile memory.
Test Setup
CPU – Intel Core i7 3820 (3.6/4.8GHz)
RAM – 8GB (4x2GB) Crucial Ballistix Tactical Tracer (1600MHz CL8)
Motherboard – MSI X79 GD65
Graphics card – Sapphire Radeon HD 6850 1GB
Power Supply – NZXT Hale90 650W
Hard Drive – Kingston HyperX 240GB SATA III SSD
Case – Corsair Carbide 500R White
RAM – 8GB (4x2GB) Crucial Ballistix Tactical Tracer (1600MHz CL8)
Motherboard – MSI X79 GD65
Graphics card – Sapphire Radeon HD 6850 1GB
Power Supply – NZXT Hale90 650W
Hard Drive – Kingston HyperX 240GB SATA III SSD
Case – Corsair Carbide 500R White
CPU Coolers:
Alpenföhn Matterhorn Pure
Noctua NH-D14
Program Suite:
Real Temp
LinX stress Test
CPUID HWMonitor
How I tested:
Testing will be based on temperatures recorded by Core Temp and HWMonitor after 20 passes of LinX stress test. The maximum absolute temperatures will be recorded after the test and averaged over the 4 cores. The delta is then calculated by subtracting the ambient temperature recorded near the intake fans from the average temperature calculated. Tests are conducted with the i7 3820 at its default 3.6GHz stock speed and overclocked to 4.8GHz @1.4V. The tests are done inside the Corsair Carbide 500R chassis to simulate real world conditions. To keep the tests standardised we are using Noctua’s NT-H1 thermal paste on all coolers unless specified in the result entries.
A kind thank you to Noctua for supplying us with NT-H1 thermal compound.
Results
Stock
At stock speed we see the Matterhorn pure perform within 1.3 points of the Noctua which is pretty impressive. You could attribute that to the 960RPM of the WingBoost fan compared to the 760RPM of the Noctua, none the less the Matterhorn Pure remained silent.
Overclocked
When overclocked the Wingboost fan spun up to its max of 1560RPM to keep the CPU cool within 2.5 points of the Noctua. At this point you could say that the Matterhorn is holding up here using a faster fan, but the Wingboost, while audible, did not become disruptive nor uncomfortably loud.
Passive
Running passive tests allow us to see the efficiency between the two coolers, with the Noctua pulling away by nearly 10 whole points we start to see the difference between a £31 cooler and a £65 one.
Conclusion
When talking about a product that has been stripped down for the sake of cost cutting, it is often difficult to push your mind away from words such as ‘budget’ and ‘cheap’ which come in tandem with ‘poor quality’. Then you have marketing jive trying to reassure you that the product will still live up to your hopes and dreams, many are all too familiar with the feeling of being ripped off. well it is my duty to crush any such thoughts, not once while handling this product did I think that I was handling a ‘budget’ mid range cooler and the term ‘Pure’ is literally the most appropriate term that could be used to describe this version of the Matterhorn. This cost cutting approach to offer big performance at excellent value has also been used by competitors who seem to forget the spirit as to ‘why’ they are cost cutting in the first place.
The Matterhorn pure is solid, well made and is compatible with all sockets of current times. It comes with a nice 120mm WingBoost fan that can remain comparatively quiet even at full speed and can deliver great cooling performance. While we can strive for perfection, there are some flaws. In consideration to memory clearance, those with tall memory modules may want to steer clear. It is a shame Alpenföhn didn’t bundle a second pair of fan mounting clips too, because those looking for a push-pull configuration will have to source them separately.
All things considered, the Matterhorn Pure has a lot to offer and will deliver a heavy blow to the mid-range sector with its excellent value, quality and performance.
For those reasons we award the Matterhorn Pure with our Gold award and our Amazing Value award.
Pros
+ Good performance
+ Easy to install
+ Support for Intel and AMD sockets (including LGA 2011 and AMD FM1)
+ Relatively quiet
+ Price
Cons
– Memory clearance
– Only one pair of fan clips
+ Good performance
+ Easy to install
+ Support for Intel and AMD sockets (including LGA 2011 and AMD FM1)
+ Relatively quiet
+ Price
Cons
– Memory clearance
– Only one pair of fan clips
Click here for an explanation of our awards at Vortez.net.
