Arctic Liquid Freezer III Pro 360 A-RGB

[crazyeyesreaper]

Arctic is expanding its AIO liquid cooler collection with the Liquid Freezer III Pro 360 A-RGB. The cooler boasts a wider RPM range for its radiator fans, A-RGB lighting, and a proven high-performance design. You could say they took an already excellent product and made it better!

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[zenlessyank]

I guess if you mount your motherboard inverted and mount the reservoir outside the case, I could probably sorta kinda get on board with water cooling. But that day has not come. I will stick to giant metal fin arrays and semi quiet fans for the near future.

 

[LocutusH]

So, TL;DR: its the same cooler, but the fans rpm range is higher.

 

[PixelTech]

I have this cooler without the RGB. It keeps my 9800 X3D really cool. The VRM fan is noisy thou.
I'd pay extra to have fans that are daisy chained through the frames.
I'd like to see a 4 screw mounting system for a more even pressure, rather then 2 screw. It would be great if some AIO manufacturer would include screw heads that have half the head in a different color to tell how screwed down a screw is. Maybe dark gray for the color?

 

[tetrapak]

Same moronic bracket, hard skip ! Got rid of mine cause of that abomination. Even arctic admitted it's their fault and they've released updated version with longer screws but they didn't want to replace mine, so no more arctic for me. Otherwise, great cooling performance.

 

[Kwadratowicz]

Is there a way to install cooling plate rotated that tubes are on top of the socket, not on bottom? Or is it single mounting style cooler?

 

[harm9963]

Got my 420 III NON RGB , about a year ago , 98 dollars , but upgraded the fans and went with P/P with inlet spacers .

 

[FrostWolf]

I really wonder if the pump block will be a magnet for dust with that beveled top.

Also not a fan of not having movable joint connectors on the radiator, and curious if the hoses are as insanely stiff as the Arctic Freezer II I bought (and returned) because that stiffness would not let me mount it in my case (equivalent 280mm AIOs from BeQuiet!, NZXT, and Lian Li, who I've gone with) had far more flexible hoses, albeit slightly smaller diameter.

Between that and the noise, not a fan. I'll stay with my Galahad II LCD 280 (re-fanned with Phanteks D30-140 fans), which keeps my i7-13700k incredibly cool, so far in all situations except Cinebench Multicore.

 

[Chrispy_]

It's a good cooler, Bront.

The problem is that any mug can change the fans to RGBLED fans. I just spent the last hour of my Monday putting a 9800X3D/5080 build together on commission and I used an ID Cooling FX360 Pro with its default non-RGBLED fans. RGBLED and radiators don't really mix, because so little light bleeds through a radiator.

Instead, I have RGLBED in other places - the GPU, the RAM, the three 120mm case intakes, the rear exhaust, and the two intakes below the GPU. It's a veritable rainbow-spew bonanza and adding RGLBED to the radiators would add very little, largely because they're completely out of line of sight unless you lie on the floor next to the PC and look straight up.

RGBLED isn't my thing, but even when I'm bulding for others (who love the rainbow vomit) there's no point wasting money on RGBLED that's going to be obstructed from view.

 

[Space Lynx]

I'm never doing water again after the MSI hell AIO I had, but just wanted to give a shoutout to be quiet light loop for still being the king this round, impressive stuff. Other sites showed the Thermalright Grand Vision beating the light loop across the board, but that AIO is no longer being sold as far as I am aware.

CPS is an interesting cooling brand most people overlook, I got one of their air coolers recently because it was on sale for $32 (regular 70), and it beats my frost commander by about 3 degrees across the board. Very impressive stuff from CPS, the packaging was 10/10 as well, and the white paint job on mine included even the cables being painted white, the mount, and the screws all white... I was very very impressed by CPS brand. I would have never got it if it wasn't for the sale price, glad I did, because I wouldn't pay full price or the new tariff price for it. My Frost Commander is now retired though, it will be my backup cooler for a rainy day build maybe.

 

[wolf32v]

I like to see some 420 coolers tested to see if there is any advantage in sound and cooling like a Corsair H170I AIO cpu cooler.

 

[PrEzi]

Love the test! What I only miss is actually comparing apples to apples --- Arctic 360 non-pro and 360 pro series included in this bench so we can directly see the differences in thermals and noise.
Uh oh! And please don't forget to test the upcoming 420 Pro !

 

[Gigaherz]

The lack of installation manual is still a PITA. Especially when you have 10 different Aios that you swap around all the time. Cant be bothered to remember how to mount all of them. For the sake of gathering all the required standoffs and bridges - at least a sheet with requirements for each platform would be nice.

 

[lexluthermiester]

Very cool! Pun sort of intended. Seems Arctic has another top tier winner on their hands!

 

[_roman_]

The lack of installation manual is still a PITA. Especially when you have 10 different Aios that you swap around all the time.

My arctic freezer II 360 which i put on the Ryzen 5800x +x570 mainboard years ago had a small paper with QR code.
The manual is digital online. Like with most products. You can not provide Videos in paper form. Arctic had years ago instruction videos with the supplied qr barcode when i first unpacked arctic freezer II 360.

Most products do not have a manual. Or a bad paper manual. I checked out a lot of arctic products in past few months. Arctic has decent online documentation. Noctua in my special example, has extra information for the fans, only in the box after purchase. The reason why I'm forced to return the noctua product this week.

I keep the stuff in the original box. I have a wall full with current spare computer parts and tools for my desktop computer and for repairs. I think your issue is about work practise. I label screws when i disassemble something. When i remove my noctua nh-d15 i put everything in that original box and take out the stuff from the be quiet ... 5 tower cooler.

I also kept screws separated from my car past two weeks when i did the first time the brake rotor and brake pads. Keep it separated, make pictures, put it together later. It's about how organised you are. It's impossible to label every plastic part and every screw from the factory.

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The noise reading are far too loud even at 50% pwm.

 

[lexluthermiester]

The noise reading are far too loud even at 50% pwm.

Not everyone cares about the noise. And let's be honest, those db readings are not all that loud. My ID Cooling fans are louder and they not at all bothersome.

 

[Hakker]

I have the non pro version in all black and that one is barely audible when it's on 100% and not with any high noise. That said the mounting of it is just a pain in the ass, but then again $80 for a 360 AIO is such a steal I could deal with the downside.

 

[Rightness_1]

I hear the non-Pro version is better because it has a pump that runs fast all the time, as opposed to this being fan RPM dependent. I've got the non-Pro 420 on the way, It cost's nothing (€60) after having years of trouble free service from the previous version II model.

 

[KrazedOmega]

Like I've said before I'm not going to buy any new Arctic AIO's until they provide a regular mounting option for Intel instead of the contact frame. I already have another contact frame on my CPU and I'm not going to swap it out for another one.

AMD also has the option of using a contact frame yet they provide the normal mounting bracket for it.

 

[bogami]

I am very disappointed because the efficiency could be much better, somewhere between 20% , at least 450W per radiator thickness, but what can we do if the designers don't put in the effort in their designs and don't even realize the importance of streaming liquids, let alone efficiency! There is a lot of waste here! The price is still acceptable, but a lot could be added. The fans are very suitable! Enabling posh poll would improve performance and reduce noise, the fan kits extra must be added to the offer!

 

[thunderingroar]

Like I've said before I'm not going to buy any new Arctic AIO's until they provide a regular mounting option for Intel instead of the contact frame. I already have another contact frame on my CPU and I'm not going to swap it out for another one.

AMD also has the option of using a contact frame yet they provide the normal mounting bracket for it.

Pretty sure those AM5 contact frames are purely cosmetic where as intel actually has IHS bending issues so its much more important to include one

 

[_roman_]

Pretty sure those AM5 contact frames are purely cosmetic where as intel actually has IHS bending issues so its much more important to include one

I disagree. I wrote user reviews in the past. That thermaltake "contact frame" for below 10€ was money well spend.
You see it on the picture how the Noctua Thermal paste stays on the aluminum and does not go further below.

10€ upgrade is a low percentage of money regarding a 240€ asus mainboard. I dislike the asus oem am5 socket.

I also think that aftermarket socket improves a bit passive cooling.

 

[wheresmycar]

Thanks for the review

I was waiting for this one, and its nothing short of impressive.

Although i admit, with "pro" series (~3000RPM) I was expecting perhaps a little better performance at the cost of noise, maybe stealing the top spot in those AMD performance charts. But thats just nit-picking with the ALFIII 360 already being amongst the chart toppers. Those Pro-series noise levels though... ew.

I thankfully went with the non-Pro version (~1800 RPM) with zero regrets and tweaked the fan settings further for whisper quiet performance. Wouldn’t have it any other way.

At its regular MSRP of $144.99 I would say the value proposition is gone, but the company's solid track record and warranty support mean I would still recommend it regardless.

I agree - the companies anniversary sale value was one of its best selling points. I made use of the sale and picked up two non-Pro 360 AIOs for around £80 and even added to my air cooler collection with a couple of Arctic 36'ers for as little as 17 quid each. Here in the UK, you can still pick up the non-Pro/Pro for around £80 (perhaps $100 in the US?).

 

[Chrispy_]

I like to see some 420 coolers tested to see if there is any advantage in sound and cooling like a Corsair H170I AIO cpu cooler.

My gut feeling is that 280/360 radiators are large enough that the problem isn't heat transfer out of the radiator, but heat transfer into the water through the IHS and coldplate.

Maybe that argument falls apart if you're cooling a 14900KS that's pulling 400W from the socket...

 

[Baru68]

Loved the mention of the Freezer 7 Pro - that push pin bargain cooler took my q6600 on an Evga 680i LT to 3.577, then 3.733 on a Biostar P43. Broke 3.6ghz but never got to the 4ghz club.

Anyways, its a bummer to see Arctic not achieving cream of the crop with perf/$ when that's what they were known for back then. Great review!!