Conclusion

Performance

The Eisblock XPX CPU water block performed well at both stock and overclocked settings when paired up with the Haswell-E system. It did not manage to beat out the pack leaders, but maintained a close second to them. The most telling data is seen when comparing the Eisblock and the previous generation NexXxos XP3 Light. Alphacool certainly did their homework in designing the Eisblock, clearly evident in the performance gains over the NexXxos. The use of a jet impingement plate and micro-channel design in the Eisblock XPX seemed to give it a performance advantage over with the micro-pin design of the NexXxos XP3 Light.

Pricing

As of March 29, the Alphacool Eisblock XPX CPU water block was available at Amazon.com for $69.99 with Prime shipping, at Newegg.com for $73.25, and at PerformancePCs.com for $73.50.

Conclusion

Alphacool has a well designed block on their hands with the Eisblock XPX CPU water block. They took their previous design with the NexXxos XP3 Light and went an entirely new direction with major payoffs. Alphacool was able to realize increased performance and a superior mounting mechanism with their ground up design of the Eisenblock cooler. The mounting brackets themselves are among the cleverest I've come across, and the easiest to switch out as well. You simply fit the two halves of the bracket into the slot in the cooler body and snap them together like jigsaw pieces. The design and use of a jet impingement plate and micro-channels in the base plate was another design win for them, leading to that performance increase mentioned previously.

While the design of the block and how it fits together was flawlessly engineered, the use of acetal in the mid-parts of the block could lead to long-term issues if you over-tighten the barbs one too many times (since you could strip the threading on the inlet or outlet ports). Use of copper in the middle plates would have addressed this, and could have also garnered a bit more performance out of the block (not saying that the Eisblock XPX is a slouch by any means though). Maybe Alphacool will be releasing an all copper special edition of the block down the line, you never know. The nickel-plating on the bottom-plate was a well designed addition to the block as well.

Strengths

  • Performance under stock and overclocking conditions
  • Build quality of the cooler
  • Mounting bracket design and ease of use
  • Out of the box support for current Intel and AMD socket offerings including AMD's Ryzen AM4 socket
  • Acetal top design and engineering
  • Nickel-plated bottom plate
  • After-market customization options available at launch

Weaknesses

  • Acetal top

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