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63 About this deal
On the top side of the angled plastic pump unit is the 40mm VRM fan. The translucent housing of this fan is not RGB LED lit, and this feels like a missed opportunity by Arctic. Summer is up, and the room’s fan is on, which is why I could not measure the noise level of the unit. Should You Buy It? If you do this then be careful as I tried this once while I was dismantling something on my pc and it nearly fell off. But if you do want to do this then you would have to get the arctic as the deepcool's tubes are too short for this (i.e. putting the rad on top, not inside the case) Interestingly, the three fans are connected to each other via a daisy-chain approach that is pre-routed. This is an excellent solution as the cable management is far cleaner than what a typical end-user could achieve. The 5000d airflow will be a pretty good choice. It will also allow you to put three fans in the front and top mount the rad (which I always recommend)
Our next chart continues with the 3950X 200W load, but allows all the coolers to run at 100% fan speed during the test. 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. The results were +/-1C as usual, but our average ended up at 50.9 degrees over ambient. That’s not enough of a change, so there’s room to reduce noise level without much loss of overall performance. At the 1610RPM speed, the Arctic cooler ran at 42.5dBA at the normal 20” distance. This puts it about equal in thermal performance to the NZXT Kraken X62 and X72, which run around 51-53dBA, or a perceived noise increase to the human ear of about 2x. Again, that’s perceived to the human ear, not acoustic power, which is a different scale. Either way, Arctic’s solution is significantly quieter at the same performance. 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. 3800X – 35dBA Other than those points, I have very few complaints. The 6-year warranty is superb, I love the fact that the cable management is so straightforward for an end-user, and even classy touches such as including a tube of thermal paste have me impressed.While cooling performance is absolutely amazing, thermals are only one part of the picture. How loudly the cooler runs is very important as well. In its default configuration, Lian Li’s GA II Trinity Performance runs loudly at 55.2 dBA. I’ve only tested a handful of coolers that reach this level of noise. Yes, the Arctic Liquid Freezer II 360 A-RGB delivers some of the strongest VRM thermal performance for our test data. However, the gains versus other AIOs are not as significant as we would have expected. And Arctic’s cooler is certainly no match for the VRM cooling potential of the ASUS ROG Ryujin II 360 and its bigger VRM fan.
The nature of a review cycle (while a product is relevant) typically dictates that there’s no means to realistically test for endurance or age. We can revisit in the future if needed, but that’s the only question mark left after the review process: Arctic’s pump design is new, something we’ll look at in our tear-down video coming up shortly, and a new design means we have no reference point for endurance and reliability. 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. Failures are overall rare, however, and that’s always important to note. We’ll send you to our Air vs. Liquid cooler content for more of an explanation on this front. It also has the benefit of allowing the entire cooler to be handled by just two cables connected to the motherboard – one ARGB header for LED lighting and the 4-pin PWM header which manages the three radiator fans, pump, and VRM fan. The associated cables for fan and LED control are either pre-routed via the daisy-chain, or they are hidden inside the mesh wrap around the liquid cooling tubes. The next test will be for the VRM fan. For this, we’re going to start with an overlay demonstrating the linear feet per minute flow, often called FPM or LPM, as measured with a hotwire anemometer at the edge of the chassis for the cooler. The measurement is taken at an angle toward the VRM heatsink. We measured at a few points and under a few conditions. Then again if you get the deepcool you can just front mount it and call it a day. I haven't personally had any experience with deepcool's radiators but I've heard good things and for the smaller size I think it would be worth it for you to buy it from your local store This shows the delta in height, measured in microns, from a calibrated 0-point. The A500’s box plot shows the largest range, illustrating the chaotic levelness that hurt its performance, while the Deepcool Assassin III and original Wraith coolers have some of the best levelness. The Arctic Liquid Freezer II averaged about 8-10 microns depth from the 0-point, with minimums and maximums at 2 microns and 48 microns. The Liquid Freezer II has a couple deep points in the coldplate, but is overall closer to the smooth end than the unlevel end. Installation & Mounting
Silent and strong performance make Arctic’s 360 AIO a compelling cooling option.
After installing and testing it, I found Cooler Master’s new MasterLiquid 240 Atmos especially impressive. It’s clear the company has improved its flagship AIO in several key areas. Noise levels are low in most common workloads, and despite its smaller 240mm profile, the 240 Atmos is one of only a handful of AIOs I’ve tested that's capable of keeping Intel’s i7-13700K under its peak temperature, even in the hottest of workloads. While it was fairly easy with previous generations of CPUs for coolers to keep the flagship i9 processor well under TJ max (the maximum temperature a CPU can sustain without throttling) in tough workloads, this is no longer realistically possible with the Core i9-13900K without extreme cooling (or enabling power limits). 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. I care more about CPU temps since GPU temps are pretty good as is. The last of us, 140% render (1080P native) didn't break 65-66 ... the CPU on the other hand went nuts, at least 70 degrees, frequent climbs to 76-77 (bursts of 80ish). And that was with 40% of usage and less. Playing A plague tale: Innocence, with 10-15% of total usage with each core less than 20%, some 4-6% and the temps were climbing to 60-63 (ambient no more than 25). Note the use of delta temperature data in our charts and factor in your own ambient conditions for reference.
Under PBO conditions with full fan and pump speeds, the Arctic Liquid Freezer II 360 A-RGB does a good job. As expected, the lower noise output delivered by slower and lesser airflow fans does come with a cooling compromise. dBA at full fan and pump speeds is absolutely fine to set next to for a working or gaming session. I would have no worries about running the Freezer II 360 level of noise on a 24/7 basis, but the excellent PWM fan speed range is also available.
Apple cancelled this, now what?
Very impressive indeed! Though with this noise level, thanks to modes speed fans by AIO standards, we do wonder if full-speed thermal performance will be compromised slightly. Let’s find out. Corsair’s iCUE H170i Elite LCD XT AIO offers the best cooling performance we’ve tested yet with Intel’s i9-13900K, handling over 325W in our most intensive thermal tests. And unlike other coolers, the noise level of the H170i Elite is tied to the CPU coolant temp, resulting in quieter operation during most common tasks and the elimination of bursty fan behavior. The tradeoff is that we saw noisier operation under the kinds of sustained loads that we use for testing. You’ll need to make sure there’s room to install an AIO cooler in your PC case, preferably in the top or rear, exhausting your CPU heat out of the chassis. AIO coolers typically come in three sizes, defined by the dimensions of the radiator and the fans the radiator is designed to fit: 120 (one 120mm fan), 240 (two 120mm fans), or 360mm (three 120mm fans).
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