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Most people associate Arctic Cooling with their Silencer line of GPU coolers but they also make computer cases, case fans, thermal compound, and CPU heatsinks. They've built a name for themselves by offering third party cooling solutions at competitive prices. As of this writing, the Freezer 64 Pro can be purchased for an attractive $28.50 from ZipZoomFly (MSRP $34). Arctic Cooling's company profile boasts of low labor costs and it's always appreciated when a company passes on these savings to the end user. So what exactly does a small chunk of change get you in the world of air cooling?
| Heatsink: | 104 x 58 x 126.5 mm |
| Fan: | 107 x 43.5 x 96 mm |
| Overall Dimensions: | 107 x 96.5 126.5 mm |
| Rated Fan Speed: | 2200 RPM |
| Power Consumption: | 0.16 Amp. |
| Air Flow: | 40 CFM / 68 m3/h |
| Weight: | 528 g |
| Noise Level: | 0.8 Sone |
| Thermal Resistance: | 0.18C/Watt |
| Thermal Interface Material: | Pre-applied MX-1 Paste |
| Warranty: | 6 Years |
The Freezer 64 Pro is a large heatsink with a copper base and three heatpipes on either side. The base comes pre-applied with Arctic Cooling's own MX-1 thermal compound (more on that later) protected by a plastic covering that must be removed prior to installation.
As seen protruding from the base are three heatpipes on either side. Heatpipes are becoming increasingly popular in air coolers and even AMD's retail bundled heatsink/fan utilizes a similar design for their dual-core processors. For an in-depth look at this technology, ChE has provided an excellent writeup. In short, the heatpipes allow heat to be transferred rather effectively and the Freezer 64 Pro provides no less than 42 aluminum fins to disperse this heat.
The real beauty of this heatsink however is the 96mm fan. Representing Swiss engineering at its finest, the Freezer 64 Pro is barely audible at full speed. Much of this can be attributed to the slow rotation, as it spins at a mild 2200 RPM. The other factor is the suspension system utilized in attaching the fan to the heatsink. Each corner comes equipped with rubber tabs designed to absorb vibration rather than to tranfer the noise to the heatsink and the rest of the chassis. Unfortunately, this brings us to the first negative point. While the rubber tabs and plastic suspension system work admirably to create a low noise environment, the thin plastic is somewhat fragile. Once testing was complete, my unit suffered a slight tumble on my carpet upon removal and two corners promptly broke right off. This is not a deal breaker by any means, but extra caution should be taken when handling the Freezer 64 Pro and a warning stating as much in the documentation seems a curious omission.
Installing the Freezer 64 Pro is straight forward. While some motherboards require the user to remove and swap the backplate, that is not the case here. Simply remove the plastic cover from the base, maneuver the clips to the retention bracket, and push down the lever locking the heatsink into place. With the base being pre-applied with MX-1 thermal compound, installation is largely a trouble free endeavor. I do have three small gripes however.
1. First, the MX-1 thermal compound is applied heavily and it's already thick to begin with. I experienced slightly better temps by cleaning off the compound and replacing it with Arctic Silver 5, despite Arctic Cooling's recommendation to use only MX-1.
2. My second issue deals with the size of this heatsink. Depending on your board's layout, attaching the unit may require nimble fingers and a dose of patience. In the Freezer 64 Pro's favor, you can detach and reorient the lever on the opposite side if this becomes a roadblock.
3. My last word of caution also deals with the heatsink's size, this time in relation to the RAM slots. On my Asus A8N32-SLI, the fan's grill overhangs slightly over the first slot, which happens to be occupied. I was still able to remove and insert a stick of RAM with heatsink in the way, but it requires phsyically lifting the fragile suspension system and guiding the RAM in at an angle. Not ideal, but not impossible either.
Arctic Cooling recommends orienting the heatsink so that the fan blows in the direction of your case's airflow. In the above picture, the fan sucks in cool air from the front and blows it through the back of the heatsink towards my case's exhaust fan. Installing it in the other direction would have these two fans 'fighting' each other, so to speak.
Now that the Freezer 64 Pro is installed, how does it compare to the heatsinks that come bundled with AMD's retail X2 dual-core processors? Let's find out...
My testbed consists of the following heat releasing components housed in a Lian-Li PC777B chassis:
Technical Data:
- AMD 4400+ X2 (2.2GHz, 1MB L2 cache
- Asus A8N32-SLI Motherboard
- 2GB Crucial PC4000 Ballistic Tracers
- OCZ 600w Powerstream
- XFX 7800GTX PV-T70F-UND7
- Western Digital 400GB/16MB WD4000KD (x2)
Idle and load temperatures were measured at the stock clockspeed of 2.2GHz with a vCore of 1.37v, and then retested at 2.6GHz with a vCore of 1.52v - in essence a juiced up FX-60. In addition, by using SpeedFan I also slowed down the fan on the AMD heatsink to 65%, the point at which the noise was comparable to the Freezer 64 Pro, and looked at the load temperatures (represented in parenthesis). Here's how it broke down:
| 2.2GHz Idle | 2.2GHz Load | 2.6GHz Idle | 2.6GHz Load | |
| AMD Heat Sink | 43C (46C) | 48C (51C) | 50C (54C) | 57C (62C) |
| Freezer 64 PRO | 41C | 47C | 51C | 59C |
The results are a mixed bag. Keeping the CPU vCore on auto (1.37v), the temperatures in my testbed only dropped 2 degrees when swapping out the AMD heatsink. While this is at first disappointing, one has to consider that the Freezer 64 Pro is noticeably more quiet, yet it's not sacrificing any performance. In fact, it's a good 5C cooler once I lowered the stock heatsink to a comparable noise level. In that respect, it's pretty impressive. Still, I was a bit disappointed that their wasn't a bigger disparity in temperatures on a dual-core processor with both coolers running at peak performace. Whether you view this as as a knock against the Freezer 64 Pro or as a testament to the quality of AMD's stock heatpipe cooler is up to you.
Of particular interest to the overclocking crowd are the results obtained once we push some voltages through the processor. In this scenario, the results are fairly similar, though this time the stock heatsink edges out the Freezer 64 Pro by a small amount. If we lower the fan speed, the Freezer 64 Pro leaps back in the lead, but again the disparity is not earth shattering. Keep in mind however that the target audience is not the extreme overclocker, but the user looking for a low noise solution without sacrificing thermals. Keeping this in mind, the Freezer 64 Pro does a good job.