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I admit that I have a slightly unhealthy obsession about coolers and whenever I build a system I spend a lot of time fine tuning to get the lowest possible temperatures, while achieving the maximum possible overclocks.
Thankfully in 2010 there are no shortage of high quality heatsinks to choose from, a wealth of solutions from leading manufacturers built around dense aluminum fin configurations, copper bases and thick heatpipe designs. As processors get faster and hotter heatsink developers really are pulling out all the stops to deliver the best products to market.
The last high end air cooler we looked at was the phenomenal Noctua NH D14 which I dubbed the ‘Austrian Sandwich'. This cooler actually gave us better results than some of the entry level liquid cooling solutions on the market and we managed to achieve almost 5ghz with the Intel 875k processor.
Today we are looking at the premium Thermaltake solution called the ‘Frio‘ – a dual fan universal heatsink capable of cooling multi core processors with a power output of 220w. After our glowing review of the excellent Contact 29 we have high hopes that this cooler will really deliver the goods. The fact the cooler is around £30 less than the Noctua NH D14 should get you interested.
The Frio was developed and created by Thermaltake with one goal in mind – give overclockers exactly what they want. Our goal today is to find out if they have been successful. The cooler uses two 120mm fans with a maximum speed of 2,500 rpm in a classic push-pull airflow dynamic to force cool air over the fins. It is built with a mixture of aluminum, copper and plastic to maintain great heat transference capabilities while reducing body weight.
| Product | Thermaltake Frio |
| Intel Support | Intel® Latest 6-Core Processors Intel® Core i7 Extreme (Socket LGA1366) Intel® Core i7 (Socket LGA1366 & LGA1156) Intel® Core i5 / i3 (Socket LGA1156) Intel® Core 2 Extreme / Quad / Duo (Socket LGA775) Intel® Pentium D / 4 (Socket LGA775) Intel® Pentium (Socket LGA775) Intel® Celeron D (Socket LGA775) Intel® Celeron (Socket LGA775) |
| AMD Support | AMD® Latest 6-Core Processors AMD® Phenom II X6 / X4 / X3 / X2 (Socket AM3/AM2+) AMD® Phenom X4 / X3 (Socket AM3/AM2+) AMD® Athlon II X4 / X3 / X2 (Socket AM3) AMD® Athlon 64 FX / X2 (Socket AM2) AMD® Athlon 64 (Socket AM2) AMD® Sempron (Socket AM2) |
| Heatsink Dimension | 139(L) x 98(W) x 165(H) mm |
| Heatsink Material | Aluminum Fins Aluminum & Copper Base |
| Heatpipe | Ø 8mm x 5 |
| Fan Dimension | 120(L) x 120(H) x 25(W) mm |
| Fan Speed | 1,200 ~ 2,500 RPM |
| Noise Level | 20 ~ 43 dBA |
| Max. Air Flow | 101.6 CFM |
| Max. Air Pressure | 4.2 mmH2O |
| Power Connector | 3 pin |
| Rated Voltage | 12 V |
| Started Voltage | 6V |
| Rated Current | 0.5 A |
| Power Input | 6W |
| MTBF | 50,000 hours @ 40c |
| Weight | 1,042g |
