The new GOAT - Arctic Liquid Freezer III Review

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enwell everybody this if you don't know what it is shame on you this is the Arctic liquid freezer 2 and for a lot of people including us this is one of if not the best all-in-one liquid coolers on the market right now if you don't believe me you can check out our all-in-one look a cooler Roundup right up here but look Arctic looked at this thing and they said this is not the ultimate cooler that we can create there's some areas to improve so what have they come up with well this is the liquid freezer 3 and in many ways it takes what the freezer 2 did and improves and evolutionize it in almost every conceivable way this might be the new all-in-one liquid cooling champ so pushing aside what's actually changed the freezer 3's price is the real star of the show here for me normally it ranges from 105 us for the basic black 240 mm version all the way up to 164 bucks for the white 420 mm with ar argb lighting and yes Arctic is finally coming out with white aios those are already super aggressive prices in today's market but for the next few weeks arctic's running an introductory sale just like they did with the p12 max so you can get the basic black 240 mm version for just $77 us and the highest n420 mm with all the RGB bling for less than most companies sell their entrylevel aios for yeah that's a few bucks more than the original freezer 2 Series sold for but that was years ago and I've left links for all of those coolers in the description down below those links help us make content like this so if you think that you want to buy one of these by all means click through one of those and we can continue making some cool content like this video so let's go through some of the differences between the second and third generation coolers arctic's huge 38 mm thick radiator largely remains unchanged the water Channel and fin Heights have increased from 26 mm to 32 mm meanwhile it has the same fin density size and overall design as the freezer 2 the same thing unfortunately goes for the fans there's still the standard p12s in both black and with argb depending on the cooler you choose and the lighting on those fans well it looks a bit dated compared to some of the other stuff out there but at this price it is what it is I know we all hoped that the new p12 Maxes would roll out with arctic's Next Generation freezer series but they're not due to two factors first of all they aren't available with RGB and they would simply drive up the overall cost so I'm guessing Arctic figuring that if it ain't broke don't fix it but it's nice to see the fans come pre-installed and pre-wired so no need to mess around with a ton of screws the tubes run about 450 mm which is one of the longest on the market but now they're made out of much more flexible material that's good news since the freezer 2 was a pain in the butt to get into more confined spaces and you know it's amazingly flexible for its size this case from thermal take somewhat Tiny But Mighty the classic vending machine case is now now slightly bigger to support your massive GPU obsessions with a built-in stabilizer clip and a 280 mm oldin one cooler with a 140 mil fan fitment on all mounts the best part is it can't fit a Micro ATX motherboard with some limitations but a fullsize ATX power supply is not a problem we have fine dust filters everywhere and that interesting LCD panel for memes or System Info complimenting old the hardware on display the new tower 2005 colors Check It Out Below anyways while the fans and the radiator assembly haven't changed all that much compared to the freezer 2 where all of arctic's focus was was basically in the new pump head design it has been revised from start to finish and there's some really interesting stuff going on here this one gets a cleaner overall look rotatable tubes and a completely revamp design the entry-level black versions don't get any lighting whatsoever and the overall look might be a lot cleaner than the freezer 2os but it does look a little bit like a turbine engine's intake any of the RGB equipped models come with integrated lighting B below that turbine looking thing and it plays up the blade effect I guess that's what you could call it personally I think it looks better than the freezer 2 but it might not be your jam for people who like the idea of an integrated fan on the previous generation model it's still there but it offers a much broader almost 360° cooling Zone and it's a bit larger which cuts down on its noise but then again you can't really hear it anyways I also love the addition of a 3 to1 adapter here so you can control the pump main fans and vrm fan individually ually instead of running everything off a single cable and the RGB well it is what it is there's nothing spectacular here but look if you're out to get the sexiest blinged out AIO you're going to spend a lot more for it and for people who might have super tight ITX builds that fight for every millimeter of vertical space the overall pump head has grown in height too by a lot and that is something you absolutely need to take into account all of those things are held in place by a magnetic cap that hides the mounting system as well as the pump oh and that pump's all new too it runs quieter even though it has a higher top end speed than its predecessor and even though the pump can be controlled via pwm I wouldn't actually recommend you do that because you can actually run it at 100% Speed without sacrificing all that much in terms of noise because this is one of the quietest pumps we've ever come across on an aiio let's have a listen so when it comes to most aspects in the overall physical design of this Arctic listened to all the feedback that people had and improved this thing for the better but to me the biggest change is not what you're seeing here the biggest change is the mounting hardware and that has been it has gone through an evolution of Epic Proportions because look at this this is the freezer 2's Hardware while this is the freezer 3's it's infinitely simpler but there's also some very very unique things like a contact frame for Intel CPUs these things have been available for years in the aftermarket but this is the first time I'm seeing one included on a cooler while it does complicate the installation process a bit it replaces the stock ilm or independent loading mechanism and you'll need to use the included Torx head screwdriver to do it but the process is pretty straightforward either way it's supposed to straighten out processors that are potentially bowed which improves overall mounting consist consistancy between the Cooler's base plate and the cpu's heat spreader I've actually tested contact frames in the past you can find that video right up here but when push comes to shove these things can either be very very helpful for CPU temperatures if your processor is slightly bold or they don't really have any effect whatsoever on the flip side of that coin they don't actually hinder performance either at least not in our testing but maybe unfortunately for Arctic and for this video none of the CPUs that we use in any of our test platforms here at the office have exhibited all that much boring or at least enough boing for the contact frame to have any net benefit but look props to Arctic for actually including one of these because they have gone absolutely Above and Beyond on AMD well the offset Mount is back which is something that helped make the freezer to one of the best all-in-one liquid coolers we've ever tested on am5 CPUs but instead of two whole positions that allow for either a standard or offset positioning there's only one so you are obligated to use the offset in most situations that isn't a problem but it also leads to the freezer 3 simply being incompatible with some motherboards since it can't be rotated 90° so the tubes can smash right into some taller m.2 heat sinks the only solutions would be to flip the pump at 180° or remove the m.2 heat sink altogether to clear as much confusion that this causes as possible Arctic added a a product Searcher on their website I'll leave a link in the description down below overall though Arctic has perfected every single part of their installation process and if you remember that installation process was my only major critique for the freezer 2 but look with all of that out of the way I wanted to get right into testing on the Intel platform starting with gaming because that is probably what most of you guys are going to be doing with your systems anyways and straight from the jump the freezer 3 delivers some absolutely amazing results not only are they 1 to 2 degrees better than its predecessor but out of the 13 240 mm aiio we've tested the only one that consistently beats it is the T30 and that thing costs almost double its price so what we're looking at at least on an Intel system when gaming is an incremental upgrade but one that makes already good performance look phenomenal meanwhile switching to an all core workload turns the results upside down the freezer 3 improves on the freezer 2 but it's at best a middle of the- pack performer here beaten out by options like the Frozen Edge which costs less and the nucleus that runs about the same as a freezer 3's regular price one of the main challenges here seems to be the fans without those being improved in any way the changes to the pump and radiator end up resulting in minor benefits moving on to 253 Watts well with such low speed fans and a massive radiator the freezer 3 gets into the top five in low noise performance but then at 30 DB and higher it's starts lagging a bit behind some of the other options but look arctic's Focus has always been on delivering the best performance at whisper quiet noise levels so mission accomplished I guess it's also important to remember that less than 4° separates most of the 13 coolers we've tested so in this situation at least unless you want to spend big on the T30 you won't see many tangible benefits from one to another unfortunately just like the freezer 2 arctic's latest 240 mm AIO can't get under Intel's T Junction when all the 13900 K limits are completely removed but if we drill down into clock speeds the freezer 3 actually delivers some impressive numbers relative to its price especially at 36 DB where it matches or beats some coolers that cost a whole lot more and what happens if you have the freezer 2 should you upgrade to the freezer 3 well there's absolutely no way you should have any fomo over these numbers since for all intents and purposes these two coolers perform almost identically and those are the Intel results at least ours because I'm sure that as you're watching this video there are other reviews out there that are showing some spectacular improvements between the freezer 2 and the freezer 3 on the Intel platform and that simply comes down to the contact frame doing what it's supposed to do our CPU is very much in a flat situation where the contact frame will have minimal if any benefits meanwhile there are tons of documented cases out there of slightly bold CP us and I'm sure some other reviewers are going to experience exactly that so the contact frame will of course have a massive benefit for them so what we're left with are the minor evolutionary changes Arctic did that affect the actual Cooler's performance and those obviously don't impact Cooling in a noticeable way at least again not on our Intel testing platforms but when it comes to AMD well that's where at least for Arctic at least the rubber really hits the road starting with gaming the freezer 2 was already good but the third version is absolutely insane at that low noise level Sweet Spot it's the best cooler we've ever tested here and moving on from there the only thing that can beat it is the LT 520 and while that deep cool is Untouchable at higher RPM levels the Arctic still gets awfully close and for now at least it'll have a much better price too move outside gaming though and the freezer 3 really starts to dominate on a 7600 X in an all core workload it even consistently beats the ruen 3 and remember that AIO is one of the most expensive on the market today meanwhile it also stays comfortably ahead of the LT 520 here but I also have to remind everyone that the scale of our line graphs might make some of these gaps look massive and yet if you look a bit closer the difference between the freezer 3 and the worst cooler we've tested here is only about 4.5 de while the Delta between it and the freezer 2 is just 1.3 de so while arctic's evolutionary approach definitely does lead to some consistent improvements over the previous generation sometimes more than others they shouldn't cause anyone with a liquid freezer 2 to run out and buy the new one then again seeing a sub $100 cooler absolutely destroy nearly everything else out there well that's a good feeling because as we move upwards in the ryzen CPU stack and heat increases the gaps between many of these coolers end up widening more and more and yes even with the lava hot 7950 X the freezer 3 still manages to beat or match the T30 and rugen 3 two aiio that cost more than double what it does if you can even find them and sure you're only looking at less than a degree lower than the freezer Tu but hey at least it's something well that is if you call half a degree something because in most tests that's just rounding error I mean sure there were some minor updates but they weren't enough to distinguish one liquid freezer from another in this test and as with all of these reviews there's one last thing I wanted to try and that is some fan normalized testing with arctic's own p12 Max because if that Roundup that we talked about before showed us anything it's that these thick boy radiators that Arctic is using they benefit in a massive way from The increased static pressure afforded by better fans than the regular p12s that are currently being used on there well those p12 Maxes while they did lower temperature by almost 3° in our Intel limits test every other cooler except the T30 gets noticeable improvements too actually the temperature drop is almost identical to the freezer 2os that simply means the freezer 3's competitive positioning doesn't really change in a fan normalized situation with the p12 Maxes so with all that out of the way where do I ultimately stand on the freezer 3 and let's be honest Arctic had a massive mountain to climb when it came to finding anything to improve upon with the freezer 2 because that was a legendary cooler but what they did here is not necessarily increase overall performance unless maybe you're running a slightly bold CPU and that contact frame makes that massive difference for you what they did is they simply focused on the user friendliness and to make this more appealing to more people what that led to is a pump head that looks a lot less controversial there's rotatable fittings the tubes are a lot more flexible the fans come pre-installed and the list goes on and on the installation process has also been rationalized and simplified you get an AMD offset Mount alongside bananas cooling numbers and an Intel contact frame which didn't do anything for us but it'll be an immense help for some folks and even without that frame having an effect on our specific processor the freezer 3 is still super competitive on LGA 1700 and when you package all of that into one product this thing getss our damn good award and you know what even if its price is that $15 that is the original starting price for this and not the sub 80 price category that for the next couple of weeks at least this thing is going to find itself fighting in the Arctic freezer 3 also gets the damn good value award what Arctic has done here is they've bucked so many trends that we see prevailing in the cooler space that means higher prices for mediocre performance but not with this thing at all yes I know everybody is probably screaming at their screen about hey what about the p12 Maxes why aren't these things part of the freezer 3 kit well there is a sort of positive side to this whole thing right now you can buy the 240 mm version of the freezer 3 remove its fans replace them with p12 Maxes and still come out a lot cheaper than 99 % of the other aios out there in the 240 mm category and with that combination you are guaranteed to have some absolutely crazy performance at an amazing price so anyways that's all for me in this video I hope that you enjoyed our first individual 2 40mm AO review and I will definitely see you in the next one have a great day guyswell everybody this if you don't know what it is shame on you this is the Arctic liquid freezer 2 and for a lot of people including us this is one of if not the best all-in-one liquid coolers on the market right now if you don't believe me you can check out our all-in-one look a cooler Roundup right up here but look Arctic looked at this thing and they said this is not the ultimate cooler that we can create there's some areas to improve so what have they come up with well this is the liquid freezer 3 and in many ways it takes what the freezer 2 did and improves and evolutionize it in almost every conceivable way this might be the new all-in-one liquid cooling champ so pushing aside what's actually changed the freezer 3's price is the real star of the show here for me normally it ranges from 105 us for the basic black 240 mm version all the way up to 164 bucks for the white 420 mm with ar argb lighting and yes Arctic is finally coming out with white aios those are already super aggressive prices in today's market but for the next few weeks arctic's running an introductory sale just like they did with the p12 max so you can get the basic black 240 mm version for just $77 us and the highest n420 mm with all the RGB bling for less than most companies sell their entrylevel aios for yeah that's a few bucks more than the original freezer 2 Series sold for but that was years ago and I've left links for all of those coolers in the description down below those links help us make content like this so if you think that you want to buy one of these by all means click through one of those and we can continue making some cool content like this video so let's go through some of the differences between the second and third generation coolers arctic's huge 38 mm thick radiator largely remains unchanged the water Channel and fin Heights have increased from 26 mm to 32 mm meanwhile it has the same fin density size and overall design as the freezer 2 the same thing unfortunately goes for the fans there's still the standard p12s in both black and with argb depending on the cooler you choose and the lighting on those fans well it looks a bit dated compared to some of the other stuff out there but at this price it is what it is I know we all hoped that the new p12 Maxes would roll out with arctic's Next Generation freezer series but they're not due to two factors first of all they aren't available with RGB and they would simply drive up the overall cost so I'm guessing Arctic figuring that if it ain't broke don't fix it but it's nice to see the fans come pre-installed and pre-wired so no need to mess around with a ton of screws the tubes run about 450 mm which is one of the longest on the market but now they're made out of much more flexible material that's good news since the freezer 2 was a pain in the butt to get into more confined spaces and you know it's amazingly flexible for its size this case from thermal take somewhat Tiny But Mighty the classic vending machine case is now now slightly bigger to support your massive GPU obsessions with a built-in stabilizer clip and a 280 mm oldin one cooler with a 140 mil fan fitment on all mounts the best part is it can't fit a Micro ATX motherboard with some limitations but a fullsize ATX power supply is not a problem we have fine dust filters everywhere and that interesting LCD panel for memes or System Info complimenting old the hardware on display the new tower 2005 colors Check It Out Below anyways while the fans and the radiator assembly haven't changed all that much compared to the freezer 2 where all of arctic's focus was was basically in the new pump head design it has been revised from start to finish and there's some really interesting stuff going on here this one gets a cleaner overall look rotatable tubes and a completely revamp design the entry-level black versions don't get any lighting whatsoever and the overall look might be a lot cleaner than the freezer 2os but it does look a little bit like a turbine engine's intake any of the RGB equipped models come with integrated lighting B below that turbine looking thing and it plays up the blade effect I guess that's what you could call it personally I think it looks better than the freezer 2 but it might not be your jam for people who like the idea of an integrated fan on the previous generation model it's still there but it offers a much broader almost 360° cooling Zone and it's a bit larger which cuts down on its noise but then again you can't really hear it anyways I also love the addition of a 3 to1 adapter here so you can control the pump main fans and vrm fan individually ually instead of running everything off a single cable and the RGB well it is what it is there's nothing spectacular here but look if you're out to get the sexiest blinged out AIO you're going to spend a lot more for it and for people who might have super tight ITX builds that fight for every millimeter of vertical space the overall pump head has grown in height too by a lot and that is something you absolutely need to take into account all of those things are held in place by a magnetic cap that hides the mounting system as well as the pump oh and that pump's all new too it runs quieter even though it has a higher top end speed than its predecessor and even though the pump can be controlled via pwm I wouldn't actually recommend you do that because you can actually run it at 100% Speed without sacrificing all that much in terms of noise because this is one of the quietest pumps we've ever come across on an aiio let's have a listen so when it comes to most aspects in the overall physical design of this Arctic listened to all the feedback that people had and improved this thing for the better but to me the biggest change is not what you're seeing here the biggest change is the mounting hardware and that has been it has gone through an evolution of Epic Proportions because look at this this is the freezer 2's Hardware while this is the freezer 3's it's infinitely simpler but there's also some very very unique things like a contact frame for Intel CPUs these things have been available for years in the aftermarket but this is the first time I'm seeing one included on a cooler while it does complicate the installation process a bit it replaces the stock ilm or independent loading mechanism and you'll need to use the included Torx head screwdriver to do it but the process is pretty straightforward either way it's supposed to straighten out processors that are potentially bowed which improves overall mounting consist consistancy between the Cooler's base plate and the cpu's heat spreader I've actually tested contact frames in the past you can find that video right up here but when push comes to shove these things can either be very very helpful for CPU temperatures if your processor is slightly bold or they don't really have any effect whatsoever on the flip side of that coin they don't actually hinder performance either at least not in our testing but maybe unfortunately for Arctic and for this video none of the CPUs that we use in any of our test platforms here at the office have exhibited all that much boring or at least enough boing for the contact frame to have any net benefit but look props to Arctic for actually including one of these because they have gone absolutely Above and Beyond on AMD well the offset Mount is back which is something that helped make the freezer to one of the best all-in-one liquid coolers we've ever tested on am5 CPUs but instead of two whole positions that allow for either a standard or offset positioning there's only one so you are obligated to use the offset in most situations that isn't a problem but it also leads to the freezer 3 simply being incompatible with some motherboards since it can't be rotated 90° so the tubes can smash right into some taller m.2 heat sinks the only solutions would be to flip the pump at 180° or remove the m.2 heat sink altogether to clear as much confusion that this causes as possible Arctic added a a product Searcher on their website I'll leave a link in the description down below overall though Arctic has perfected every single part of their installation process and if you remember that installation process was my only major critique for the freezer 2 but look with all of that out of the way I wanted to get right into testing on the Intel platform starting with gaming because that is probably what most of you guys are going to be doing with your systems anyways and straight from the jump the freezer 3 delivers some absolutely amazing results not only are they 1 to 2 degrees better than its predecessor but out of the 13 240 mm aiio we've tested the only one that consistently beats it is the T30 and that thing costs almost double its price so what we're looking at at least on an Intel system when gaming is an incremental upgrade but one that makes already good performance look phenomenal meanwhile switching to an all core workload turns the results upside down the freezer 3 improves on the freezer 2 but it's at best a middle of the- pack performer here beaten out by options like the Frozen Edge which costs less and the nucleus that runs about the same as a freezer 3's regular price one of the main challenges here seems to be the fans without those being improved in any way the changes to the pump and radiator end up resulting in minor benefits moving on to 253 Watts well with such low speed fans and a massive radiator the freezer 3 gets into the top five in low noise performance but then at 30 DB and higher it's starts lagging a bit behind some of the other options but look arctic's Focus has always been on delivering the best performance at whisper quiet noise levels so mission accomplished I guess it's also important to remember that less than 4° separates most of the 13 coolers we've tested so in this situation at least unless you want to spend big on the T30 you won't see many tangible benefits from one to another unfortunately just like the freezer 2 arctic's latest 240 mm AIO can't get under Intel's T Junction when all the 13900 K limits are completely removed but if we drill down into clock speeds the freezer 3 actually delivers some impressive numbers relative to its price especially at 36 DB where it matches or beats some coolers that cost a whole lot more and what happens if you have the freezer 2 should you upgrade to the freezer 3 well there's absolutely no way you should have any fomo over these numbers since for all intents and purposes these two coolers perform almost identically and those are the Intel results at least ours because I'm sure that as you're watching this video there are other reviews out there that are showing some spectacular improvements between the freezer 2 and the freezer 3 on the Intel platform and that simply comes down to the contact frame doing what it's supposed to do our CPU is very much in a flat situation where the contact frame will have minimal if any benefits meanwhile there are tons of documented cases out there of slightly bold CP us and I'm sure some other reviewers are going to experience exactly that so the contact frame will of course have a massive benefit for them so what we're left with are the minor evolutionary changes Arctic did that affect the actual Cooler's performance and those obviously don't impact Cooling in a noticeable way at least again not on our Intel testing platforms but when it comes to AMD well that's where at least for Arctic at least the rubber really hits the road starting with gaming the freezer 2 was already good but the third version is absolutely insane at that low noise level Sweet Spot it's the best cooler we've ever tested here and moving on from there the only thing that can beat it is the LT 520 and while that deep cool is Untouchable at higher RPM levels the Arctic still gets awfully close and for now at least it'll have a much better price too move outside gaming though and the freezer 3 really starts to dominate on a 7600 X in an all core workload it even consistently beats the ruen 3 and remember that AIO is one of the most expensive on the market today meanwhile it also stays comfortably ahead of the LT 520 here but I also have to remind everyone that the scale of our line graphs might make some of these gaps look massive and yet if you look a bit closer the difference between the freezer 3 and the worst cooler we've tested here is only about 4.5 de while the Delta between it and the freezer 2 is just 1.3 de so while arctic's evolutionary approach definitely does lead to some consistent improvements over the previous generation sometimes more than others they shouldn't cause anyone with a liquid freezer 2 to run out and buy the new one then again seeing a sub $100 cooler absolutely destroy nearly everything else out there well that's a good feeling because as we move upwards in the ryzen CPU stack and heat increases the gaps between many of these coolers end up widening more and more and yes even with the lava hot 7950 X the freezer 3 still manages to beat or match the T30 and rugen 3 two aiio that cost more than double what it does if you can even find them and sure you're only looking at less than a degree lower than the freezer Tu but hey at least it's something well that is if you call half a degree something because in most tests that's just rounding error I mean sure there were some minor updates but they weren't enough to distinguish one liquid freezer from another in this test and as with all of these reviews there's one last thing I wanted to try and that is some fan normalized testing with arctic's own p12 Max because if that Roundup that we talked about before showed us anything it's that these thick boy radiators that Arctic is using they benefit in a massive way from The increased static pressure afforded by better fans than the regular p12s that are currently being used on there well those p12 Maxes while they did lower temperature by almost 3° in our Intel limits test every other cooler except the T30 gets noticeable improvements too actually the temperature drop is almost identical to the freezer 2os that simply means the freezer 3's competitive positioning doesn't really change in a fan normalized situation with the p12 Maxes so with all that out of the way where do I ultimately stand on the freezer 3 and let's be honest Arctic had a massive mountain to climb when it came to finding anything to improve upon with the freezer 2 because that was a legendary cooler but what they did here is not necessarily increase overall performance unless maybe you're running a slightly bold CPU and that contact frame makes that massive difference for you what they did is they simply focused on the user friendliness and to make this more appealing to more people what that led to is a pump head that looks a lot less controversial there's rotatable fittings the tubes are a lot more flexible the fans come pre-installed and the list goes on and on the installation process has also been rationalized and simplified you get an AMD offset Mount alongside bananas cooling numbers and an Intel contact frame which didn't do anything for us but it'll be an immense help for some folks and even without that frame having an effect on our specific processor the freezer 3 is still super competitive on LGA 1700 and when you package all of that into one product this thing getss our damn good award and you know what even if its price is that $15 that is the original starting price for this and not the sub 80 price category that for the next couple of weeks at least this thing is going to find itself fighting in the Arctic freezer 3 also gets the damn good value award what Arctic has done here is they've bucked so many trends that we see prevailing in the cooler space that means higher prices for mediocre performance but not with this thing at all yes I know everybody is probably screaming at their screen about hey what about the p12 Maxes why aren't these things part of the freezer 3 kit well there is a sort of positive side to this whole thing right now you can buy the 240 mm version of the freezer 3 remove its fans replace them with p12 Maxes and still come out a lot cheaper than 99 % of the other aios out there in the 240 mm category and with that combination you are guaranteed to have some absolutely crazy performance at an amazing price so anyways that's all for me in this video I hope that you enjoyed our first individual 2 40mm AO review and I will definitely see you in the next one have a great day guys\n"