Technically, anodization adds a coating to aluminum which does not bode well for convection. Well that's on paper anyway. Our own Thony put Arctic's Alpine 11 Passive and Arctic 12 Passive to the test, and the difference is noticeable.
The anodized Alpine 12 performed between 3°C and 5°C better than its basic counterpart. Also both were able to keep the dual-core i5-4570T (35W TDP) from throttling. Special guest appearance from two venerable retirees, Zalman FX70 and Nofan CR-95C.
