Arctic’s Liquid Freezer II 360 is a top-tier cooler with superb acoustics, capable of cooling over 290W, for excellent sustained performance when paired with Intel’s i9-13900K.

The VRM fan clearly does something, and temperature improvements will follow the more even FPM on either side of the VRM heatsink, but we also want to be clear that a top-mounted radiator would also benefit the VRM. If software ARGB support is important to you, make sure to select the model which includes the ARGB Controller. Given that the Arctic Liquid Freezer II 280 runs so quietly, operating the unit with a good PWM curve should allow for aggressive fan speed without excess system noise. While in the past a CPU hitting its peak temperature was cause for concern, enthusiasts are going to have to learn to accept high temperatures as “normal” while running demanding workloads with Raptor Lake and Ryzen 7000 CPUs. In a serious bid for the hearts, minds, and dollars of this consumer Arctic (formerly Arctic Cooling) has released their second-generation, Liquid Freezer II 360 All In One cooling solution.This is our time to steady state at a noise-normalized 35-dBA, or the time at which we reach equilibrium. The X72 and EVGA CLC 360 do poorly here, mostly because the noise requirement is low enough while the fans are small and plentiful enough that they struggle to reach the static pressure required to compete with the 280 CLCs. The Arctic Freezer requires the AM4 mounting plate, fairly standard for most CLCs, and uses just four screws through the rails that mount according to the socket. I gave up and just connected to the CPU fan header and it gave me the signal, not sure if this would be the same situation in your case but its worth trying.

And, like the Liquid Freezer II’s fans, the water pump is PWM-controlled and adjusts its speed accordingly.The FPM baseline was 0 – meaning air was almost literally not moving in the room, or at least in the area of the bench. Our next chart will be of the VRM fan performance, but we’ll start with the one everyone is used to. Arctic claims to have designed its own pump solution and says that it has used a partner to manufacture it, but we’ll learn more about that when we do our video tear-down in the next few days.

The Arctic Liquid Freezer II series has gotten heavy community interest because of high reported performance in the enthusiast forum userbase. The Liquid Freezer isn’t yet tried for reliability, and that’s a huge component of coolers that we can’t accelerate for a review.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. The chemical reaction and degeneration of the gasket is a slow process and can occur within the 6-year warranty period. Note that the best frequency doesn’t mean it’s the coolest – it becomes more touchy, since frequency jumps around to begin with, and because a better cooler means Precision Boost 2 will kick into higher frequency, which creates more heat. Similar behavior has been standard in laptops for years due to cooling limitations in cramped chassis. This is a similar distance to what you’d find in a lot of cases, with fans blowing toward the motherboard.

By accepting all cookies, you agree to our use of cookies to deliver and maintain our services and site, improve the quality of Reddit, personalize Reddit content and advertising, and measure the effectiveness of advertising. That was because when I "tried" disconnecting the arctic fans from the pump to plug them into CPU_Opt to control them directly, I saw two fan RPM's, a 1600 and a 1700. I have push/pull on my LF II 280 with full speed nf-a14's and honestly I don't see much of a difference even compared to the h100i plat that it replaced. 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. B) it will be difficult to run a push/pull due to the sheer size of the radiator depending on your case.The featured video is independently produced by GamersNexus, ARCTIC has been authorized to use by GamersNexus. The majority of Liquid Coolers on the market today are based around Asetek designs, but the Liquid Freezer II features a pump which was designed in-house by Arctic, with the goal of quieter operation and higher efficiency. We'll send breaking news and in-depth reviews of CPUs, GPUs, AI, maker hardware and more straight to your inbox. I'm using very good CM Nepton 140XL which is doing great job on my 3700x Ryzen but is pushing it's 6th year and time to change the cooler. The EVGA CLC 360 shows that we’re not limited by our test bench, but also that jet engine levels of noise are needed to drive the temperature down further.