Our Verdict
The ARCTIC Freezer 7 X offers excellent value and decent CPU cooling. It's a great, affordable upgrade over an Intel or AMD stock cooler, and its fan runs quietly as well.
- Great value
- Easy installation
- Quiet at full speed
- No extra thermal paste
- Gets hot with some overclocked CPUs
When the original ARCTIC Freezer 7 Pro was first doing the rounds, AIO liquid coolers didn’t even exist, and even heatpipe-equipped heatsinks were still relatively new. The original Freezer 7 Pro was great, offering decent cooling for under $20, and enabling people to bin their CPU’s stock cooler and get lower noise levels and better cooling. Can its replacement, the new ARCTIC Freezer 7 X, repeat this achievement? I’ve put it to the test to find out.
At $22.99, the ARCTIC Freezer 7 X is slightly more expensive than the original Freezer 7 Pro, but not by much, and that’s still an amazing price for a third-party CPU cooler if it can deliver. We’re not expecting it to be the best CPU cooler ever, but if this cheap cooler it can perform significantly better than a stock cooler, while remaining quiet, then it will have achieved its aims.
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Specs
| Intel socket compatibility | LGA1700, LGA1200, LGA115x |
| AMD socket compatibility | Socket AM5, AM4, AM3, FM2, FM1 |
| Heatpipes | 2 |
| Heatsink material | Aluminum |
| Fan | 92mm PWM |
| Max fan speed | 2,000rpm |
| Thermal paste | ARCTIC MX-4 pre-applied |
| Dimensions (W x D x H) | 111 x 74 x 133mm |
| Weight | 425g |
| Stated noise | 0.3 Sone |
Design
Interestingly, ARCTIC has moved away from three 6mm heatpipes it used to use on its budget coolers to just two, but they’re now in direct contact with your CPU’s heatspreader on the contact plate. Meanwhile, the 92mm PWM fan features a fluid dynamic bearing and is very quiet indeed, even when it’s running at its full speed of 2,000rpm.
Installation is blissfully simple, with two clips hooking directly onto the existing mounting brackets found on AMD Socket AM4 motherboards. A sturdy push-pin-secured bracket compensates for the different alignments needed for Intel LGA sockets, but it uses the same clips on the cooler, which are tightened using screws once you’ve hooked them into place. I was up and running in under a minute on both my Intel and AMD systems without a sore finger in sight.
Handily, a square of ARCTIC’s excellent MX-2 thermal paste is also pre-applied to the contact plate, which saves you some time (and mess) using a tube of paste yourself. However, it does also mean that you’ll need to buy more paste should you swap CPUs.
If you’ve not done this before, check out our full guide on how to apply thermal paste to see how it’s done. The cooler is compatible with a huge range of sockets too, from old Intel and AMD sockets through to the Socket AM5 and LGA1700 motherboards of today.
Performance
When I test CPU coolers, I record the delta T instead of the raw CPU temperature. This is where I subtract the ambient room temperature from the CPU temperature reading, which enables me to test in a lab that isn’t temperature-controlled.
In my Intel LGA15x system, using a Core i5 9600K overclocked to 4.8GHz with a 1.2V vcore, the Delta T temperature was 9°C warmer with the Freezer 7 X than with the Corsair A500 I tested recently. However, while this is a big margin, the Corsair A500 costs around four times the price. The Delta T of 65°C in this test is pretty toasty, but it kept our overclocked Core i5 9600K in check without throttling. That’s a great achievement for such a cheap CPU cooler.
Meanwhile, my overclocked eight-core Ryzen 7 1700 presented just as tough a challenge, but again the Freezer 7 X stayed within 10°C of the Corsair cooler, with a Delta T result of 66°C.
In this rig, I also strapped the stock Ryzen 7 1700 cooler to our test system and, within a minute, the CPU topped 100°C, while the Freezer 7 X only just topped 90°C after ten minutes. That’s conclusive proof that the Freezer 7 X does indeed offer a significant cooling upgrade over a stock cooler.
Price
The ARCTIC Freezer 7 X price is just $22.99, which offers outstanding value for the cooling on offer. That’s half the price of many air coolers, and a quarter of the price of the top-end ones. At this price, it’s practically a throwaway cost that offers a substantial upgrade over a stock cooler, not only in terms of noise but also cooling ability.
Verdict
Our overclocked test CPUs pushed the ARCTIC Freezer 7 X to its limits, and they show there’s a fair bit of cooling power on tap here. Plus. while the CPUs ran hot, they didn’t throttle or go over 100°C. These are extreme examples too – this cooler would be ideal for six and eight-core CPUs running at stock speed, and it could cope with an overclocked AMD Ryzen 5 CPU as well.
The Freezer 7 X also offers a huge improvement over AMD CPU’s stock cooler. You’ll get better cooling performance by spending more money, but if you’re looking for a wallet-friendly upgrade that’s quiet and miles better than a stock cooler, and you’re not looking for huge overclocks, the Freezer 7 X is a fantastic choice for a very reasonable price.
If you’ve never installed a new CPU cooler before, check out our full guide on how to build a gaming PC, where we take you through the whole process, including fitting a new air cooler to your CPU.