A plastic support frame attaches to any Intel socket 775 or socket 1156 motherboard with a set of small plastic push pins (from above, removing the motherboard is not necessary). The rest of the heatsink is held in placed with a set of phillips machine screws that simultaneously apply clamping force and retain the heatsink into its plastic retention frame.

As is par for the course, the Arctic Cooling fan is attached to the heatsink with soft rubber vibration absorbing posts.

Traditionally, cooling fans are clipped or screwed firmly onto the rest of the heatsink. Screws will hold a fan securely, but do nothing to prevent rattling sounds from developing if motor vibration exists.

The Alpine 11 Pro uses rubber fixtures at each corner which reduce the chance of errant noises, and at the same time absorb or dampen some of the vibrations that are inevitably caused by minor imbalances in the impeller. Arctic Cooling's 'dualaxial' rubber post hold the lightweight Alpine 11 Pro fan in position, in both axis. The long term stability of the rubber fixtures with respect to drying out and becoming brittle, is the one component which remains to be seen.

Base Finish and Flatness

Flipping a heatsink over to inspect the business end is often a simple indicator of overall cooler quality. More practically speaking, a heatsink is in many ways only as effective as the contact it makes with the processor - the flatter and smoother the better. Base finish is one of the criteria that Frostytech measure in the course of evaluating heatsinks, and it involves two distinct aspects. Surface Finish is the first; this is calculated with the aid of Surface Roughness Comparator that has a cross section of common machine surface finishes and their numerical surface roughness equivalents in microinches. The second is Surface Flatness. This is tested with an engineers straight edge or proven flat surface, in two axis.