Iceberg Thermal IceSleet G6 Stealth Review: Unique Design, Long Warranty

IceBerg Thermal's IceSleet G6 Stealth is a unique air cooler that features a radiator that wraps around the included fan. With today’s high-end CPUs kicking out more heat than ever, does the Iceberg Thermal IceSleet G6 Stealth have what it takes to cool Intel’s i9-13900K and earn a spot on our best CPU coolers list?

We’ll have to put it through testing to say for sure, but it does sport some impressive specs and stats. IceBerg claims the fan's lifespan is rated at 17.5 years, and the company backs that up with a lengthy 10-year warranty. The big question is whether the cooler can stand out against options that are far cheaper.

We'll find out shortly in testing. But first, here are the cooler’s specifications, direct from Iceberg Thermal.

Cooler Specifications

Packing and Included Contents 

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Iceberg Thermal’s IceSleet G6 Stealth is uniquely packaged. The inner contents consist of two cardboard boxes, one small and one larger. The smaller box contains the accessories for the unit, and the larger box unfolds to reveal the CPU cooler.

Included with the package are the following:

• CPU Heatsink
• 1x 140 mm fan
• Mounts for all modern CPU sockets (including AM5 & LGA1700)
• Quick Start Guide
• Thermal paste
• Small Screwdriver

Installation

Installing the G6 Stealth on an Intel system was fairly simple. To begin, you attach the mounting studs to the backplate and secure them with the included O-rings. Then, press the backplate to the motherboard, slide on the standoffs, install the mounting bars and secure them using the included screws.

Once the thermal paste has been placed on the CPU, you push the heatsink against the mounting bars and secure it with a long screwdriver (which isn't included). The last step is to attach the fan to the top, and secure it using the included screws and small screwdriver. 

The installation on an AMD system is slightly simpler, as it utilizes the default backplate.

Features of Iceberg Thermal’s IceSleet G6 Stealth

Impressive 10-year warranty

Iceberg Thermal backs the IceSleet G6 Stealth with an impressive 10-year warranty. This is the longest warranty we have ever seen on a CPU cooler, and an indication that IceBerg is confident in the quality of its products.

Nickel-plated copper CPU block

The CPU contact plate on the IceSleet G6 Stealth is copper, plated with Nickel. The base is a bit smaller than those we’ve seen on other coolers, so it will be interesting to see how well it performs in our testing.

All black, nickel-plated

The entire cooler is plated in black nickel. This helps prevent corrosion and should also keep it looking good for several years.

Unique wrap-around radiator design

The IceSleet G6 Stealth offers a unique design, with the radiator engulfing a single 140mm fan that sits in the middle of the unit. The tower has 6 groups of fins, 57 fins in total. Each group is shaped differently than the group above or below it, to improve the overall cooling performance. The lowest set of fins is recessed, to allow for better RAM compatibility, supporting sticks up to 56 mm tall. 

One 140mm fan

There’s more to a cooler than just the heatsink or radiator. The bundled fan(s) impact both cooling and noise levels. Included with the IceSleet G6 Stealth is a single 140 mm fan, which is installed in the center of the unit. 

The fan features Fluid Dynamic Bearings, and is two-plane balanced, to support a long lifespan. IceBerg claims the fan will last for over 150,000 hours of operation. Converted into more traditional terms, they claim the fan should last an impressive 17.5 years.

The fan also supports a unique feature designed to reduce noise levels in low heat workloads called “Auto Stop/Start.” Not unlike the zero-RPM features seen on many graphics cards and processors, this keeps the cooling fan turned off for truly silent cooling until the PWM signal rises to 21%.

Testing Methodology

It was fairly easy with previous-gen CPUs for coolers to keep flagship processors well under TJ max (the maximum temperature a CPU can sustain without throttling) in tough workloads. But this is no longer realistically possible on current-generation CPUs (and the 13900K especially), without extreme cooling (or enabling power limits).

Enthusiasts are going to have to learn to accept high temperatures as “normal” while running demanding workloads with Raptor Lake and Ryzen 7000 CPUs. Modern AMD and Intel CPUs are designed to run fairly hot without any problems – up to 95 degrees Celsius for AMD Ryzen 7000 CPUs and up to 100 C for Intel’s Core i9-13900K. Similar behavior has been standard in laptops for years due to cooling limitations in tight spaces. 

Intel’s i9-13900K supports Adaptive Boost Technology (ABT), which allows the chip to dynamically boost to higher all-core frequencies based on available thermal headroom and electrical conditions. This lets multi-core loads to operate at up to 5.5 GHz if the required of thermal dissipation is available. This feature works in a way that actively seeks high temperatures: If the chip sees that it is running underneath the 100 C threshold, it will increase its performance and power consumption until it reaches the safe 100 C limit, sustaining higher clocks (and providing better performance) for longer periods.

The increased cooling challenges posed by Raptor Lake mean that we’ve had to change some of the ways we test coolers. Some coolers were able to pass Cinebench R23 multicore testing with Intel’s 12th Gen i9-12900K when power limits were removed (although only the strongest models were able to pass that test). Most liquid coolers and all air coolers I’ve tested 'failed' that test because the CPU reached TJ max in this scenario. 

With Raptor Lake’s 13900K, not a single cooler tested has been able to keep the CPU under TJ max in this test – because as we pointed out, the chip is designed to dial up performance and power until it reaches that thermal threshold. We’ll compare performance instead by looking at total benchmark scores and clock speeds maintained in our testing. 

I’ll be testing Intel’s i9-13900K CPU using Asus’ TUF Gaming Z690 Gaming Plus WIFI motherboard and Cooler Master’s HAF 700 Berserker computer case, with case fans limited to 35% speeds. The motherboard’s default fan curve is used for the CPU Cooler’s fans.

In addition to testing Cinebench without power limits enforced, we’ll also be showing results when the CPU’s power consumption is limited to a more reasonable 200W. We’ll also show results at 125W for those who prefer whisper-quiet cooling, at the cost of some performance. For both of these results, we’ll show traditional delta over ambient temperature results.

We’ll provide noise level measurements recorded using a PSPL25 Sound Meter for all three power levels tested, to compare how much noise each cooler makes in different scenarios. We expect most coolers to run effectively silently at 125W.

LGA1700 Socket Bending

Note there are many factors other than the CPU cooler that can influence your cooling performance, including the case you use and the fans installed in it. A system's motherboard can also influence this, especially if it suffers from bending, which results in poor cooler contact with the CPU.

In order to prevent bending from impacting our cooling results, we’ve installed Thermalright’s LGA 1700 contact frame into our testing rig. If your motherboard is affected by bending, your thermal results will be worse than those shown below. Not all motherboards are affected equally by this issue. I tested Raptor Lake CPUs in two motherboards, and while one of them showed significant thermal improvements after installing Thermalright’s LGA1700 contact frame, the other motherboard showed no difference in temperatures whatsoever. Check out our review of this contact frame for more information.

Testing Configuration

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