Extremely Quiet
The low speed 92 mm fan reduces the noise level
to a minimum.
The patented fan holder is able to practically eliminate
the typical buzzing sound of 92 mm fans.
Patent No 203 07 981 U1 (Germany)
Patent No 10/834 232 (USA)
The Cooler
The 43 aluminum fins draw
the heat out of the copper heat pipes and the fan
distributes air over the fins to quickly dissipate
the heat. Thanks to the fact that they are using
6 heat pipes and their own pre applied high performance
thermal compound, the Freezer 64 Pro promises to
provide even better cooling performance then their
previous coolers. The bent fins nearest to the copper
base will also help to direct some air over the
motherboard voltage converters to provide some degree
of additional cooling.
Included in the shipping
box there is an information sheet from Arctic Cooling
stating that for the cooler to work 100% it must
be installed so that the heat pipes are aligned
horizontally. That would pretty much eliminate
desktop enclosures.
They also mention that temperatures
will improve after the thermal paste has gone through
a 20 hour hardening and drying time. This 20 hour
time period can be shortened by repeatedly putting
the CPU under load which will heat up the paste
and speed up the drying process. Arctic Cooling
have implemented their new patented vibration
dampening technique that will reduce the
fan noise more so than previous versions. To accomplish
this the motor holder is attached to the frame by
using dual axial rubber suspenders. This in turn
should virtually eliminate any audible noise transfer
from the fans vibrations; which in theory should
provide a near silent cooling experience.
The Retention Clip
Above are two different pics
of the retention clip of the Freezer 64 Pro. As
you can see it is made to attach to all three lugs
on the CPU mounting bracket. This will provide the
maximum level of stability for the Freezer 64 Pro.
This cooler also uses the stock cpu bracket so there
is no need to tear your motherboard out just to
apply a proprietary mounting bracket. This is a
nice feature in my opinion.
Here we have a look at the
cooler after it is installed. You may notice that
the fan appears to be sitting on top of the first
2 pieces of memory. In some situations it could
be difficult to install memory in the first two
slots after the cooler was in place. I would recommend
that you fill the ram slots then install the cooler.
The install was as simple as placing the clip over
3 lugs on one side of the stock cpu bracket; then
using the black lever to place the clip securely
over the remaining 3 lugs.
Test system
*Windows XP Pro x64 Edition
*AMD Athlon 64 3500+ CPU
*Arctic Cooling Freezer 64 Pro
*MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum
*Aerocool Masstige PC Chassis
*2 GB PC3200 DDR
*Dynamic temperature control
Dynamic temperature
control
Another nice feature of the
Freezer 64 Pro is the fact that it will dynamically
adjust it's fan speed according to the temperature
of you CPU. All that I needed to do was to enable
a target temperature for my CPU in my system bios
and the built in sensor will adjust the fan speed
of the heatsink based on temperature. If you look
at the two images below you will see the difference
between dynamic and full fan speed. In dynamic mode
the Freezer 64 Pro keeps my Athlon 64 3500+ at 30c.
This is excellent considering the fan is only spinning
at 1055 RPM and can not be heard over the other
fan noise. After I turn off the desired CPU temperature
feature in my BIOS the fan speed more than doubles.
Even at the increased fan speed the cooler is not
very loud at all. It also took another 5c off the
idle temperature of my CPU.
Prime95
I have to say that I am extremely
happy with the cooling that the Freezer 64 Pro provides.
Running Prime 95 for XP x64 for 30 minutes the dynamic
cooling was great. The fan speed remains at or close
to 1055 RPM which was the same speed it idled at.
Even without having to increase the fan speed the
Freezer 64 Pro kept things well in hand with temperatures
maxing out at 35c. After disabling the temperature
control in the BIOS the fan speed increased to 2687
which is almost 500 RPM above the rated fan speed
of 2200 RPM. Once again noise was not an issue at
all.
Final Words
Arctic Cooling have nailed
it with this Cooler. Great performance combined
with near quiet operation. I would not hesitate
to recommend this to someone looking for a quiet
cooling solution. There is really nothing bad to
say about the cooler although the huge size may
be an issue for some.
I would like to thank
VC from Arctic Cooling for providing me with the
review sample.
