Arctic Liquid Freezer II 240 A-RGB review - Processor overclocking with Higher Voltage

Processor overclocking with Higher Voltage

Now we up the ante. Understand that 1.30V and higher voltages are the levels where Haswell processors get into serious problems due to the aforementioned heat-spreader versus TIM design applied solution from Intel. We now tweak the Core i7 processor to an all-core 4600 MHz and apply 1.30 volts on the CPU while loading it with 100% stress for wPrime to run on all available CPU threads three times. Below, you can see the IDLE results followed by all core load.

The temps normally rise above and beyond 80~90 Degrees C for a lot of heatpipe based coolers, which is a definitive no-go. As you can see, we have dangerous temperatures for most coolers. LCS class coolers perform so much better here. 

To advance on overclocking to see where our thermal threshold (the point of no return) is we tweak in four stages where we up the core voltage from 1.30v upwards to a more (unrealistic) 1.40v. At 1.4 volts any heat pipe cooler would fail but with LCS you can stay just under or at that 80 degrees C marker (which I can only advise for a short period of time).

The cooling capacity of the Liquid Freezer II 240 is really okay for the money, you'll need a 280 or 360mm model for more extreme overclocking.