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CPU-only thermal results with PBO enabled: AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D
Without power limits enforced, the hottest CPUs on the market will hit their peak temperature (TJ Max) and thermally throttle with even the strongest of air coolers, and even most liquid coolers on the market, in intensive stress testing. For the best liquid coolers on the market, the results of this test will be shown using the CPU’s temperature. However, when the CPU reaches its peak temperature, I’ve measured the CPU package power to determine the maximum wattage cooled to best compare their performance. It’s important to note that thermal performance can scale differently depending on the CPU it’s being tested with.
We’ll start by looking at the performance of this cooler with AMD’s newly released Ryzen 9 9950X3D CPU, with the disclaimer that I’ve only had a limited amount of time to test coolers with this system and Arctic’s previous coolers have performed better on AMD systems.
Honestly, the results shown above blew my mind. When even Hyte’s massive THICC Q60 throttled after enabling PBO – I doubted that any AIO could fully tame AMD’s Ryzen 9 9950X3D - but Arctic proved that assumption wrong, easily taming AMD’s flagship CPU!
CPU-only thermal results with power limits removed: Intel’s i7-14700K
My last reviews of Arctic’s Liquid Freezer III did not show impressive performance with Intel’s i7-13700K or i7-14700K – at least when pure CPU performance was being considered.
Arctic’s engineering team appears to have taken my feedback to heart, as they delivered the most incredible performance improvements that I have ever seen in an AIO – thrashing their competition, outperforming the closest competitor by a whopping 13 degrees C! I was convinced I had made a mistake or some kind of error, until I retested Arctic’s Liquid Freezer III Pro again the next day, finding the same incredible results!
But of course, a cooler’s maximum performance can’t be considered in and of itself. You should also consider the noise levels of a cooler. And to be honest, this is Arctic’s noisiest product yet, reaching a whopping 52.6 dBA! If you are sensitive to noise, you’ll want to limit this AIO’s fan speeds.
CPU-only thermal results with noise normalized to 38.9 dBA
Finding the right balance between fan noise levels and cooling performance is important. While running fans at full speed can improve cooling capacity to some extent, the benefits are limited and many users prefer a quieter system.
With this noise-normalized test, I’ve set noise levels to 38.9 dBA using the i7-14700K system. This level of noise is a low volume level, but slightly audible to most people. The LF3 Pro reigns supreme here, tying for the best results I’ve seen from any AIO yet.
I’ve also begun to test noise-normalized results with AMD’s Ryzen 9 9950X3D, but I’m going to wait until I’ve recorded more data to present this information. One important observation from this testing: the pump will interfere with lower levels of noise-normalized testing if it is run at 100% RPM. If you want a silently running cooler running less than 38.2 dBA, you’ll need to run the pump at less than maximum speeds.
200W Power Limit
My older reviews have focused more on tests with both the CPU and GPU being stressed, but many of y’all have indicated that you would like to see more CPU-only tests. So we’re going to look at thermal and noise performance for AMD’s Ryzen 9 9950X3D at stock CPU settings – which limits power consumption to 200W.
There’s only a limited selection of coolers here, because I’ve only just started testing AMD’s new flagship CPU. However, it is no surprise Arctic dominates this chart based on our earlier results. It does get a bit noisy by default, so again I’d advise limiting maximum fan speeds.
150W CPU + 290W GPU results
Testing a CPU Cooler in isolation is great for synthetic benchmarks, but doesn’t tell the whole story of how it will perform. If your GPU is running a full load, that heat doesn’t just disappear – it makes it harder for your CPU cooler to do its job due to the increased heat within your computer case.
The CPU power limit of 150W was chosen based on the worst CPU power consumption I’ve seen reported in gaming with AMD’s Ryzen 9 9950X3D. My personal experience has shown most games to use much lower amounts of power, but this might be biased by the games I play.
The lead over competing liquid coolers lowers in this scenario, but Arctic commands a significant improvement over air coolers – nearly 15C! Noise levels are tolerable here, reaching 43.8 dBA. This isn’t quiet, but it’s not too bad either.
140W CPU results
The last round of test results we’ll look at in today’s review is a test with a 140W power limit imposed. This level of power is dramatically easier to cool for most CPU coolers – and as a result, this is the easiest test we’ll run with AMD’s Ryzen 9 9950X3D CPU for liquid coolers – but I’ve recorded lower power results for comparisons with SFF and air coolers for future reviews.
In line with the rest of our test results, Arctic’s Liquid Freezer III Pro delivers outstanding performance – even outperforming Hyte’s infamous THICC Q60 by over 6C!
Conclusion
Arctic’s Liquid Freezer III Pro delivers outstanding performance, taking the thermal crown when tested with both AMD and Intel’s most difficult to cool CPUs. At only $125 USD, it offers a relatively budget price – and can often be found for even less (it was selling for just $89 on Amazon when this was edited). The LF3 Pro is an improvement in every way compared to its predecessor, earning our rarest rating – 5 stars! My biggest complaint is that the fans can run a little loud; most users will want to limit the maximum speeds of the fans. Other than that, the LF III Pro is basically AIO perfection.
