Arctic Cooling Duo: Alpine 7 & Freezer 7 Pro Attack Value
by Wesley Fink on January 29, 2008 2:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
Final Words
No one really should expect the Alpine 7 (with PWM)/Alpine 7 Pro to challenge a Thermalright Ultra 120 eXtreme for top air-cooling performance. That would require suspending all notions of performance for the money. It's a bit more realistic to have higher expectations for the Freezer 7 Pro since it is a side-fan heatpipe tower similar in design to the top performers tested so far. However, the 92mm fan is not likely to give the big 120mm fan coolers a real run for their money. Still, the mid-sized fans sometimes can come close. Results did not upset our expectations, as neither the Alpine 7 nor the Freezer 7 Pro came close to dethroning our top coolers. However, that should definitely not be considered a negative for either of these value priced coolers.
For the money the performance of the Alpine 7 and Freezer 7 Pro are both simply outstanding. The Alpine 7 sells for less than $15 and it handily outperforms the excellent stock Intel cooler that comes with kit CPUs. Many higher-priced coolers barely outperform the Intel, and the Alpine 7 turns in a significantly better performance than the benchmark Intel retail design. The Freezer 7 Pro fares even better. This sub-$25 cooler exhibits performance scaling that is much better than we had any right to expect at this price point. It also pushes overclocking to a very good 3.85GHz, which is a record for this price point.
Both coolers are also superb in cooling at stock CPU speeds, under both idle and load conditions. In fact, they are so good at stock performance that it is easy to recommend one of these coolers as a way to extend your CPU life even if you have no intention of overclocking. That is particularly true when you consider how quiet both coolers are. Either cooler is near silent in most situations.
Arctic Cooling obviously used quite a few tricks with these coolers to keep noise low, and they succeeded very well in reaching that goal. Low-priced coolers are supposed to sacrifice noise and longevity to keep the price down, but neither of these coolers gives up anything on either count. They both use low noise, longer-life fan bearings and elastomeric fan mounts. This is expensive engineering, and this attention to sound engineering succeeds in making the Arctic Coolers amazingly quiet.
It is true the Arctic Cooling duo did not break through the top of our cooler performance charts, but they do something too few products do today. Both the Alpine 7 and Freezer 7 Pro meet or exceed their specifications. Both also deliver competent and silent performance with simple but effective engineering while delivering exceptional value for their price. Exceptional value is always a good thing and you will never regret the small amount you spend on either of these coolers. They are not the best performing coolers you can buy today, but both are the top performing cooler you can buy at their respective price points. There's nothing wrong with earning the distinction of "Best Buy for the Money".
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spidey81 - Tuesday, January 29, 2008 - link
I was looking into the Freezer 64 Pro for an AM2/AM2+ build and was wondering if anyone knew if the performance for the AMD version performed similarly. I noticed the specs seem to be slightly different as the 64 Pro fan maxes out at only 2200 rpm pushing 40 cfm where the 7 Pro maxes out at 2500 rpm pushing 45 cfm. They appear to be of the same design varied only by the mounting hardware. Any input would be greatly appreciated.Martimus - Tuesday, January 29, 2008 - link
I have a Freezer 64 Pro. It dropped the temps on my CPU by 10C instantly from a Zalman 7000. It now runs 20C cooler after the Thermal compound cured. It is definitely a nice heatsink, although it is difficult to attach unless you remove the MB from the case.mixim - Tuesday, January 29, 2008 - link
The design is exactly the same, only the fan circuits differ to reduce the max fan rpm, this because AMD has put out low-watt CPU's for a couple of years now , when the Intel version should still be able to cope with Pentium 5/D's and so on...The lower maximum RPM will help with the fans longevity, but actually in my C2D system it has never went up to full speed anyway...
dlock13 - Tuesday, January 29, 2008 - link
I cannot find the Freezer 7 anywhere under $25. I can't find it anywhere under $30. I checked Newegg and their price is $32.I am really in need of a new heatsink, and this is just perfect.
Spanki - Wednesday, January 30, 2008 - link
It's $24.99 here: http://www.svc.com/acfzp7.html">http://www.svc.com/acfzp7.htmlor.. you can save some bucks and get the Cooler Master Hyper Tx 2 (same or better performance than the Freezer Pro 7 - slightly larger, quieter, slower spinning fan) for $9.99 at the same place: http://www.svc.com/rr-pch-s9u1-gp.html">http://www.svc.com/rr-pch-s9u1-gp.html
BladeVenom - Tuesday, January 29, 2008 - link
Newegg has it on sale for $21.99 quite often. It can also usually be found for $21.86 on sale at eWiz.75below0 - Tuesday, January 29, 2008 - link
I understand there's a new test bed and temp utility, but +7C for the Ultima 90 w/SFLex under load compared to last review seems inordinately steep...Anyone have any comparisons of CoreTemp vs. NVIDIA Monitor and/or Intel TAT (Thermal Analysis Tool) ?
whatthehey - Tuesday, January 29, 2008 - link
The motherboard and BIOS change among other things so the fan speeds may not ramp up as soon but when they ramp up they might do so to a larger amount. Look at the Intel stock cooler which drops from 56C to 50C with the new testbed. They covered a lot of the changes here:http://www.anandtech.com/casecoolingpsus/showdoc.a...">http://www.anandtech.com/casecoolingpsus/showdoc.a...
If you look at the results you'll see that TAT and CoreTemp both register higher than the old EVGA board by several C. Meanwhile the Ultra 120 X goes from 36C to 42C idle and 47C to 59C load. Obviously there are lots of variables. I'm not sure what margin of error is with CoreTemp and such either but it may be several C.
The important thing IMO is to look at noise levels and max OC along with temps. Nothing exists in a vaccuum so don't focus on one metric.
phaxmohdem - Tuesday, January 29, 2008 - link
I just ordered the Freezer 7 yesterday night... before this article came out. I feel WAY better now about my decision... though it is going onto a Pentium-D which may insult it :PRamarC - Tuesday, January 29, 2008 - link
freezer 7 pros are great for pentium Ds. i've got a 3.4ghz pd945 that it keeps in the mid 50s. warm? yes, but quiet since the mobo only asks the freezer to spin at 500rpm.i can't believe it took anandtech this long to review the freezer pro 7 considering mine is pushing 2 years old now.