Arctic Freezer 7 X CO

[testman78]

Introduction

The Arctic Freezer 7 Pro was one of the most popular (and reasonably inexpensive) air coolers on the market. Based on the performance of their other coolers, however, don't be fooled into thinking that this is cheap and, by proxy, not very good. Trust us when we say, Arctic makes an excellent cooling solution!. All good things, however, must eventually come to an end, but the good news is that Arctic already has the replacement lined-up. In announcing the new Freezer 7 X, Arctic is openly admitting that this is the replacement for the Freezer 7 Pro. Don't think that this is just a rebrand though. Arctic is keen to point out that a number of significant changes and improvements have been made in this latest design.



Arctic's new Freezer 7X CO is compatible with all mainstream CPU sockets, including AMD?s AM4/AM3 and FM1/FM2 as well as Intel's LGA 115x and upcoming LGA 1200. For a bit of a hint, let's take a look at those all important Technical Specifications shall we.




Packaging & Contents

The cooler is packaged in a blue cardboard box. The front side is occupied by an overview image of the cooler, a reference to the 6-year warranty, while on the upper left corner there is the manufacturer's logo. On the lower side there is the name of the cooler.



The back side of the box presents the main features of the cooler and the included fan.



The sides of the packaging presents the full specifications of the cooler in seven different languages alongside a color diagram of the installation process of the cooler.



Inside the packaging is another smaller brown cardboard box as well as the cooler itself.



Included accessories are sparse but everything that you actually need, is included. Many manufacturers opt to bundle items that many users just don't need or want and this simply adds to costs. As you will see below, Arctic supplies a QR code with a link to the installation guide, an Arctic compliments card, AMD mounting bracket plus screws for all of the supported Intel sockets.




A Closer Look

The Freezer 7 X CO is 132.5 mm high and is 110.5 mm wide, so it will not fit into most Mini-ITX chassis, but it should be compatible with the majority of standard ATX towers.



The Freezer 7 X CO consists of a stack of 44 aluminium fins.



The fins are bent to the side and form a kind of tunnel.



The fins behind the fan are jagged. This design should make it easier for the fan to move the air through the fins.



The cooling system comes equipped with a 92-mm fluid dynamic double bearing PWM-controlled fan. The 92mm Arctic Cooling fan fits onto the front of the cooler with a nice shroud to ensure airflow. Aside from the fact that 92mm fans are a lot less plentiful on the market than the more standard 120mm fans, this unique shroud will make it very difficult to upgrade the fan at a later date.



The connection is made using a 4-pin PWM cable.



The upper part of it is closed by the shroud. At the center of it we can see an Arctic logo.



The Freezer 7 X CO uses two 6mm direct touch heatpipes. This ensures that the heat to be dissipated is transferred directly to the heatpipes without an additional material layer, and transported into the heatsink via the pipes. Part of the mounting mechanism comes attached to the block for ease of installation. To simplify usage, the cooler comes with pre-applied MX-2 thermal paste.




Installation Process

Installing the Freezer 7 X CO isn't a very cumbersome task at all. As the cooler is quite lightweight in construction, Arctic Cooling have used a push-pin mounting system, similar to the Intel stock coolers. First of all we are required to install the retention bracket onto the motherboard.



This is a simple matter of aligning the bracket over the holes, inserting the push-pins and then clicking them into place.



As the cooler supports a lot of sockets, the push pins aren't pre-attached which can make installation a little fiddly if you put the pin in the wrong hole accidentally.



Next we have to screw the cooler down to the retention bracket. The last step is to plug the fan into the motherboard header.



If you're going to put this cooler on an AMD CPU you're going to find a less more steps involved.



Memory clearance is exceptional. The Arctic Freezer 7 X CO easily delivers such clearance.




Test System & Methology

Test System:

Cpu:Intel Core i7-6700K@4.4 GHz using only the multiplier and no extra volts
Motherboard:Gigabyte G1.Sniper Z170
Memory:16Gb Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4 2666Mhz
Graphics Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti 11GB SC2
Power Supply: EVGA SuperNova 1200 P2
Storage Drive: 3TB Seagate Barracuda
Boot Drive: SSD 850 PRO 2.5" SATA III 2TB
Chassis: Dimastech Bench Table Easy V2.5
Windows 10 64-bit




Software:

Speedfan
CPUID HW Monitor 1.23
CPUID CPU-Z 1.65
AIDA64 Engineer

I am testing the performance as follows:

Ambient temperatures are kept at 23C throughout my tests.
The CPU Fan is set to 100% to eliminate inconsistencies as a result of PWM control.
Idle temperatures are obtained after booting the PC and idling on the desktop for 30 minutes.
Load temperatures are obtained after running Prime 95′s for 30 minutes.



Noise Level

Below is graph with comparison. The Intel 6700K has a TDP of 91W, so it's not really a cooker, but all performances are relative. As we compare those results against the crowd, the stock results are very respectable, and that is what ARCTIC intends for this cooler. This is made to be a stock replacement cooler, but with some potential left in it for those who may want to tinker a bit.



Arctic's Freezer 7 X CO is maybe not the best performing cooler in our OC comparison but it's not designed to compete with the highest cooler series.




Noise Level

With the 90mm fan running right around 300 RPM I was able to get a reading of 35 dB.



Once I got the fan spinning over 2000 RPM I was astonished to not see a bigger jump in the sound levels.


Final Thoughts

Here at Xtremesystems.org we spend a lot of time looking at high end products so it's easy to forget about the cheaper products at the other end of the market. Many people aren't interested in how many megahertz they can squeeze out of their top-end 9990k CPU with the mammoth Noctua NH-D15 cooler and simply want a cheap alternative to a stock cooler to improve longevity and possibly achieve a modest overclock. The Arctic Arctic Freezer 7 X CO performed very well in our tests for a cooler at this price point and it certainly does make a strong upgrade option when compared to the Intel/AMD reference cooler. It will be perfect for users who want a little extra performance out of their system with a mild overclock or for users wanting a cooler running processor. The devilishly simple installation process also makes it appropriate for less-advanced users who may not have installed a CPU cooler before. If the fan breaks, it cannot be easily replaced by a standard fan although Arctic's six-year manufacturer's warranty also shows confidence in its product.



I can respect a cooler for what it can accomplish in its projected market, such as the stock replacement cooler segment. Here the goal is to provide users an option to the boring stock cooler and deliver those users better temperatures, ease of installation, and in most cases a very reasonable price. The Arctic Freezer 7 X comes with an MSRP of around $19.99. A price that, clearly, will be a very tempting proposition for those looking for a CPU cooler on the budget.