The Freezer 240 is an all in one liquid cooler from Arctic which supports AMD’s Threadripper
CPUs. As I was recently able to get hold of the new 2950X I’ve tested this cooler with
the new 2nd generation of Threadripper to see just how well it holds up.
After previously reviewing the Arctic Freezer 33 Threadripper CPU cooler they also sent
over the Freezer 240 all in one liquid cooler, so in this review I’ve retested the air
cooler to see how it compares and help you decide if it’s worth paying more for for
AIO.
Taking a look at the cooler it’s your typical aluminium radiator with a matte black finish
and copper cold plate. The radiator is 120mm by 272mm by 38mm without any fans, and then
the fans are also 25mm thick, so with all fans mounted you’re looking at a total 88mm
thickness, worth keeping in mind as you’ll need a fair bit of space to mount it. The
tubing is 326mm long, so that may also limit how far away you can mount it, in my case
for instance it wouldn’t reach mounted to the front.
It comes with 4 120mm Arctic fans, and two get mounted to either side of the radiator,
so one side will be pushing air through while the other will be pulling it out. I suppose
you could also run it with just two fans instead, but I didn’t have time to test this unfortunately,
my time with the 2950X was very limited.
This does appear to give us quite a lot of cooling capacity though, Arctic list that
it has a max cooling performance of 350 watts with a recommended TDP up to 300 watts. The
2950X is listed with a 180 watt TDP at stock, so this should do just fine.
The Freezer 240 can also be used on these Intel and AMD sockets, it’s not specifically
designed for Threadripper like the Freezer 33 TR edition is.
Just eyeballing the copper cold plate it’s clear that it’s not going to give 100% coverage
of the Threadripper CPU, but as we’ll see soon the temperatures are still pretty good.
Installation was a little challenging, as the cooler has fans on both the top and bottom
it was quite large. Luckily the Thermaltake View 71 case that I’m testing in is quite
large too, I was able to move the mounting bracket on the top out so that it wouldn’t
hit the motherboard. In order to screw it into the top I also had to hold the radiator
in place with two loose fans on top while trying to screw it in at the same time, this
was much easier as a two person job.
Otherwise it mounts to the motherboard using the bracket included with the Threadripper
CPU, but there are other brackets included in the box for the other supported CPU sockets.
I’ll also note that I used Arctic’s included MX-4 thermal paste in all of my testing.
All testing was done with an ambient room temperature of 18 degrees celsius, and as
mentioned I was also using AMD’s latest 2950X 16 core Threadripper CPU. My Thermaltake
View 71 case just had two intake fans on the front, and a single exhaust fan at the back.
I mounted the Freezer 240 cooler at the top so that it would pull air in, as this was
the suggested configuration in Arctic’s installation guide, and from the testing I’ve
seen it doesn’t really seem to matter that much which way you do this.
I’ve tested the 2950X at idle, under stress test using Aida64 at stock speeds, and then
while overclocked to 4.1GHz on all cores at 1.35 volts, so with that in mind let’s see
how well it did when compared to the Freezer 33 TR air cooler.
At idle there was just a couple of degrees difference, and this didn’t change that
much when moving up to the Aida64 stress test at stock. With the 4.1GHz all core overclock
applied, the gap between the two widens a bit more to around 5 degrees celsius. Each
test was left running for an hour so it had stabilized at these temperatures by that time.
The temperatures aren’t the only important factor though, how loud does the cooler get?
As mentioned the case has 3 additional fans which are contributing to the overall volume.
I didn’t unplug them for testing, as I don’t think that represents a real world example.
Additionally it’s worth keeping in mind that the Thermaltake View 71 case is fairly
open with wide gaps between the glass, so you’d probably get better results with a
fully closed case. With that in mind let’s take a listen to each of these tests.
At idle the liquid cooler was just a little louder. While under stress test the air cooler
stayed around the same while the liquid cooler got louder. With the overclock applied again
the air cooler hardly changed at all while the liquid cooler was around the same as without
the overclock. It makes sense that the liquid cooler was louder though, it does have 4 fans
compared to 1.
Considering the differences in temperatures though the air cooler is doing quite a good
job at keeping up, it’s not that much warmer and is certainly quieter and easier to install.
I’m thinking the air cooler is doing such a good job because it comes into contact with
more of the CPU, granted it still doesn’t cover the full IHS either but it is actually
designed for Threadripper whereas the Freezer 240 is just listed as a Threadripper supported
cooler.
As for the price difference the Freezer 240 AIO is listed at $85 USD on Arctic’s website,
while the Freezer 33 TR air cooler is just $48, you can check updated pricing with the
links in the description. It really seems like you’re getting a better price to performance
ratio just going with the air cooler, at least for Threadripper. That’s not to say the
AIO is bad, the air cooler is just really good for Threadripper, in my review of the
Freezer 33 I noted that it was around half the price of a Noctua cooler and wasn’t
that far behind in cooling capacity, it’s a really good option for the money. Arctic
also have a larger 360 AIO cooler with 6 fans, it would be interesting to see how that compares
to the 240, or if instead they put out an AIO that covers more of the Threadripper CPU.
So what did you guys think of the Arctic Freezer 240 CPU cooler? It was definitely capable
of keeping the 2nd generation 2950X cool even while overclocked under a stress test, but
to do so it was a bit louder than one of Arctic’s own air coolers. I suspect that the results
would be more favourable when cooling some some other type of CPU, say Ryzen for instance,
as the whole CPU would be covered there. Let me know which of these coolers you’d pick
down in the comments, and don’t forget to subscribe for future tech videos like this
one.