If you're looking to silence your system, but are sporting a board with an AM1 socket, you may be having a somewhat tough time finding a new CPU cooler. Because of the way the slot is designed, there aren't actually all that many coolers for it, because the CPU coolers that fit on the mainstream sockets don't fit on the AM1 socket. Now, however, Arctic revealed two new units for the cheeky socket, and not only do they fit, but they are also cheap – right in line with the goal of the AM1 platform.
The new units are called the Alpine M1 and the Alpine M1-Passive, and you guessed it, the latter doesn't have a fan.
The first unit is capable of dissipating up to 50 W, which is more than the little AM1 CPUs will generate. It comes with a simple aluminum fin stack, through which air is blown by an 80 mm fan that spins at 750 RPM. Sadly, Arctic only quoted a noise level in Sone, although a quick search revealed that 0.1 Sone translates to about 20.5 dBA – relatively silent. The unit is 41 mm tall.
The Alpine M1 Passive is arguably more interesting, however, featuring no fan at all, but it is notably larger at 70 mm tall. In short, it's an aluminum cube big enough to passively dissipate the heat generated by the CPU that would be resting underneath it. Do note that you'll probably need a bit of case airflow in order for this to work effectively, or at least a very open-air design. Of course, we don't need to tell you that this one doesn't make any noise at all, but we just did. If you're interested, do make sure that it fits in your case before you buy it.
The Alpine M1 is available for $9.99 at Amazon (opens in new tab), as is the Alpine M1 Passive, albeit for 50 cents more (opens in new tab).
Follow Niels Broekhuijsen @NBroekhuijsen. Follow us @tomshardware, on Facebook and on Google+.
