ID-COOLING FROZN A620 PRO SE CPU Cooler Review

I'm going to start this review backwards, and go right in with the price. This cooler is £29.99, that's right, under thirty quid for an all-black, dual-tower air cooler with two fans. Even if the performance is middling at best, that's still going to be pretty great value for money. However, ID-Cooling has a really good reputation when it comes to their in-house designed cooling products, so we may yet be impressed even further. ID-COOLING FROZN A620 PRO SE It's well equipped too, featuring six heat pipes that run in a U-shape through both of the heatsink towers. It can be run in a single fan configuration for maximum RAM compatibility, in a dual fan configuration that gives 40-43mm of RAM clearance (depending on how high you mount the fan), or we an extra fan (sold separately) it can be run in a triple fan configuration for maximum airflow. How ID-Cooling has done these for such a low price is baffling, but let's dive into it for a closer look and see what it has to offer. Features Better Heat Dissipation: The CPU cooler comes with a dual-tower heatsink and two 120mm PWM fans to ensure excellent heat dissipation from the CPU. Aesthetic Appeal: A blackout cooler can blend seamlessly into the design of many computer cases, especially those with black or dark-coloured interiors. 157mm Height: The dual-tower CPU air cooler can fit most tower cases due to a 157mm height in total. RAM Compatibility: The CPU air cooler gives 40mm clearance for standard RAM and a maximum of 63mm height with the cut-out fin. 6 Heat Pipes: Six Ф6mm copper heat pipes can efficiently absorb heat from the CPU and transfer it to the heatsink. PWM Functional: The 120mm PWM fan delivers Low-Noise for automatic speed control and ultra-quiet operation for extreme CPU cooling performance. Ultra-quiet Fan: The two fans can provide quieter operation and stable performance output. | Noise Level: 27.2dB(A) Max. Packaging and Accessories The box looks great, again not really what I would expect from such an affordable product, and it's so affordable I'm surprised they didn't just wrap it in brown paper. It's well packaged too, with everything well protected as you would hope. In the box you get all the usual stuff too, including the mounting kits for both AMD and Intel, with all black fittings, and it's all really good quality too. Even the backplate is metal not plaster... WHAT!? And you even get a tube of thermal paste included. A Closer Look It's a really nice looking cooler, and it's crazy seeing a budget cooler that looks so clean and refined. There's even caps on the top of the cooling towers, hiding the tips of the heat pipes as they pass through the top of the cooling fins. The fans look great, with a five fin design but they're very large and scooped fins that can move big airflow at lower RPM. They actually remind me of the Cooler Master Silencio fans, which is no bad thing, they're pretty great fans. The fans are mounted with simple retention clips, so they're easy enough to install or remove for cleaning. The cooler measures 157mm tall once installed, with a 63mm cut-out for RAM clearance on the fins, but this will be limited to 40-43mm with the fan on the outside, and as I said before, it can be run in a single, dual or triple fan configuration depending on your requirements. ID-Cooling say that it's capable of cooling up to 260W TDP too, so it's pretty potent for mid-to-high-end CPUs. What's really nice is that it has a proper copper contact plate too, and at this price, I would have been both OK and expected direct contact heat pipes. But no, it's a nicely polished plate with nickel plating giving it a much more premium aesthetic and performance. Test System & Methodology Idle tests are recorded after 10 minutes of the system being left alone after boot with no additional background processes or software running. All load tests are performed in Cinebench R2, first using a single speed run to generate the Cinebench R23 score, then a 10-minute loop to determine the overall all-core average load temperature for the relevant cooler. Clock speeds are left at the default factory settings provided by the CPU and our NZXT Z690 N7 motherboard. Optimised settings lock the CPU P-Cores to 4.9Hz and the E-Cores to 4GHz at a voltage of 1.3v. Fan speeds for the case are set to 30% at all times. Pump RPM is fixed to 100% for liquid coolers, and CPU cooler fans are left to the motherboard "automatic" and "normal" profile unless otherwise stated. Acoustics are measured from 2ft above the NZXT H7 Flow PC case, using a decibel meter, with all side panels and filters in place on the case and as stated, the case fans are left at 30% (just to the point where they become comfortably audible over ambient), to represent a real-world usage scenario. We are no longer testing coolers on an open-air test bench for this reason. As of 20/07/2023, all coolers featured on these charts were retested to reflect our improved methodology, and as such, reviews before this date can not be fairly compared to the new results. However, we have been periodically retesting older coolers, which is why you may see their performance figures here, and why they may not align with previous test results from the same product in their respective reviews. Test system: NZXT Z690 ATX Intel Core i9-12900K @ stock and & 4.9 GHz all P-Core 4 GHz E-Core 1.3v Aorus RTX 2080 16GB Crucial DDR4 4400 MHz XMP 512GB NVMe SSD Thermaltake Tough Power 750W NZXT H7 Flow RGB Case All testing is conducted using NT-H1 thermal paste We want to thank Gigabyte, Noctua, Crucial, Intel, Thermaltake, NZXT and more for providing us with the above testing equipment and their ongoing support. Testing Methodology We always use Noctua Noctua NT-H1 thermal paste to make sure testing reveals the efficiency of the tested coolers not the efficiency of the bundled thermal paste Cinebench R23 is run for 10 minutes to calculate “load” results Multiple readings are taken with the average of the package temperatures calculated for our recorded result Fans are left to operate at default PWM profile speeds unless otherwise stated For water cooling tests, all pumps have been operated at 12 volts unless otherwise stated Ambient temperatures should be between 21-23 degrees in all our tests unless otherwise stated Acoustic measurements are taken 60cm vertically away from the CPU cooler Stock tests are performed using “out of the box” settings for the CPU All coolers were tested under identical settings unless otherwise stated. There is approximately a 1-degree Celsius margin of error in our temperature recording software CPUID HW Monitor There is approximately a 1.5dBA margin of error with our Benetech GM1351 decibel meter In all these graphs we may have a few “reference” results of particular products that do not fit within that category for comparative purposes. Software Used CPUID HWMonitor Cinebench R23 Unigine Superposition Performance Right out the gate, the performance is good, sure, 90c is up there, but this is a flagship i9 CPU that would comfortably operate up to 105c, and this is a cooler that's under £30. The Cooler Master MA824 performance is similar, but the MA824 is £80, so you do the math. With optimised settings, this is much improved, hitting just 77c at full load, and surprisingly close to the performance of the NH-U12A and D15S. Obviously, while the performance may be close to the likes of Noctua and Cooler Master, the ID-Cooling FROZN is running with more noise, but I think that was to be expected. That being said, the acoustic performance at 45dBa is similar to a lot of 240mm AIO coolers. And that's about the same while using the optimised settings too, a tiny bit quieter, but only by a little. How Much Does it Cost? As I said right at the start of this review, the ID-Cooling FROZN A620 PRO SE is priced at just £29.99, which is absolutely freaking amazing value for money. Sure, our Intel Core i9 is no easy beast to tame, but I think it held up surprisingly well for the price. Placing it on a more modest CPU would certainly be where it is happiest, but at £29.99, it's clear we have a new budget champion when it comes to CPU cooler. If that's still too expensive though, the smaller SE-213 series is down to just £17.99! Overview ID-Cooling has been one of my favourite brands for years, as they've always been surprisingly affordable. They design and produce all their own hardware in China, which obviously helps them keep the costs down and they don't have to rely on the big OEMs to get products to market. However, this cooler is so cheap, it feels like they found a truck full of a rival product and scratched their logos off. But no, it's all genuine ID-Cooling, and even if they're only making pennies on this cooler, it's great to see entry level pricing that's going to help those on a tighter budget. It's not a cheap product though, and features aspect we expect to see from more expensive products and from the bigger names in the business. There are two good quality PWM fans that blend in with the heatsink design and those top covers on the cooling towers. The colour matched mounting hardware for Intel and AMD is all metal and of a great quality. Even the CPU block has a proper copper contact plate, and really, we couldn't ask for much more. When it comes to performance, being able to cooler up to 260W is pretty respectable, and while our Intel CPU on our cooling test bench is an absolute fire breathing monster, it still held up pretty well. However, I think it's fair to say that a flagship CPU deserves a more potent cooler to ensure it gets the best performance. However, when it comes to most some of the more affordable CPUs, the ID-Cooling ROZN A620 PRO SE is going to make light work of keeping them cool. Of course you should, when this cooler comes in cheaper than the cheapest Cooler Master Hyper 212, yet features twice as many cooling towers, twice as many fans, and much nicer build quality and aesthetics, it really is a no brainer, you won't find a better budget air cooler for less money, and if you do, let me know!