Test setup and results …
We test the Liquid Freezer II 240 A-RGB water cooler on our well-known test system with AMD Ryzen 5 2600 CPU in factory and overclocked state. The test system consists of the following components …
| CPU | AMD Ryzen 5 2600 (6 Kerne, 12 Threads) |
| Motherboard | ASUS TUF B450M-Pro Gaming |
| Test #1 | CPU @ 3400 MHz at 1.2V and about 85W |
| Test #2 | CPU @ 4000 MHz overclocked at 1.38V and approx. 133W |
| RAM | 2x 8GB DDR4-3200 CL14 |
| Environment temperature | ca. 21°C |
In order to keep the influence of the case as low as possible, no side panel of the case was mounted during the tests.
The CPU was stressed with the program Prime95 where we chose the “Small FFT” stress test for maximum heat development and the temperatures were determined with the program HWiNFO. Here you can find the tools for download.
The system was always loaded until no temperature increase could be detected for 5 minutes. The AMD boxed cooler and a good mid-range tower air cooler, the Arctic Freezer 34 eSports, competed as opponents. The Liquid Freezer II 240 A-RGB’s pump was always running at 100%, as it makes no audible noise even at 100% speed. So, only the fan speed was ever varied.
The measured values for the non-overclocked CPU are as follows. Results with the value “>85 °C” mean that the test was stopped early because the cooling was not sufficient.
It should be well known by now that the AMD boxed cooler of the Ryzen 2600 is at best a stopgap solution. Even inexpensive single tower coolers like the Arctic Freezer 34 eSports deliver much better cooling performance at reduced noise for a very low price. Even better is the Arctic Liquid Freezer II 240 A-RGB water cooler. As soon as the fans start spinning, the cooling performance is already about on par with the Freezer 34 eSports at 1400 rpm. The fact that the water cooling fans are practically inaudible at 350 rpm as soon as there is the slightest ambient noise in the room makes the cooler especially attractive. At medium fan speed, the maximum cooling performance of the Singletower cooler is already exceeded. At this speed, the fans of the Liquid Freezer II 240 A-RGB still remain very quiet. You do not need the full cooling performance for a non-overclocked 6-core CPU, because the CPU temperature does not drop significantly further at full fan speed.
In the overclocked state, the wheat is separated from the chaff. We don’t even need to send the AMD boxed cooler into the race now, since it was already at its performance limit before!
The Freezer 34eSports is already heavily stressed in the Prime95 stress test. The heat development should not be any higher. The situation is completely different for the Liquid Freezer II 240 A-RGB. Even at a very low speed and volume, the water cooler easily keeps the CPU within a reasonable temperature range. At about 60% fan speed, the temperature display shows only 68°C, which is enough reserve even on hot summer days without air conditioning. At the 133W we applied, the full fan speed is also still not necessary, because it brings a temperature value that is only 2°C lower with a clearly increased volume. The Arctic Liquid Freezer II 240 A-RGB is thus still capable of significantly higher performance than our test CPU requires in a fully overclocked state. If anyone is now wondering whether the cooling performance of the RGB variant differs from the A-RGB version we tested, we can inform you after consulting Arctic that the only difference between the two versions is the integrated LEDs. You can assume the same cooling performance in both cases.
VRM fan …
The VRM fan is still part of the Liquid Freezer II water cooler series. It can provide the necessary air circulation to the voltage converters on the mainboard in tight spaces and poor ventilation in the PC case. In most gaming PCs this won’t be necessary, but rather have an additional VRM fan than need it is the motto here. We have already determined the effectiveness of VRM fans on the CPU cooler in another test, which can be read here.
If you don’t want to run the VRM fan, you can unplug the connector on the bottom of the cooling block and the fan will stop. However, due to the noise level, you don’t have to do that as the fan is not really audible even at a maximum of 3000 rpm.
Loudness …
The maximum volume of the P12 PWM PST A-RGB fans is the same as that of the previous P12 PWM fans without illumination. We were able to determine a maximum of 42dBA in each case when running 2 fans at full speed. The distance of the measurement microphone was an extremely small 30cm. At a distance of 1m, the fans are clearly audible from a PC at full speed, but we do not find this particularly disturbing. We have had much louder fans with a far more unpleasant operating noise in the OCinside.de test editorial office.
Now we come to the optical criteria of the AIO water cooling.
Arctic Liquid Freezer II 240 ARGB Optics …