Famous for its copper insert, this thing is big! Among the biggest in this roundup. I know there are coolers with bigger heatsinks like The Core but the heatsink of this cooler is nothing but amazing.

The bottom of the heatsink is properly lapped. Completely flat and smooth. All Alpha heatsinks are forged, not machined from a block. Forging means forming the metal using a hammer while it's hot - the same method used to make a sword. Of course, they use advanced machinery, instead of a hammer.

In this case, Alpha used heat to form the heatsinks. That is why their heatsinks are slightly more expensive than non-forged heatsinks. There are only two manufacturers here who use the forging process - Alpha and Taisol. This heatsink was designed to be used with socket converter because they don't take up too many RAM slots (due to their low height), while maintaining their performance.

The cooler came disassembled. It's quite easy to assemble it even without the included manual. You just have to put in the shroud, the clip and some screws by yourself.

The weight of this cooler is okay. Still under the recommended specifications. But I personally don't like its clip. It's a little too small to grip although I managed to install it using two fingers. Taking it out is a different story. A pair of pliers is required to take it off without damaging anything.

Because of the clip, this cooler may not sit properly on the processor. That's why eight 'feet' are included if you are using the Intel FC-PGA processor since all new AMD processors already have their own 'feet'. In my case, I installed the feet onto the processor, instead of the heatsink as instructed in the manual.

If you would like to follow the manual's instructions, there are four marked circles to serve as a template for the four feet. While this might not be important, it comes with a sticker, either to stick it on the heatsink itself or in front of the casing; to show the world that your system is cooled by an Alpha cooler. :)