Arctic Freezer i30 CPU Cooler Review

A fairly sturdy plastic backplate uses sticky tape to connect to the rear of a motherboard. While this is a good idea, in use the plastic was very awkward to remove and could potentially stick to the motherboard itself.

Arctic provide adhesive tape to stick the spacers to the motherboard. This tape is very awkward to stick to the spacers due to being forced to peel it from a separate sheet. It was so awkward that we skipped using the adhesive tape altogether which made keeping the spacers in position far more difficult. Mounting plates screw into the backplate through the plastic spacers.

The cooler is screwed into the mounting plates which makes removing the fan necessary.

Overall the installation was relatively straightforward. The sticky backplate was convenient but does have issues while the adhesive tape for the plastic spacers is of questionable use unless you have a large amount of patience.

On MSI P67A-GD65 motherboard the Freezer i30 completely overhangs the first DIMM slot. Our 31.5mm tall Corsair XMS3 modules would have been able to fit under the i30 if they were overhung.

When installed in our NZXT Phantom case the Freezer i30 looks fairly large in size but doesn’t cause much interference.