A major player in both the retail and OEM cooler industry, the Frio might be Thermaltake’s most ambitious project to date. Two high-speed adjustable fans and five large heat pipes set the Frio apart from Thermaltake’s previous efforts.

Our pre-production unit arrived unboxed, but it did include all the hardware needed for Intel’s LGA 1156, 1366, and 775 processors, plus AMD’s Socket AM2, AM2+, and AM3 devices. Rubber washers prevent the LGA mounting tabs from contacting the motherboard’s top surface.

A chrome finish covers the pipes, while the base plating appears to be nickel. This plating is applied over an unpolished, finely sanded surface.

Installation is super-easy outside of a case, but removing the cooler with the motherboard installed requires a chassis that has an access hole in the motherboard tray beneath the CPU. If cooling performance matches its aggressive looks, this could be a great cooler for bench testing.
Unfortunately, the missing retail box is accompanied by a missing retail price. Thermaltake launched the Frio at CES, so we expect to see it reach our favorite sellers soon.
- Lynnfield Can Take The Heat, But Should It?
- Features Comparison
- Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro Rev.2
- Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus
- Noctua NH-D14
- Scythe Mugen-2 Revision B
- Sunbeamtech Core-Contact Freezer
- Thermalright MUX-120
- Thermaltake Frio
- Tuniq Tower 120 Extreme
- Xigmatek Thor’s Hammer
- Zalman CNPS10X Quiet
- Test Settings
- Thermal Testing Results
- Fan Speed, Noise, And Value
- Do We Have A Winner?
Hey Tom's - what temps are you getting at 3.2 GHz with the Arctic Cooling 7? Did you use arctic silver 5?
no worries there you will be fine
Thermalright sent the MUX-120.
Some companies didn't respond to the invitation. Sorry, I didn't keep a list.
I was surprised the new Thermalright Venoumous X was not included. It's an updated version of the Ultra 120 Extreme specifically designed for the new Intel Core i5/i7 cpu's.
Didn't THG mention in an older article that those extra tall heatspreaders that sort of look like a comb did not provide any additional cooling over stock heatspreaders?