Thermaltake Frio Advanced CPU Cooler Review

The solid plastic backplate is awkward to attach unless you have 3 hands available. You can easily position it over the necessary mounting holes with the screws poking through, but as soon as you go to fasten it down from the opposite side, you can almost certainly guarantee it will have moved out of position or one of the screws will have dropped. When used with an 1155 motherboard, the Thermaltake logo on the backplate will be upside-down, not that it matters too much.

Once the spacers have been positioned and the mounting bars are in place, you are ready to attach the cooler itself to the motherboard. Thermaltake allow for great flexibility with the orientation of their cooler. All you have to do is position the strips over whichever 2 neighbouring mounting holes you choose.

2 hold-down bars are screwed to either side of the cooler’s base. These bars feature a spring-cushioned screw which is fastened into the central hole on each of the mounting bars. This method proves very secure but does force you to remove each fan to provide access to the required screws.

For such a wide and sizeable cooler which uses larger-than-normal 130mm fans, RAM clearance is surprisingly good. The fan totally covers the first DIMM slot making tall modules there a no-go. Slots 2, 3 and 4 aren’t blocked by the fan meaning that tall RAM modules may not cause interference in those DIMM slots. We used a pair of low profile Corsair XMS3 modules with plenty of room to spare. Even modules which use slightly taller than average heatsinks such as G.Skill’s RipJawsX modules have a good chance of fitting under the fan.

The secure mount is very effective and, quite surprisingly, causes minimal all round interference. Attached to a motherboard, the Thermaltake Frio Advanced is, in all honesty, one of the most attractive CPU coolers I have seen to date. The smooth red fan blades are a perfect contrast to their sharp black frames. Good job in this aspect Thermaltake!

When installed in our test system, the Frio Advanced definitely spices it up in terms of style. This cooler coupled with a red and black motherboard such as an Asus ROG series board will undoubtedly create the perfect foundations for a very aesthetically pleasing system indeed. Unfortunately, as much as the styling of the cooler will enhance your system’s style, the fact that no 4-pin PWM fan splitter is included will likely impact that style slightly due to you being forced to route the fan cables around your case. Thankfully, Thermaltake use a high quality mesh braiding on the fan cables which resembles that used on their power supplies. Still, a 4-pin PWM fan splitter should most definitely have been included.

Overall, installation was fairly pleasant for such a bulky single tower cooler. The backplate attachment method was exceedingly frustrating but once completed, provided a secure foundation upon which the cooler could sit. Screwing the heatsink itself to the mounting foundations requires you remove each fan, adding time to the installation procedure. Thankfully, the fans are very easy to re-attach. If Thermaltake could design a method of attaching the backplate which doesn’t compromise on stability but doesn’t have you wishing for 3 hands, we would be very pleased.