Test setup and notes:

System configuration:

• CPU: Intel Pentium 4 630 (N0 core)
• Motherboard: Asus P5WD2-E Premium
• RAM: 4 X 512MB Corsair Value Select PC2-4300
• HDD: Seagate ST 3120026AS 120GB SATA
• VGA: MSI X700Pro PCI-E 128MB
• PSU: Hiper Type-R 580W

For testing, I decided to use the Freezer 7 Pro without replacing the MX-1 thermal compound with another thermal paste. So I left the test system to operate for approximately 200 hours running various load testing applications in order to allow the MX-1 to stabilize. Furthermore, I tested the cooler both at stock speed and overclocked 35% (270MHz FSB, 4.05GHz) to see how the cooler would perform under additional load. CPU load was achieved by running two instances of Prime95 for 30 minutes. The idle temperature measurements were noted after the system was resting at the windows desktop for 30 minutes. Ambient temperature is 22 degrees Celsius at the time of the test. PWM is disabled, allowing the Freezer 7 Pro to work at its maximum capability at all times.

dont have flash installed? then click here for a jpeg image

 

dont have flash installed? then click here for a jpeg image

 

There is no result for the stock cooler from Intel in the overclocked speed graph because the stock cooler is unable to hold a decent operating temperature at this speed.

As you can see from the results, the Freezer 7 Pro is a noteworthy adversary to other coolers designed with silence in mind. The stock cooler is entirely out of its league, let alone being able to compare with the Freezer 7 Pro, which is more silent and vastly better.

Final words and conclusion

The Freezer 7 Pro is certainly a good product by Arctic Cooling. Although it is not something extreme, its excellent price and noteworthy performance make it a very affordable high performance cooler for use on the warm Intel cores. Also, when PWM is enabled, the Freezer 7 Pro becomes inaudible when the system is idle. However, even at full speed the Freezer 7 Pro is not going to become annoying. Finally, the mounting of the Freezer 7 Pro is very easy and almost identical to that of the stock cooler, making the Freezer 7 Pro more appealing to less experienced users. The only negative parts of the cooler probably are the somewhat large size (although the size shouldn’t be a problem inside any normal ATX case), and that the cooler cannot perform with the motherboard placed vertically. This makes the cooler useless for mounting inside HTPC cases, although I doubt that it would even fit due to the size anyway. I believe that the Freezer 7 Pro deserves our Heavenly Hardware Silver Award for providing a very good value/performance ratio for every kind of user.

My thanks to Van Can TRAN (Arctic Cooling, Marketing) for providing us with the sample needed for this review