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 79 USD/EUR you receive just so much value with cooling levels only a few degrees away from the 200 USD products. You need to understand that this product is priced the same as a premium heatpipe cooler, and is at the very same performance and acoustic level.
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, excellent!
Installation
Overall this kit 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 ~79 EUR/USD. That's this 240mm version with included and installed RGB fans. That's just damn good value.
Final words
Personally, I'd say for the extra 20 bucks, just go with the 360mm model of this cooler (if it fits your chassis), and be done with it. Yes, the cooling block is a little oddly shaped, but these kits are just fantastic for the money. That said the 240mm does perform a substantial notch below the 36500mm model, hence that comment.
We love the fact that for this kind of cash the fans are already installed and bridged. There are only two cables for you to connect so you're not dealing with a spaghetti of wires. Add to that features like 6 years warranty, sleeved tubing, and very reasonable acoustics with equally reasonable performance for only 79 USD/EUR then that's a win in my book. This 240mm model has some reserve and capacity left for overclocking, but not as much as the 360mm one. With the CPU overclocked and 1.40v under load, we breached 82~83 degrees C, so that's a bit borderline TBH. The cooler itself however is excellent in cooling capacity for processors that are left locked at defaults, and not tweaked. The fans can manage relatively 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. While I prefer the 360mm version for a bit more capacity, we admittedly also can wholeheartedly recommend this 240mm model if you're not planning to tweak and overclock that much. You can purchase this kit at roughly 79 EUR/USD in stores right now, and that's as presented with cables connected and managed, aRGB fans, and 6 years warranty. Excellent value.
Handy related downloads:
- Sign up to receive a notification when we publish a new article
- Or go back to Guru3D's front page.
