Arctic Cooling Freezer 13 CPU Cooler Review

Test Setup
[COLOR=#000000]CPU: AMD Phenom II X2 550 BE
Motherboard: ASRock 880G Extreme3
RAM: OCZ Platinum DDR3 1600 Dual Kit
HSF: Arctic Cooling Freezer13
Graphics: XFX HD 5850 Black Edition
PSU: Tagan 480w
Storage: Seagate 7200.12 500GB
Case: CoolerMaster ATCS 201CM
Operating System: Windows 7 x64 Premium

To determine how well the Freezer13 performs we tested it against Arctic’s own Freezer64. The Freezer64 Pro is largely the same as the hugely popular Freezer7 Rev2, the difference being the Freezer7 has the same universal socket mounting as the Freezer13, whereas the Freezer64 Pro has an AMD specific clip. It should be noted at this point that the newer bracket on the Freezer13 means that once mounted the fan is at 90° to the fan on the Freezer64 Pro.

Each cooler was tested 4 times. The first two tests were carried out with the AMD Phenom II X2 550 BE in two core configuration at stock speed and overclocked to 3.6GHz. For the second two tests the two “hidden” cores were unlocked to test the coolers in quad-core conditions both at stock and overclocked to 3.4GHz. Overclocks were achieved by raising the multiplier, whilst all other frequencies remained at stock.

As far as possible we tried to minimise the number of variables. Using the system above each cooler was mounted on the CPU and HWMonitor used to record the temperature. Vcore was increased to 1.400v to allow overclocking and a stable unlock of the two extra cores on the AMD Phenom II X2 550 BE. MX-2 was used as the thermal compound on the Freezer64 Pro and the pre-applied MX-4 on the Freezer13. Ambient temperature was maintained at 21°C with “Cool and Quiet” disabled and the CPU fan control set to 100% in the BIOS. A single 120mm Enermax Twister Magma exhaust fan at 12v maintained airflow through the case.

For the idle readings the system was booted and allowed to settle for at least 30 mins to achieve a steady temperature (CPU usage throughout was below 2%). The 100% load readings were taken after a minimum of 30 mins running Prime95 torture test on all cores.[/COLOR]