Alphacool Watercooling Starter Kit

Conclusions

Do we like it?

As you can see from the test results watercooling still leads the field in its cooling abilities, although air-cooling seems to be rapidly making ground. The big "buts", though, are the assembly time, maintenance and the extra weight and components taking up room in your case. For example, it took us nearly an hour to install the Alphacool and overnight to test for leaks before we could think about firing up the PC for use. The CNPS9500AT took 15 minutes in total to install and it performed nearly as well.

The only major flaw we can find in the system is the instruction manual. It seems that the manual was written from memory rather from actually building the kit and making notes. As we said before, when dealing with something potentially problematic like water and expensive electrical components, it is essential that any worries are removed by the manual. In some cases we were left wondering if the manual was simply an afterthought. Assembly was easy though, and we expect that with patience and care even the most inexperienced of you could get it up and running it successfully.

Value: Although this is a starter kit, it is by no means cheaply made. There is no doubt during assembly that the components were selected for solidity, durability and reliability. From the Eheim pump, to the bespoke ATX bridging adaptor you can't help noticing that the kit is put together using probably the best components available at such a price.

The kit costs £105 inc vat from The Cooling Shop which places it in the midfield of watercooling solutions. For example, it's double the price of the Thermaltake BigWater SE kit (£59 inc vat) yet still cheaper than the higher-performance twin-fan kits from both Alphacool themselves, and rivals Koolance (£120-245 inc vat).

At the end of the day, you get what you pay for to a certain extent. The Zalman CNPS9500AT pushes regular air-cooling performance to its limit, with great performance both thermally and audibly, and for less than £40. This Alphacool Starter Kit is high quality but lacks the top-end performance of a dual 120mm kit, though one can't ignore the extra investment required to unlock that additional performance.

One possible downside of the other (cheaper) kits is that they are usually inflexible, use bespoke irreplaceable parts and simply don't have the pedigree of those components Alphacool have used.



To summarise:

Pros:
Easy Assembly
Quiet
Efficient

Cons:
Instruction manual could be better
Insufficient cooling liquid

Final thoughts

Because of how seemingly out of reach watercooling has been so far, liking or even wanting in it your system has very much been source of many a debate. Some people will swear by it, others will say it's not worth the hassle, in some cases fear of electrocution will deter some from even trying it. Alphacool have tried their best, with this kit, to dispel some of the myths of watercooling by making it accessible to all.

The execution is very good albeit not free from flaws, however minor they may be. It is quite evident that the kit is literally assembled out of components available separately, to improve value and remove the confusion of starting to use water (what Radiator, fitting or tubing for example). If you are planning to use it in it's current state then we suggest you take a good look around before investing in it.

If you are looking for the barebones for future upgrades then you couldn't go far wrong with the Alphacool Watercooling Starter Kit as it's components can be easily interchanged or added to and quality is evident out of the box as soon as you lift the lid.