CoolIT Systems ECO A.L.C. CPU Cooler Review

Testing…Finally

And now we come to the moment everyone has been waiting for; the impetus behind this review. We finally get to the point where we compare the three sub-$80 water coolers we’ve now had come across our bench. Many have asked how these coolers stack up against each other, even though CoolIT is in a precarious position of competing against itself.

And as the results have told us, the CoolIT ECO has surpassed the original Domino A.L.C. in cooling performance and has totally blown the Corsair H50 out of the water. To make sure it was a fair fight, I had to make sure the fans on all three coolers were running at max. At full speed, the CoolIT ECO beat the Domino by 8% and the Corsair H50 by 19% when the CPU was idle. Placing a full 100% load on all four cores of our test CPU brought the numbers a little closer to each other, with the ECO pulling ahead of the Domino by just 4% and the Corsair H50 by 6%.

This may not seem like a big gap, but those extra few degrees of headroom can make a difference should you choose to overclock the CPU that will eventually reside under this cooler. Though I wouldn’t recommend hardcore overclocking using any of these entry level water coolers, the highlighted performance of CoolIT’s ECO A.L.C. might be just enough for you to push a few extra MHz out of your CPU safely. Having said that, comparisons between overclocked results can vary based on the amount of voltage being used. As we all know, not all CPUs get to a particular clock speed with the same voltage thus the only way to get a consistent result is to use the CPU at stock settings for testing. Your mileage varies when pushing things out of spec so please feel free to share your results in the comments.

As for acoustics, the CoolIT ECO did produce a noticeable din at idle when used on my open test bed. It was about 2dBA louder then the Domino A.L.C. However when installed into a case, the sound of the ECO was lost to the internals of that case and the fans held within. Under load the Corsair H50 is still the quietest of the three coolers, but not by much and at a cost in performance to the others.

Final Thoughts and Conclusion

The CoolIT Systems ECO A.L.C. CPU cooler is a great response to the Corsair H50, and a great addition to the CoolIT line. CoolIT has done it once again, packing a well built product with excellent performance into a kit that sells for less than $70 USD. That’s less than many aftermarket air-cooling solutions and is yet another great cooler to look at for those wanting an easy to install gateway into water cooling. It can also fulfill the need for a quiet cooler for a hot CPU.

The benefits to this kit are numerous. As I noted the kit is very well built and solid, which was one of the complaints I had with the first release of the Domino kit. The fan on the ECO is quiet even at it’s highest setting, and can have its speed varied by way of a PWM connector. CoolIT even went ahead and included all the mounting hardware you’d need to use this cooler with almost any motherboard and CPU combination produced in the last 4 years. Their innovative new mounting system really makes it possible to have it all without extra parts. This is the first product I haven’t been able to muster a single complaint about in terms of user experience.

The only thing I can really gripe about is that the cooler doesn’t quite have the performance for serious overclockers, but that’s about it. CoolIT has other products for those purposes and it’s really not fair to put that on the ECO because it does what it does extremely well.

In the end, the CoolIT Systems ECO A.L.C. CPU cooler is summed up rather simply. It’s inexpensive (retails for only $74.99 US), performs wonderfully, and is well built. It shows how easy water-cooling a system can be, and how little one has to spend on it. Anyone who wants a good, quiet cooling solution should be out there buying one right now.

Pros