We just don’t think that’s going to be very common, and while it gets praise for doing a good job and chart-topping, we don’t think it should be the deciding factor in the purchase. Also, many will think that with compression fittings comes expandability, and with wires run through the fitting and under the sleeve, even if you wanted to void the warranty, the cards are stacked against you.

The box did say you could get extreme cooling while being silent, and this test proves that one of those claims is true! bruhhhh not to sound like an asshole but you definetly need the hoses starting from the top of the pump, not the bottom. This doesn’t move the needle much for Arctic, which seems to top-out in its efficiency at around 1200RPM rather than its maximum 1600RPM.Small fans have the reputation of being particularly loud and not very durable; that’s why we set out to develop a quiet, sturdy diagonal fan, especially for the Liquid Freezer II. In instances where you’d really need that VRM fan, you probably should just use a better case, motherboard, or add more fans to the back of the case. While the Liquid Freezer II 280’s 140mm fans are factory installed and managed with the same PWM power that controls the pump and auxiliary fan, we opted to disconnect the fans and run them independently for our tests, allowing for independent PWM cooling fan management while the pump remained powered at 100%. The power comes back out of the head unit via a 3-pin cable, which powers the VRM fan, with no RPM monitoring wire. Additionally, all coolers shipped by ARCTIC are already compatible with Intel's Alder Lake and Raptor Lake LGA1700 processors.

If it’s between this and another cooler, and you mostly have your heart set on the other one for visual or compatibility or warranty reasons, don’t let the VRM fan sway the decision.

The hardware is easy to use, there is a freaking VRM cooler, which isn't some gross addition, and something we may have poked fun at near the beginning of the review, but also reminds us of older HIS graphics card coolers. Still, the cooler supports the majority of current Intel desktop CPUs as well as AMD’s AM4 (Threadripper) socket. Gaining an extra 50MHz over a high-end air cooler is about the difference you can expect if you’re not planning to overclock.

Our next chart continues with the 3950X 200W load, but allows all the coolers to run at 100% fan speed during the test. If your board is going to run so hot that you need an extra 5-degree reduction, it’s probably time to find another board or case solution altogether. With the radiator fans blowing and the VRM fan off, measured on the other side of that solid VRM heatsink, FPM predictably drops to 64-66.

With a third of the cost missing from comparable Corsair or NZXT solutions, ARCTIC just keeps piling it on the competition. The all-in-one cooling handles the entire cooling requirements — even of the most powerful processors from Intel ® and AMD ®. The first thing we did was to grab the pair of top mounting brackets, and with a couple of provided screws, mounted them to the head unit. For this one, we’re using a 200W workload with the AMD R9 3950X, which is more useful for stressing the differences in high-end coolers. In our last post, we took a look at the best 360mm AIO coolers on the market and, in this guide, we’re going to cover the top 280mm AIO options.

In the future, most of the current CPU coolers will be delivered with the mounting set for the Intel 1700 socket. In general, liquid coolers outlive the usable life of the system, and potentially two systems, but those that fail do so in a much more visible or catastrophic fashion.The auxiliary cooling fan on the CPU pump unit can be oriented in whichever direction you choose, as it’s designed to provide a spread-focus blast of air over the components you wish to benefit.