Arctic Cooling Freezer 13 CPU Cooler Review

Packaging
[COLOR=#000000]In a word the packaging is excellent. Really! The clear plastic clam shell design will be familiar to Freezer7 owners. The plastic is closely contoured to the cooler itself giving you a great idea of the size and shape of the cooler. Thankfully Arctic have created a clever clip system that holds the front and back of the clam shell together and avoids those horrible welded edge blister packs that require a knife to open.[/COLOR]

[COLOR=#000000]The front of the packaging is dominated by the 92mm fan with the Freezer logo at its centre. Below is the web address for Arctic, Arctic’s company logo along side the Freezer13 logo.

The left hand side shows the side of the cooler and the number of fins and tells us that the Freezer13 has 200 Watts of cooling capacity and a list of compatible sockets for both AMD and Intel. The right hand side (not shown) is identical as far as the product is concerned with the barcode, CE mark etc. and trademark information shown.

Turning our attention to the rear of the packaging we see the two clips on the left and right edges. A cardboard insert covers the back of the cooler but gives us lots of information about the product. The graphs in the centre compare the performance of the Freezer13 against an Intel stock cooler on an Intel i7 920. The top graph showing temperature, the bottom one the noise output. Below that is a table of specifications and at the bottom is a list showing six features of the Freezer13. They are as follows:

• Unmatched cooling performance – 200 Watts
• 4 U-shaped heatpipes and 45 aluminium fins for efficient heat dissipation
• Ultra quiet 92mm PWM fan with low noise impeller
• Easy installation with push pins
• Fluid dynamic bearing extends service life
• Pre-applied ARCTIC MX-4

On the base, the above features are listed again in 5 major European languages.

We conclude our tour on the top. The small tab at the back reiterates the 200 Watt cooling capacity and socket compatibility. The most striking thing in this image is the Freezer 13 logo. This isn’t applied to the packaging, it is actually a sticker on the fan surround. Once the product is installed in a case this sticker will the visible through a side window and leave people in no doubt to which cooler you bought. As we shall see later this is just one of several neat ideas on the Freezer 13.

Opening up the clam shell will reveal a simple single sheet, double sided installation guide and all the pieces necessary for mounting on AMD or Intel sockets.[/COLOR]