CoolIt Systems ECO A.L.C. Water Cooler Review

Packaging, Components and Design

Retail packaging

The ECO A.L.C. packaging isn’t much to look at, but it does the job of educating consumers on supported CPU socket types and sports the 2010 CES Innovation Award logo proudly in the left-hand corner of the front panel.

The back panel includes more details about the liquid cooler’s low-profile design and claims that it can “out perform any high-performance air cooling product”. This panel also lists all the technical specifications and includes a nice line drawing of the pump and fluid heat exchanger that is secured over the CPU.

Opening the retail packaging shows how well secured the unit is during shipping. Two molded foam pieces ensure each piece is safe and arrives at a consumer’s doorstep without any defects.

Each foam piece includes small compartments for all the retention brackets for different CPU types.

The unit itself is also secured in custom foam that fits like a glove. They also wrapped the entire device in plastic to keep it clean from particles and other contaminants.  Overall, I like how the device and other components were secured between the two pieces of thick foam. I think the advertising on the retail packaging could have used some work, but overall the technical information was included as well as other selling points about the self-contained liquid cooler.

Components and Design

The new ECO liquid cooler is a more compact version of the original Domino A.L.C., but the active components are almost identical. Coolit kept the 12cm radiator and fan design, but took out a useless LCD display that was originally added to the Domino A.L.C. liquid cooler. The retention brackets are also a bit different, but users still screw it into a backplate to ensure the it is flush and level on the CPU for optimum performance. 

Here’s a close-up look at the fluid heat exchanger and custom CFF1 pump housing. The pump is designed for a 50,000 hour lifecycle Mean Time To Failure (MTTF). It also has ceramic bearings so there is increased bearing clearance and decreased noise later in the life cycle of the pump. The housing cover looks very sleek as the entire system was created with a matte black finish from the liquid relay lines, fluid heat exchange/pump housing, retention bracket, radiator, and 120mm fan.

The custom radiator is around 12cm and fits into any 120mm fan slot on the back or top of your full-tower or mid-tower PC case. It installs on the fan side help exhaust heat from the radiator. Coolit designed the unit to be a low noise, high heat dissipation radiator.

The included 120mm fan is actually a lot thicker than most typical 120mm fans, which helps increase RPMs while keeping fan noise down to a minimum. This particular fan’s maximum output is around 1,800 RPMs.

The copper base is milled beautifully and includes a very thin layer of thermal paste to help users install it quicker. It comes pre-configured for Intel-based systems too. The base is large enough for AMD’s Thuban/Deneb 45nm processors as well as Intel’s 45nm Lynnfields and 32nm Clarkdale CPUs.

Here’s an up-close and personal look at the thinness of the thermal paste. While the base doesn’t have a mirror finish, it should be smooth enough to get good contact with the processor.

The retention bracket design is also a nice feature on the ECO A.L.C. because it support three different Intel socket types include LGA 1366, 1156, and 775.

The low profile design of the fluid heat exchanger and pump housing makes it a perfect addition for any micro ATX, mini ITX, and other small form factor systems.

Coolit Systems also included retention brackets to support AMD’s processors and four heavy-duty screws to secure the fan/radiator to the back of your PC case.

The back plates above are used to connect different AMD and Intel CPU socket types. Each back plate has two adhesive strips to secure the back plate to the back of the PCB. These back plates fit right over the aluminum back plate commonly installed on modern motherboards so you do not need to remove it before installing these  back plates.

Lastly, the installation manual is very straight-forward, has useful installation images, and is written in english, french, and german.