Arctic Liquid Freezer II 240 Review: Quiet i9 Chiller

Cinebench Test Results

I first attempted to run Cinebench without power limits enforced. If the cooler can handle it, this load will use a little more than 230W. While the Liquid Freezer does well in other metrics, it melts under the heat of an unrestricted 12900K, reaching TJ max and throttling unless power limits are enforced.

When testing at a more reasonable 200W CPU power limit, the Liquid Freezer did well, with an average CPU temperature of 63 degrees Celcius over ambient, in line with the results from other liquid coolers we’ve tested.

200W and 140W OCCT Test Results

I usually like to run OCCT's small set stress testing for stability when overclocking, but on Alder Lake, I haven't found a cooler that's capable of handling OCCT without throttling unless power limits are enforced.

I test OCCT at 200W to demonstrate a thermally demanding load, but also with a 140W power limit enforced to show how these coolers might perform with a CPU that's easier to cool, like Intel's i5-12600K or AMD's Ryzen 5800X.

With OCCT,  the Liquid Freezer continued to deliver good results. While it wasn’t able to handle 200W with reduced fan speeds in this scenario, at the default fan curve it averaged 66 degrees C over ambient. At a more modest 140W power limit, the Liquid Freezer beat nearly all coolers we’ve tested, at only 44C over ambient. 

95W OCCT Test Results

Due to requests from our readers, I’ve begun to include 95W results as well, which should be comparable to cooling CPUs like AMD’s Ryzen 5 5600X or Intel’s i5-12400. In these lower wattage tests, the Liquid Freezer runs exceptionally quiet and cool. At both the default fan curve and enforced 50% speeds, Arctic’s AIO is our best performer.

Noise Levels and Acoustics

To test noise levels, I used the SLM25TK Sound Level Meter positioned 18 inches behind the rear of the Be Quiet Silent Base 802 PC case, and recorded early in the morning to achieve the lowest noise floor possible. The chart below shows averaged results, measured over the course of five minutes, to account for sudden sound spikes.

In all workloads tested, the Liquid Freezer II 240 ran very quietly. Overall, it’s the second quietest cooler I’ve tested, only slightly louder than Corsair’s H100i Elite. 

Conclusion

Arctic’s Liquid Freezer 240 performs well in most workloads. It’s capable of handling long-term workloads of 200W+ when paired with Intel’s i9-12900K. At the same time, it’s also a very silent cooler, the second quietest cooler I’ve tested with Alder Lake. And at just $110, it’s fairly affordable. If you’re looking for both quiet and capable cooling, you can’t go wrong with Arctic’s Liquid Freezer 240.