Alphacool Core 140 3200RPM Review

Introduction

As the last model out of Alphacools Core Series of all-rounder fans, we have the 3200RPM quick 140mm model. Although the 2500RPM quick model was already quite the astonishing performer considering the price, let’s now see how far we can push this.

What's in the Box?

Unlike most Fans we had a look at before, Alphacool's Core 140 series comes in the most OEM packaging possible.

Hidden inside a simple white box we will find the Fan and nothing but the Fan.

Therefore, BEWARE, there are not even screws included with this fan. For people building PCs on a regular basis, this may not be a huge issue as it's quite normal to accumulate a small mountain of regular fan screws over time. For first-time builders or people who only build PCs every few years, you might need to keep this in mind and get them beforehand. 

Other than the white color, the box is kept simple to a degree at which the sticker on the lower left corner is the only thing enabling your to keep the boxes apart.

Installation

Installing an Alphacool Core 140mm fan without any preparation might become quite an obstacle without any included screws.

However, once you got some, may it be because you have a dedicated bag full of them, or purchased them, installing the fan is as easy as it is for any other fan out there.

Position the fan, screw in the 4 screws, done.

To make the fan spin we just need to connect the 40cm long PWM cable to one of the available case fan headers on the motherboard and we are good to go. 

Appearance

Similarly to the 120mm lineup, the new Core 140mm fans are staying true to their own name.

Being all "Core" means no unnecessary extras. Every aspect of the fan is kept as simple as possible while only concentrating on delivering a High-Performance. 

The Fan itself as well as every one of its details is coming in an all-black finish. All around the fan, simplicity is king. Therefore there is no rubber around the screw holes, no accent colors, nothing that could catch somebodies attention. The most detailed aspect about the frame can be found on the corners, which have extra reinforcements for additional strength.

Compared to the 2500RPM quick 140mm version, there is absolutely no optical difference. We still got the 7 slightly bent but quite thick wings, very similar to what we can see on Noctua's NF-A14 lineup.

Benchmark

We tested Alphacool's new Core series 140mm fan spinning at max 3200RPM in our usual hybrid Case-almost-Heatsink benchmark machine.

Letting the Fans spin at their max speed, they managed to keep the CPU at 36.9°C above ambient. A fantastic result placing the 3200RPM quick version just slightly behind Phantek's T30.

On the Noise to Performance ratio, the 3200RPM version performs very similarly to the 2500RPM version, just with a bit more overhead.

Conclusion

Although jumping from the 2000RPM 140mm to the 2500RPM quick 140mm version made some immense advances on the Performance and Noise to Performance front, we cannot really say the same going up to the 3200RPM version.

Even if we got slightly more headroom by upgrading the fan's motor, the upgrade is not nearly as significant as we thought it would be. Additionally to that, at this point, we have long entered the space at which letting the fan spin at such levels becomes unbearable to be setting next to it.

Therefore, although we fully acknowledge the upgrade as measurable, we believe it went back to useless for personal Home/Gaming PC usage. For Servers and out-of-the-room systems, on the other hand, every bit of squeezed-out performance would be a win!