Arctic Freezer 13 Pro Review

Today we are going to test the Arctic Freezer 13 Pro with a very inexpensive yet versatile AMD PII X2 555 Black Edition CPU. This particular CPU ships at 3.2ghz but can easily hit 4.0ghz and above. Another reason we are using this particular CPU is the fact that it can be unlocked to a fully functional Phenom II X4 B55 Black Edition. We are running this CPU @ 4.017 ghz 24/7 and have not seen any negative impact on performance after unlocking the 2 additional cores.  This however comes with strings attached because we lose the ability to monitor the individual cores of our unlocked processor.

We like to try and mirror ‘realistic’ conditions when ever possible, so instead of the open bench concept, we are mounting the system inside the NZXT Phantom Chassis. Room ambient temperatures were maintained at a steady 20c throughout testing.

AMD System:
Processor: Phenom II X2 555BE / unlocked Phenom II X4 B55BE
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-890GPA-UD3H v2
Thermal Paste: Arctic MX-4
Power Supply: Corsair HX850W
Chassis: NZXT Phantom
Memory: GSkill RipJaws DDR3 1600mhz 4GB Cas 6-8-6-24- 1T
Graphics Card: PNY Nvidia GTX570

When overclocking any CPU validation that our system is 100% stable remains very important here at KitGuru. There are several different apps out there that will load a processor to the max while running through a series of complicated calculations to determine system stability.  For today's testing we are going to use the latest version of IntelBurn Test.

IntelBurn Test 2.5 is a program that simplifies the usage of Intel(R) Linpack. Linpack by Intel(R) is an extremely stressful program that will put even the most powerful X86/X64 CPU in the world at its knees. Load temp under Linpack will be up to 22*C higher than the competing software Prime95. This program will make usage of Linpack easier and more practical.

Maximum Stable Overclock

System validation can be viewed here

We will run two separate sets of tests today. The first set will use the CPU fans PWM feature which we enable in the system BIOS. This will automatically control the speed of the fan based on a pre defined temperature cycle..  The second set will be done with this feature disabled in the BIOS and the fan running full speed.

Our results with the CPU fans controlled by the built in PWM feature were very good. The unlocked Phenom II X4 B55 Black Edition running at 4.22ghz never passed 54c while running IntelBurn Test which is very impressive. The fan on the Freezer 13 Pro never surpassed 1150 RPM, which is well under the maximum rated 1300 RPM's.

Setting the fans to 100% showed some additional improvement by taking another 1 or 2 degrees Celsius off both our idle and load temperatures. While this does not sound like much every drop in temperature is appreciated and the Freezer 13 Pro did a fantastic job cooling our highly overclocked Phenom II X4 B55 Black Edition CPU.

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