Arctic Alpine AM4 Passive cools for Ryzen APU

Arctic recently introduced the Alpine 12 Passive for Intel processors and now the firm follows up with the Alpine AM4 Passive for the AMD platform. As the name suggests, this is a passive cooler for those wishing to build a zero noise system.

It's basically a big piece of black anodized aluminium, it measures 99mm x 99mm x 70mm (L x W x H), weighs 557g and is compatible with Socket AM4 CPUs. It comes with pre-applied MX-2 thermal compound. Arctic recommends using it with chips with a TDP of maximum 35W, so this means you can only use it with the two Ryzen desktop APUs.

Arctic's internal testing shows the heatsink keeps the AMD APU A12 9800E at 56°C at full load, versus 40°C with the stock cooler from AMD. Basically, a nice niche product.