Thermaltake Frio Extreme Silent 14 Dual CPU Cooler Review

Dave Alcock / 10 years ago

Final Thoughts

Price

The Thermaltake Frio Extreme Silent 14 Dual Fan cooler can be found at Scan.co.uk offering it for £57.48 + shipping here in the UK. This is towards the top end of the price scale for dual fan coolers and some of the others around the same price margin are better at cooling. Having said this, if having a quiet computer with reasonable temperatures is what you are looking for, then this cooler fits the bill perfectly.

Overview

I tested this cooler with quite high hopes. I liked the design, particularly the mounting options, the bracket that holds the cooler to the front and back plate actually holding its own screws is a brilliant idea. I know other coolers use this idea, but there are still many that don’t. It makes fitting the cooler a lot easier as you don’t have to try and hold the screw in place as well as the cooler and the screwdriver.

The size of the cooler was just right for me too, although it is a large cooler and holds 140mm fans, it doesn’t waste any of the space with unneeded design features or overly complicated brackets. It’s as big as it needs to be and no bigger. Some other brands should take note.

Thermaltake have exceeded my expectations in the acoustics department, but I was slightly disappointed with the temperatures. I think if I took a bit more time and created my own fan profile or used a fan controller, instead of leaving it to PWM I could gain some better temperatures. This, of course, would probably mean that sound levels would rise, but they are that good that you can afford to add some db’s. It might not be the best option for extreme overclocking, but for a quiet system it would be great.

Pros

Virtually silent performance
Great build quality
Smart aesthetics
Easy installation

Cons

Doesn’t perform quite as well as other similar priced coolers

“Thermaltake have named this cooler the “Frio Extreme Silent 14 Dual” and they weren’t lying. Its the quietest cooler I’ve heard in recent years and if I was wanting a quiet build with reasonable temperatures this would be the cooler I would purchase. “