Why are Arctic Freezer III AIO's cheap?

BornEvil said:
Thanks for doing that, I have installed a few AIO for family and friends before, but the AF3 is my 1st as a daily driver. Its good to get clarification that my pump is not faulty.

My standard for silent is 'as if it was not there', and do my bios curves without a GPU where possible.

At my stupidly low rpm settings, performing well at cooling, 65c cinebench load.
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I'm looking at the LF3 too because nothing else seems to come close for a 420mm in price/performance, and in my white build I am rather limited in options to begin with. Could go down to 360mm I guess..
Bit worried about the pump noise reports, my case is on the floor not on my desk so that helps I guess. Is it true that you don't really need the pump at settings above 50%? Just wondering how much performance is lost in its value if the upper end of it won't be used (if that makes sense).
 
stfn said:
I'm looking at the LF3 too because nothing else seems to come close for a 420mm in price/performance, and in my white build I am rather limited in options to begin with. Could go down to 360mm I guess..
Bit worried about the pump noise reports, my case is on the floor not on my desk so that helps I guess. Is it true that you don't really need the pump at settings above 50%? Just wondering how much performance is lost in its value if the upper end of it won't be used (if that makes sense).
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These are my results:
At 100% PWM, CPU idle/load: 42/72
At 50% PWM, CPU idle/load: 42/78

PWM for fans and pump speeds. Cinebench load.

As you can see, it’s quite significant. But all within boundaries and thermal limits.
 
I have recently decided to try out the Artic Freezer 3. I have always used Corsair Aio's since Aio's came out. I think my first one was the The Corsair h50 when it came out like 15 years (?!??) ago.

I did get a Lian Li galahad 2 last year for my 14900k but never got round to using it. So it sits in teh corner of my room still sealed and unused. I never tried the Artic ii as I thought they looked ugly as sin. It like if a ginger step child fell and hit every branch on the ugly tree. And I only do white builds so it was a no no.

But they now do it in white. So I thought I would chance it during my jump to the AM5 platform. It's currently on my 7800x3D which is hardly a hot running chip. I have the 420mm version which I paid 84 I think it was for it.

I was not sure what to expect to be honest as I was use to AIO's like Corsair, EK, Nzxt etc that I have used in various build over the years. And I though it was going to be nasty. But I was pleasantly suprised. I thought Corsair AIO use to be good quite a few years ago before they sold out to a conglomerate and their quality control dropped fast. I wanted to do a build which didn't have Icue running in the background. And my lastest build has no Corsair products at all. The Corsair I grew up with is not the same Corsair of today. I have talked to greybeard about this on Reddit.

I mean the freezer iii 420 mm is way overkill for a 7800x3d. It would be ideal for the 13900k/14900k users.

I like how it is way quieter than my corsiar AIO but that is misleading as I have a 7800X3d running on the Artic and a 12900k ( the coolest of the bunch from the LGA1700 crew) using the corsair h150 elite.

Sure it has less frills than the corsair like no Lcd screen, no custom RGB etc but it does exactly what I paid for it to do. Just cool. The packaging is minimal, instructions are practically non existant and I am a bit iffy about the mounting mechanism. I am sure there are cheaper AIO's like Thermal right and I am sure they are fine. I thought the supplied fans were going to be super super nasty but they are actually fine, And I was sceptical about the VRM fan. But I find it to be pretty quiet while under full load and that's while it is sat right next to me on a hybrid test bench. I can hear the air whoooshing not the actual fans.

I am so glad I took a chance on the cooler and long term hoping to see if the reliablilty is there. Should you get this cooler over the likes of the lian Li/Corsairs/Nzxt and the stupidly expensive Asus Ryujin series. Nope they cater for that look/aesetic which I totally get. But I do think if you were to use a standard fan on all of them The artic would be top or very very close to the top. Sure it might not have the flash of my corsair/lian li. But there is no software running in the background. It seems to do it quieter. And I am considering getting another one for another build after the New year.
 
What's the general consensus on these for noise? I was tied between this, Corsair H150i on BF Sales, or the Lian Li Galahad.

Some googling shows the Galahad has a LOT of failures... Corsair seems generally reliable, but I can only find one of those in white instead of black.. Arctic Freezer III seems to have a lot of people complaining about noise, like almost every post I've read has said something about pump noise?

I have a quiet Corsair q400 v2 case, so this should dampen it down a lot I suppose.
 
Delta3D said:
What's the general consensus on these for noise? I was tied between this, Corsair H150i on BF Sales, or the Lian Li Galahad.

Some googling shows the Galahad has a LOT of failures... Corsair seems generally reliable, but I can only find one of those in white instead of black.. Arctic Freezer III seems to have a lot of people complaining about noise, like almost every post I've read has said something about pump noise?

I have a quiet Corsair q400 v2 case, so this should dampen it down a lot I suppose.
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There are two things to watch with Corsair and even then it varies. One is pump noise. They are nowhere as quiet as the old h110 and h115i models of yesteryear. Secondly Icue can either be your best friend or your worst enemy and many h150i have been bricked by updating to the latest versions. Hence why I am still on v4 of Icue. It varies from person to person.

I am not sure why their is comments about noise on the Artic. Sure if you use the single lead where it control the fans, pump and the vrm fan when the temp rises it will ramp up. But surely they put it at a modest level like below 70c 30% speed. But I only had mine like a week or two so it to early to say about reliability from first hand experience.

So far I have not actually heard the pump yet.
 
WARburton said:
the AIO is cheap because of return ratio in my opinion. the pumps run very loud when set to over 50%
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You might be right. But here’s the thing in bios I have set it 30% when below 70c and then it ramps when over it.

The funny thing is I have never seen my cpu go over 71-72c and that’s running cb23 so it never actually ramps up to where there would be pump noise. Same with the VRM fan and the fans on the radiator.

Using OCCT it was never above 65-66C and in actual gaming the most I have ever seen is 50-51C. And as hard to believe as it sounds since I have had it I have never heard it ever.

But I haven’t had it for long so time will tell.
 
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Someone said Arctic is not cheap? $90 for the III 360MM when I paid more than that for a no name brand I can't even remember. I only have what I have currently because I got it on payments. But I'm doing a build and bought the Arctic III. Get good reviews in multiple places.
 
GoRedwings19 said:
You might be right. But here’s the thing in bios I have set it 30% when below 70c and then it ramps when over it.

The funny thing is I have never seen my cpu go over 71-72c and that’s running cb23 so it never actually ramps up to where there would be pump noise. Same with the VRM fan and the fans on the radiator.

Using OCCT it was never above 65-66C and in actual gaming the most I have ever seen is 50-51C. And as hard to believe as it sounds since I have had it I have never heard it ever.

But I haven’t had it for long so time will tell.
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your right, i was going to RMA mine when i found out the at 50% is runs as fast as the freezer2 at full speed.
so i did a little playing and i have set to 48%(silent in my case) until 75c when it ramps to 75%.
it keeps my CPU very cool.

the problem i see is some people are using just the one cable, so everything runs slow and hot or fast and loud so a lot of people are having problems as i did.
there was a guy on here im sure it was a 7900x and it was idling at 65c and shouting down under load.

artic need to abandon the one cable idea as most users think it just plug and play and its really not
 
WARburton said:
your right, i was going to RMA mine when i found out the at 50% is runs as fast as the freezer2 at full speed.
so i did a little playing and i have set to 48%(silent in my case) until 75c when it ramps to 75%.
it keeps my CPU very cool.

the problem i see is some people are using just the one cable, so everything runs slow and hot or fast and loud so a lot of people are having problems as i did.
there was a guy on here im sure it was a 7900x and it was idling at 65c and shouting down under load.

artic need to abandon the one cable idea as most users think it just plug and play and its really not
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But that’s the motherboard vendors speed fan setting in bios that is the issue rather than Artics single lead control method. Most motherboards vendors have the bios setup silly like 20c it at 30% fan speed and then it goes like 30c at 50/60% fan speed.

Obviously veteran users who change frequently or or have the experience will adjust accordingly.

The first time builder or someone who hasn’t upgraded in a long time maybe oblivious to it and just think there is a cpu mounting issue or the artic is super noisy.

Having said that last night when I was tinkering about my assessment of the mounting system being iffy changed to downright infuriating. It is one of the worst if not in my top 2 ever sucky mounting issues. The other one goes to a thermal right cooler for the i7 920 many years ago and that was super rage inducing.



I was almost tempted to open a spare Aio that is still sealed as I was so miffed.

What’s funny Noctua uses the same type of mounting system and I hold that mounting setup as the best I have ever used.
 
GoRedwings19 said:
But that’s the motherboard vendors speed fan setting in bios that is the issue rather than Artics single lead control method. Most motherboards vendors have the bios setup silly like 20c it at 30% fan speed and then it goes like 30c at 50/60% fan speed.
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i actually think it is the Artics single lead control, a lot of AIO's are ok with 20% fan speed at idle but 20% pump speed in general is not ok.
And you cant just assume ever one as the knowledge to trouble shoot and work out what the problems is, ive been building pc's for about 22 years and i was about to RMA the things until i stumbled onto a post on here.

i do like the mounting system but again removing the socket mounts for a lot of people is very scary and will probably end in a few bent pins.
this again is for your advanced users not day one first builder's
On AMD you are forced to use the offset mount, on my b450 tomahawk i couldn't used the offset as it hit the M.2 heatsink

Artics have really knocked the ball out of the park with this cooler but at the same time will have scared off a lot of users and will have some RMA's due to not wanting to use the mounting system or it just not fitting there bard
 
WARburton said:
i actually think it is the Artics single lead control, a lot of AIO's are ok with 20% fan speed at idle but 20% pump speed in general is not ok.
And you cant just assume ever one as the knowledge to trouble shoot and work out what the problems is, ive been building pc's for about 22 years and i was about to RMA the things until i stumbled onto a post on here.

i do like the mounting system but again removing the socket mounts for a lot of people is very scary and will probably end in a few bent pins.
this again is for your advanced users not day one first builder's
On AMD you are forced to use the offset mount, on my b450 tomahawk i couldn't used the offset as it hit the M.2 heatsink

Artics have really knocked the ball out of the park with this cooler but at the same time will have scared off a lot of users and will have some RMA's due to not wanting to use the mounting system or it just not fitting there bard
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I think they have fixed the mounting system in v2, they made the screws longer apparently. My v2 was definitely not hard to mount

In terms of cooling, the ALF3 does decent imho, but I comparing to a custom loop.

Regardless, I was reminded why I don’t like AIOs because of the added pump noise. I slapped an air cooler temporarily (9800X3D), and the silence is awesome. I have only used a corsair H80 back in the day and this AF3, none I regard as ‘silent’.
 
BornEvil said:
I think they have fixed the mounting system in v2, they made the screws longer apparently. My v2 was definitely not hard to mount

In terms of cooling, the ALF3 does decent imho, but I comparing to a custom loop.

Regardless, I was reminded why I don’t like AIOs because of the added pump noise. I slapped an air cooler temporarily (9800X3D), and the silence is awesome. I have only used a corsair H80 back in the day and this AF3, none I regard as ‘silent’.
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ive had many a custom loop and at 48% the AF3 is silent and TBF runs mt 13900kf very cool

i mean what custom pump would you say is silent? ive had all the big name and there very not silent at 100%
 
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WARburton said:
ive had many a custom loop and at 48% the AF3 is silent and TBF runs mt 13900kf very cool

i mean what custom pump would you say is silent? ive had all the big name and there very not silent at 100%
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I did see that they had a custom mount for intel lga 1700. And that might put some people off. But seeming as most people who follow hardware closely use a contact frame it’s not really that bad.

I also think that after gamers nexus did the review and put it against the thermal right contact frame that put people off but it is still pretty good contact.

I never used the artic freezer 3 with any of my lga1700 CPU’s they were always under a H150i. One of them had horrendous pump noise.

How’s the AF3 with the 13900kf? A cpu I am very familiar with.

The one strength I find could be potentially its Achilles heel is because the fans that spin at low rpm compared to other aio fans when it faces the true big boys of cpu power draw and heat aka the 13900k and 14900k. Not these wannabe 7800x3d or 9800x3d what kind of temps are you getting?

Have you swapped out the fans for something more beefier, do push pull or just use as is? I am curious as most aio’s in general use a slimmer radiator. Like 25mm or 28mm.

I assume the same principles in custom water cooling still applies to aio water cooling that the thicker the radiator the larger the surface area therefore more ability to transfer more heat away.

And why don’t they use copper instead of aluminium. Sure that would produce better thermal dissipation results albeit that would increase cost of the aio. If people are willing to pay 200-300 for an aluminium based closed loop water cooling. Maybe that would eat into profit margins and trad on the toes of the custom water cooling market?
 
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WARburton said:
ive had many a custom loop and at 48% the AF3 is silent and TBF runs mt 13900kf very cool

i mean what custom pump would you say is silent? ive had all the big name and there very not silent at 100%
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Allow me to rephrase, I am reminded of the simplicity (and greatness) of air cooling, been a long time.

No pump is truly ‘silent’, I can still hear my AF3 even @20%. It’s more the distracting ramping up and down that annoys me, hence I run about 30% flat line now.

The extra noise by introducing a pump (custom or AIO) is no longer worth it for my workloads (70% work/browsing and 30% gaming).
 
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GoRedwings19 said:
How’s the AF3 with the 13900kf? A cpu I am very familiar with.
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i have no other baseline, i got the cooler when i got the CPU.. but
i find it to run cool in normal day to day things, on here watching videos and gaming and so on

depending on the game with the pump fixed at 48% i see about 55c in squads and sat 62c in battlefield at 1440p max setting
it did get into the mid/high 80's running cinebench loops

GoRedwings19 said:
ave you swapped out the fans for something more beefier, do push pull or just use as is?
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i have what could be the worst fan set up TBF, the stock fans are fixed at 800rpm(48% with the pump) and i have some lian li sl12's mounted on the other side for looks.
may case is the o11 vision that doesn't have the best air flow

GoRedwings19 said:
I assume the same principles in custom water cooling still applies to aio water cooling that the thicker the radiator the larger the surface area therefore more ability to transfer more heat away.
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the stock fans are actually well known for been very good radiator fans pair that with the thicker rad, this is why artic do so well

GoRedwings19 said:
And why don’t they use copper instead of aluminium.
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i assume its just down to cost?? there all the same.


if you would like me to run any tests im happy to do so
 
I fitted one yesterday to cool my 9800x3d. Was a nightmare. Ive used them in the past (artic IIs) and they were a simple fit. This thing wasnt, the screws to tighten it down were miles off and the metal top section to act like a spring of sorts was so bent up I could have gone through the board pressure wise to screw it down.
I had to take the side brackets off and attach those first before screwing to the board.
Its on that tight now I have decided im getting a different AIO.
I reseated it twice and the cpu is idling at 53 degrees..... its also noisy.
 
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@Tombs75

You need to not use the single cable option. Use the triple cable and set the pump to a fixed 50% and the fans to 600rpm base and ramping as needed.

The plate on the back of the cooler is supposed to be best it’s used to apply pressure to the cpu.
 
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