Arctic Cooling Freezer 64

Introduction

Arctic-Cooling has been known mostly for their dominating VGA Silencers, which combined efficient cooling and minimal noise. We reviewed their latest update of VGA silencers months ago and awarded them the “Highly Praised” award. Today, we will be looking at their latest innovation. The Freezer 64 utilizes a patented fan that creates almost no noise. Hopefully, this heatsink will be just as effective as their VGA Silencers were.

Freezer 64

The Freezer 64 immediately catches your attention with the description on the box. If you cannot read the details on the box, this is the information from Arctic-Cooling’s website.

Extremely Quiet

The low speed 80 mm fan reduces the noise level to a minimum.

The patented fan holder is able to practically eliminate the typical buzzing sound of 80mm fans.

Patent No 203 07 981 U1 (Germany)

Patent No 10/834 232 (USA)

Powerful cooling

The Heat Pipes with expanded diameter are able to transfer heat up to 200 Watt. The heat exchanger is built of 40 fins and consists of a surface area of over 5000 cm2 and allows for resistance free energy transfer to air.

Low Weight

In the high performance range of coolers, this cooler count as featherweights with less than 500 grams which avoids mainboard socket problems.

Easy Installation

The cooler is to install without any tools within seconds.

Long Lifetime / 6 Years Warranty

The ARCTIC Ceramic Bearing provides an unmatched Life Time of 137'000h (L10@40°C) resp. an MTBF@70°C of 163'000h and thus a 6 year warranty.

Judging from the features alone, Arctic-Cooling has invested in a considerable amount of research and development to produce their most effective and convenient cooler. They manufactured a patented fan that is supposed to eliminate the “buzzing” sound of a normal 80mm fan, while effectively incorporating the use of four rather large heatpipes to dissipate heat. You also receive an excellent cooling-to-noise ratio, along with the added convenience of using the stock mounting bracket existent on your motherboard. We will have to see if these claims are to good to be true. But for now, Arctic-Cooling has included everything you need to mount this heatsink: the cooler, thermal paste, and an “AC” sticker for the modding freaks out there. While not as robust as other manufacturers’ heatsinks, Arctic Cooling is trying to market this cooler as a simple aftermarket upgrade without excess and confusing parts.

From a profile perspective you can view how the fan itself looks free-standing, as if it were floating in front of the heatsink. Although I don’t know much about their patented fan holder, it seems the buzzing sound heard from 80mm fans and their enclosures is eliminated if the enclosures are eliminated altogether. The heatsink also utilizes 40 fins to dissipate the heat from the heat-pipes. This means this tower, unlike most copper cooling towers out there, is lightweight (only 460g compared to the Hyper6 which is twice its weight) and users need not worry about it falling off during transit. The base of the cooler itself is unimpressive. The finish looks to be machine sanded to a very course 300 or 400 grit, but it is flat. You can’t notice the reflection of the quarter at all, a feature which is guaranteed in high-quality heatsinks, such as Thermalright. However, a mirror-finish does not always correlate to the lowest possible temps, so this minor setback may not even impact the performance of this cooler whatsoever. The heat-pipes themselves are very huge, much wider than those found on the Hyper6 or the XP120. Perhaps Arctic-Cooling found the best possible combination of cooling with larger pipes and aluminum fins. The retention mechanism is built on the heatsink itself, which means users looking to swap out different retention mechanisms will be disappointed as Arctic-Cooling markets these towers for different platforms.

Aesthetically, the cooler is made to look industrial. The sleeving for the fan is a matte black, while the copper and aluminum are not the incredibly shiny and polished look seen on Cooler Master or Thermalright heatsinks. Even the tips of the heatpipes on top of the tower look a bit unprofessional, as if they were left soldered on without the polish. Artic-Cooling does include a “Freezer 64” sticker on top of the tower for those with a window on their PC case.

Specifications

As previously mentioned, the heatsink weighs about 460 grams. This is about a pound less than the Hyper6 and 100 grams more than the XP-120. Overall, the heatsink is very light. The fan is just a little under 80mm, spins at a maximum of 2200 Rpm’s, and puts out 32 CFMs of air. Upon hearing the fan, I was amazed at the silence for the amount of air it pushes. In comparison, it was just as quiet as my Ultra Quiet Panaflo 80mm fan that puts out 24 CFM at only 21db. This fan is indeed very special.

Installation

Installation was a breeze with this cooler. It uses the retention bracket, so it attaches in the same manner as your stock Athlon64 heatsink would. Simply align one side of the clip on the motherboard bracket, then line up the other side onto the motherboard bracket, and press down on the lever to keep the heatsink firmly against the CPU. I really wish most heatsink manufacturers would make use of the existing bracket so most of us users can install new heatsinks without having to take out the entire motherboard. I’m glad Arctic Cooling decided to use this convenient feature.

*Please note in the pictures the Freezer 64 is installed on a DFI LanPartyUT250GB, but I used a Gigabyte GA-K8NXP-SLI for testing.*

Testing Setup and Results

Test Setup and Method:

The TIM (thermal interface material) I used was Arctic Silver 5. Ambient temperature was 21°C (+/- 1C). I used a Compunurse flat thermal probe attached to the side of the A64’s IHS and another thermal probe to measure ambient temperature. For load temperatures, I ran CPU Burn for 30 minutes and took IDLE temperatures after 30 minutes of startup. I also tested the heatsink in an open environment on a test bench as opposed to inside a case.

• Athlon64 3000+ 0440SMPW (at 2.7GHz overclocked to 1.7v)
• Gigabyte GA-K8NXP-SLI
• 1GB Centon Advanced PC3200LL
• 2x6800GT PCI-E in SLI
• OCZ PowerStream 600w

At the moment, I did not have a spare empty case to test this heatsink in, as the 6800GTs in SLI mode tend to overheat when put in any kind of case. I used an Athlon64 3000+ Winchester. These processors already run very cool, which is why the temperatures may seem very cold in comparison to temperatures seen on a Prescott, Newcastle, or Sledgehammer. I also chose to compare the Freezer64 against Thermalright’s XP90, which seems to be the best performing heatsink at the moment (combined with a loud Thermaltake 92mm fan which has a max air flow of 87CFM).

Results:

The Freezer64 did an amazing job in keeping up with the much louder XP-90. The XP-90 was equipped with louder 87CFM Thermaltake 92mm fan while the Freezer64 only has a fan capable of 32CFM. Both heatsinks, despite the large difference in noise, were able to keep the overclocked 3000+ below 50 degrees Celsius. However, the Freezer64 was able to do so with little noise.

Conclusion and Thoughts

Overall, I was more than impressed with this heatsink. Although not a performance heatsink like the XP90 and a 74CFM fan, the heatsink performed admirably on a stock and overclocked system. I suspect that this heatsink is catered mostly towards your average enthusiast, who doesn’t want to spend too much on an excellent performing cooling solution that is near silent. Combined with the easiest installation I have ever encountered for a heatsink in its class, the Freezer 64 is an amazing piece of hardware that will surely find its way into many PCs. Arctic-Cooling has done the impossible with this cooler (excellent price, excellent cooling, excellent noise/performance ratio, excellent installation convenience), and it is for this reason that I am awarding it InsaneTek’s “Must Have” award.

We would like to thank Scythe for providing us the sample. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to hit us up in the forums. You can also check out more of our latest reviews on the front page.