Arctic Liquid Freezer II 360 A-RGB review - Final words and conclusion

Final words and conclusion

The introduction page already made mention of it, but I think the Liquid Freezer II even with this small aRGB upgrade is a steal. While it's not the absolute best performing or premium product, at 99 USD/EUR you receive just so much value with cooling levels only a few degrees away from the 200 USD products.

Acoustics

At defaults the acoustics are acceptable but not 100% silent, once overclocked the fans can be heard yet at extremely acceptable levels. These are high static pressure fans that can spin and can ramp up towards 1800 RPM with the wrong BIOS profile. if that happens just lower fan RPM, create a fan profile in your motherboard BIOS, or have your fans fixed at an RPM level of your preference. You'll have plenty of cooling performance to play around with. The pump we could not hear. Again, the kit can be very silent if configured right. Also, the small VRM fan hardy can be heard. 

Aesthetics 

The overall looks are distinguished as far as I am concerned; the black design makes the rad/fans/pump look nice. All feels well balanced, however, I do mark my reservations on brand name logos and the odd shape due to the VRM cooler. The fan RGB effects overall bring a subtle look to the cooler, the fan's cabling is tidied and connected for you, superb!  

Installation

Overall it is very straightforward to install with the mounting system, prefilled... it's one of the easiest and comfortable kits on the market to use and install. Hats off to Arctic for that.

Pricing

Here's where things get extremely good for the Liquid Freezer, if you look up street prices, then the unit as tested costs only ~100 EUR/USD. That's this 360mm version with included and installed RGB fans. That's just damn good value.

Final words

The base design is still the same, but at this price level, we feel the Liquid Freezer II is brilliant. There are multiple cherries on top of the cake, the fans are already installed and bridged. Then there are only two cables to connect, you'll get 6 years warranty, sleeved tubing, and yeah just very reasonable acoustics and performance for only 100 USD/EUR, and that's this 360mm model. And sure, not a lot has changed ever since the original model was released, but it's a small step upwards in aesthetics. This 360mm model has plenty of reserve and capacity. With the CPU overclocked and 1.40v under load, we did not even hit 80 degrees C. The cooler itself is good in cooling capacity (but not premium excellent), the fans have high RPM values so simply limit your RPM to acceptable levels in the BIOS in order for this kit to become exceptionally silent (which it certainly can be), at default it already is silent, but a tiny bit hearable. The aesthetics are pretty decent though the shape is a little weird due to the VRM fan (which also is a big plus). Normally RGB sure is a lot of wiring to deal with, Arctic already did that job for you. We admit it, this is terrific value for your money and it'll do well for the vast majority of people. Highly recommended and great, if not, super value. 

Handy related downloads:

• Prime95
• SiSoft Sandra
• AIDA
• CPU-Z
• HWMonitor