Once again we will be reviewing an Arctic cooling product, this time an Intel based CPU cooler. It's none other than the Freezer 7 and once again, we will see what a cooler that bears the name of AC can do. The F7 (as we will be referring to the Freezer 7 for the purposes of this review), is compatible with all 775 Intel CPU sockets (hence its name) and can be installed on any Intel Pentium 4 CPU, up to 4.4 GHz.

looks familiar? a patented version of the F64...

Freezer 7 : A modified version of the Freezer 64...

Anyone familiar with Arctic's range of coolers, will notice that the F7 is basically the same heatsink as the Freezer 64, differing only in the mounting module. In the case of the F7, we have the standard Intel based screw-like retaining clips which will fit right on to any 775 socket based CPU, while with the F64 we had the AMD heatsink brackets, that made use of the retention module. For how the heatsink works, you can take a look at the F64 review here. Briefly, the F7 consists of 2 copper heat-pipes, 40 aluminum fins and a modified 80mm CPU fan which is located on the side of the heatsink blowing air horizontally across the fins as opposed to downwards as with most coolers.

a side look of the F7 and the 40 aluminum fins...

As one can see from the following screenshot of the two heatinks, (i.e. the stock and AC), they do not differ that much in overall size but the F7 does have a slightly larger copper base that will fit right onto the CPU.

>stock cooler on the left, F7 on the right...

Here are the detailed specifications as provided by Arctic-Cooling:

*Noise Level
The noise level is measured in Sone (loudness) instead of dB (sound intensity).
The loudness depends upon ears response curves and tells you exactly, how bothering a certain noise is.

Detailed Features

The 80mm patented CPU fan, is strategically placed to the side of the heatsink in order to minimize any buzzing sound, ensuring the silence that the Freezer 7 promises. It rotates at 2500 RPM, and the PWM chip in the motor allows for exact fan speed control from the BIOS (4 wire), something that will not be needed as the cooler is almost silent at these speeds.

A comparison to the P4 stock box cooler...

The heatpipes are able to transfer heat up to 200 Watt (according to manufacturer). The 40 fin heat exchanger ensures a free energy transfer to air.

thermal resistance differences to the stock box cooler..

Now that we have a more detailed view of the Freezer 7 CPU cooler, it's time to have a look at the installation procedure, which proved to be quite easy, as we will explain on the following page.