Thermaltake Frio Advanced CPU Cooler Review

The performance offered by Thermaltake’s Frio Advanced could, in some people’s eyes, be considered a revelation. It is one of the only single tower CPU coolers on the market that manages to challenge the dual tower brutes in terms of cooling performance. Noctua’s continuously popular, dual tower NH-D14 was given an extremely tough time when pitted against the Frio Advanced, so much so, that it didn’t manage to beat it in any of our overclocked cooling tests. Considering the price differences and the sheer number of awards that the Noctua flagship has won, this is a significant feat that Thermaltake should be very proud of. Thermalright’s Silver Arrow does manage to offer far stiffer competition to the Frio Advanced, mainly due to its very aggressive pricing and consistently better performance. That isn’t to say that the Silver Arrow is immediately the better choice though. These days, CPU coolers aren’t purchased based upon performance and price alone.

Installation was a little frustrating at times and took longer than usual due to the fans needing to be removed, we did conclude with a very secure mount however. All modern sockets including Intel’s new LGA 2011 are supported by the Frio Advanced’s default installation kit. The relative lack of interference to our motherboard components and RAM is another major positive of the Frio Advanced; one which none of the gargantuan dual tower heatsinks can boast about. If you have space constraints around your motherboard area or in your case, Thermaltake’s Frio Advanced is definitely a far better option than any of the dual tower coolers on show today.

Acoustics aren’t the biggest selling point for Thermaltake’s cooler. At 100% speed, the pair of 130mm fans is loud. The important feature though is the fact that they utilize the all-important 4-pin PWM connection allowing their speeds to be dynamically controlled by your motherboard, albeit without Thermaltake actually supplying a convenient 4-pin PWM splitter. The cost of this adapter should probably be added to the total price of the cooler. That is how certain I am that I would purchase the adapter if I wanted to use this cooler for 24/7 use.

The aesthetic appeal that Thermaltake have designed is excellent. The smooth red fan blades perfectly contrast the sharp black frames. When installed in your system, the red top cover is sure to look outstanding when it harnesses some of the light given off by the LEDs of other components such as your motherboard.

Thermaltake’s Frio Advanced offers performance that matches some of the most expensive and highly acclaimed dual tower coolers such as Noctua’s NH-D14, doesn’t cause nearly as many interference problems as the vast majority of dual tower coolers, utilizes a pair of 4-pin PWM fans, is priced competitively and does all that while still being confined to a single tower form factor. There are a few downsides though. The installation was a little tricky at times, there is no PWM splitter included and Thermalright’s Silver Arrow just won’t let up in terms of performance, noise output and price. Focusing more specifically on the Frio Advanced versus the Silver Arrow, both have their plus sides. Thermaltake’s offering can’t match the Silver Arrow’s performance or noise output. The Silver Arrow is slightly more expensive and very hard to find in some countries. The Frio Advanced is a far more convenient size, causes significantly fewer interference problems and is more aesthetically appealing dependent upon your preference.

Basically, what we are trying to say, is that however you interpret the results, the Frio Advanced does extremely well to battle the dual tower brutes in terms of cooling performance while being an infinitely more convenient size, cheaper and better looking than most. Thermaltake’s design team have undoubtedly created one of the market’s best single tower coolers which warrants our highly acclaimed eTeknix “Editor’s Choice” award.