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After spending a few days testing the Freezer 13 Pro we were impressed by Arctic's latest offering. The AMD heatsink did a decent job but the Freezer 13 Pro is easily superior. With the Freezer 13 Pro installed we transformed our sub $100 AMD 3.2 GHz dual core processor into a stable and rather impressive QuadCore AMD Phenom II X4 Black Edition B55, with 128K L1 Cache, 512K L2 Cache, 6MB L3 Cache @ 4.22 GHz.
Installing this heatsink was extremely easy, yet for precautionary reasons we would recommend removing the motherboard from the chassis prior to installing the Freezer 13 Pro. Intel installations require a few more steps but should also be very simple indeed. We do have some concern regarding the weight (902g) being supported by the default retention bracket when configured for AMD processors. So far we have not seen any negative effects but only time will tell.
The fans on the Freezer 13 Pro are extremely quiet and when using the PWM to control fan speeds the noise level was never an issue. Even with the fans set to 100% the noise was never intrusive.
One of the most impressive things we noticed was how well heat was dissipated once load was removed from our processor. Within a second or two 12-15 degrees Celsius was gone and before long our processor would be back to idle temperatures. The Freezer 13 Pro @ 100% kept our overclocked CPU temperature at 52c. This is with all four cores unlocked and a full 1 GHz increase over the stock speed. In comparison the AMD heatsink hit the same 52c with our Dual Core Phenom II X2 555BE running at stock speeds.
It's hard to find fault with the Arctic Freezer 13 Pro. The construction of the unit is top notch and the results speak for themselves. We feel that the suggested retail price of $59.99 is warranted for an item of this quality and would highly recommend it if you are looking for a new, performance cooling solution.
