Alphacool R9 290 Waterblock: Review | Test |Specs |Hashrate | Pros & Cons| Set-up

Alphacool R9 290 Waterblock: Review | Test |Specs | CPU | Hashrate |Pros & Cons Set-up| Config – After testing a “custom” water-cooling kit from these gentlemen from Alphacool, I named the Cool Answer 240 D5 / XT (link here) which is really an excellent starting point for anyone planning to take the plunge. to the water, whether in terms of performance, manufacturing quality, ease of assembly or silence. Today I am going to present to you a waterblock dedicated to the GPU, still from Alphacool and which will have the heavy task of cooling a small consumer monster that is the R9 290 (the MSI R9 290 Gaming OC), to note that of course different versions of the R9 290 are in circulation and Alphacool therefore offers different water blocks, it is the M02 model which will therefore be tested today.

Offered at a price of around 87 € (you must of course already have a watercooling circuit ready to accommodate it) it could be a great way to cool an R9 290 silently if the build quality is the performance follow, but knowing the brand that shouldn’t really be a problem, but let’s not jump to the conclusion before having tested the beast!

Specification: Hashrate – Alphacool R9 290 M02 GPU Cooler

As we can see the compatibility list of the M02 version of the R9 290 waterblock is quite restrictive, indeed only the cards from MSI models R9 290 (V308-002R) VER: 2.2 and (V308-014) are concerned, all the other R9 290 / 290X will have to go through another water block (there are about ten available). The dimensions are simply those of the card with a length of 26.7 cm, 9.82 cm high and 2.92 cm thick.
Regarding the materials we are facing the great classic here, the back plate as well as the large front radiator are made of aluminum while the waterblock itself is made of copper (covered with a plastic fairing), It will be possible fit G1 / 4 fittings.
The price of around 87 € places this waterblock among the cheapest on the market, but you should know that only the GPU will be actively cooled, the rest of the components (such as VRMs for example) will have to rely on the large radiator to keep up. fresh.

The box is like what we find on all the brand’s products, namely a thick black cardboard with the logo printed as well as a label showing the exact model of the product. Not much to say here except that sobriety is required, no pompous marketing that is completely unnecessary as well.

Once opened we fall on the black back plate of the kit, placed on another piece of cardboard and packed in its plastic bag.

Below the waterblock itself accompanied by its bundle.

The bundle consists of:

• 1 x Waterblock
• 1 x back plate
• 2 x sachets of thermal pads (gray for the front of the board, black for the back)
• 1 x thermal paste tube
• 1 x installation manual
• 1 x allen key
• The necessary screws

As we can see the bundle of the waterblock R9 290 from Alphacool is complete, whether it is the thermal pads for the front or the back of the card, the thermal paste as well as of course the installation manual and the plate back of the graphics card, even a small allen key is included. Nothing is missing for the assembly to go very well.

Here is the beast, a rather massive look as we can see! It consists of a large heat sink in machined aluminum so as to be able to accommodate the components of the card without interference as well as a water block which of course covers the GPU itself. The build quality is excellent here, we can see that these gentlemen from Alphacool want to provide a quality product. The water block itself is covered with a plastic fairing with a very good quality “soft touch” finish.

The entrance to the exit are marked so as not to be mistaken, you never know!

The edge displays the color, we will immediately recognize the type of card which is cooled by the waterblock.

Here is the bottom, each important component has its small point of contact with the radiator, the VRMS, the memory, as well as the various others likely to heat up and in need of cooling. The plate in contact with the GPU is made of nickel-plated copper. As we can see, many spacers are present in order to fix the block to the card by as many points as possible.

The finish of the waterblock is excellent, the nickel-plated copper gives an impression of a high-end product, on the other hand no mirror effect here, even if this should in no way lead to a loss of performance.

The back plate in aluminum and marked with the logo of the brand. The build quality is once again very good and the cutting takes into account the elements that must not come into contact with the components (the power connectors and some pins). The whole thing will be fixed here using the many screws provided.

Always the part which can put off the neophytes, whether it is with air or water cooling, the assembly! The instructions, although succinct in the manual, show everything you need to do, luckily it is not too complicated with Alphacool. First of all you have to put the graphics card (an MSI R9 290 Gaming OC) naked, and completely, therefore, you have to remove the cooler, the radiator present on the memory as well as the back plate. Note that disassembling a graphics card almost always voids the warranty, so you do so at your own risk!

Now that the card is bare, you must place the thermal pads on all the components that will be in contact with the radiator, like this:

As we can see everything is well covered by the pads, memory, VRM, as well as some small components. Also, don’t forget to put thermal paste on the GPU itself, a little grain of rice or a very thin layer will do. Now that this is done we place the radiator on top, being careful to align the spacers, once the radiator is placed we turn the card over:

We will now take care of placing the black thermal pads on the back, as for the front face we put all this in the same places, like this:

Once all this is done we arrive at the end! Just place the back plate on the thermal pads, once again being careful to match all the holes, so that you can easily fix everything, like this:

Be careful not to screw the screws one by one like a nag, you have to go slowly with your hand at first and force a little more when they are all roughly in place.

Here is the beast once mounted! The least we can say is that the whole thing is quite massive, and not just the air because when you have the map in your hands you say to yourself that it would make a perfect weapon to knock someone out, without no danger for the card itself 😉 However, be careful with the back plate if the graphics card is installed on the first PCIe slot glued to the socket, with a large cooler there may be compatibility problems, nothing which is not, however, similar to what I saw with the Arctic Cooling Accelero Xtreme IV however (see the photo here).

And hop a small photo of the card installed in the box, added to the circuit already present!

The test platform

The configuration used during the tests is as follows:

• Processor : Intel Core i7 5820K @ 4 Ghz
• Graphics Card : MSI R9 290 Gaming OC
• Motherboard : Gigabyte X99 Gaming G1 Wifi
• Memory : Corsair 4 X 4 GB 2666 MHz (tested here)
• SSD : Plextor M6 Pro 256 GB (tested here)
• Power supply : be quiet E9 580CM (tested here)
• Operating system : Windows 8.1 64bits
• Watercooling : Alphacool Cool Answer 240 D5 / XT (tested here) + 1 x Alphacool NexXxoS XT45 240 mm radiator

The test protocol

The temperatures will be read after 30mins of FurMark 1.13 which should correspond to the maximum temperature achievable by the graphics card in extreme conditions.
The graphics card will be tested several times, once with the original cooler of course, once with the Arctic Cooling Accelero Hybrid III 140 (tested here) and twice with the waterblock installed, the fans of the two radiators at minimum and at maximum. The pump as for it (adjustable flow, 5 positions) will remain on 2, which provides a flow largely sufficient for the processor and the graphics card.

The temperatures

At rest the temperatures are good but not exceptional, in 5V we go up to 40 ° for the GPU and VRMs, of course nothing that is too high. In 12V we gain a few degrees to go down to 38 ° for the GPU and 37 ° for the VRMs, the VRMs are not actively cooled by the waterblock but are fond of the air flow generated by the box, the radiator fins being parallel to the latter.

In charge we see the full potential of the R9 290 waterblock from Watercool, indeed the GPU temperatures are the best in the comparison! In 5V the GPU goes up to 59 ° and in 12V 56 °, it is of course light years away from 94 ° (when Powertune comes into play) of the original cooling and much better than the kit from Arctic Cooling, even if the latter is excellent for an AIO kit. On the other hand the only small problem here lies at the level of the VRMs, indeed the R9 290 consuming a lot the VRMs are put to the test, without active ventilation they naturally heat up a lot, but in the end with 94 ° in 5V and 88 ° in 12V this happens at the level of the original cooling and does not really affect the life of the components,

Noise pollution

Note that the noise pollution recorded for the waterblock is the entire machine, it is impossible to note the noise pollution of the pump and fans apart since they are installed inside the box, the Arctic Cooling Hybrid III 140 and the original cooling system are separately priced!

Knowing this, we must admit that the results are more than excellent! Indeed with 34.1 dB in 5V (for the whole configuration!) And 39.1 dB in 12V it is really very difficult to be choosy. The noise generated is only linked to the components that will be integrated into the loop, in fact the pump of the Alphacool Cool Answer 240 D5 / XT kit (tested here) is almost inaudible in position 2 and the fans (of the Noiseblocker PS12) are also almost inaudible. , suddenly the complete loop is logically almost inaudible 😉
By comparison with the 5V fans, the complete system is as quiet as the fans of the Arctic Cooling Hybrid III 140 (the pump being noisier) and less than the cooler of origin.

In load since the fans are not PWM the sound level does not logically move and the results are therefore even more telling than the other solutions, indeed the original cooler explodes the comparison with 57.3 dB while the Arctic Cooling Hybrid III 140 arrives at around 38 dB. To sum up, none of the solutions present come close to the ankle of the complete water-cooling system, 34.1 dB for the entire configuration under load is simply excellent, especially taking into account the thermal release of such a configuration.

Here we are at the end of this test, what to say about the Alphacool Waterblock R9 290 M02?
As the complete watercooling kit coming from Alphacool their waterblock R9 290 is not left out, the build quality is excellent, the product exudes quality, is solid and everything is included in the bundle to add the beast to a circuit existing. The performance at the GPU level is really excellent there is not the slightest doubt about it but on the other hand the waterblock itself only cools the GPU the temperatures of the VRMs are not really the best observed, even if they do not. are no worse than with the original cooling system of the card.

In terms of noise pollution it is quite difficult to form an opinion given that they will result directly from the fans and the pump already installed, one thing is certain however, if you add the Alphacool R9 290 M02 waterblock to an Alphacool Cool kit Answer 240 D5 / XT (test here) with an additional radiator then silence will be required!
Offered at a recommended price of around € 87, the water block for R9 290 from Alphacool is much cheaper than its competitors, it will be an excellent alternative to the original cooling system if you already have a “custom” water cooling system, otherwise the bill will be much saltier! Be careful, however, to choose the right model, as graphics cards are of course not all exactly the same.

Advantages

• Build quality
• GPU performance
• Price

Disadvantages

• Passively cooled VRM

A big thank you to Eddy from Aquatuning who allowed me to do this test.

Where to find the Alphacool Waterblock R9 290 M02?

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