Running out of juice is a pain. Whenever it happens, you just wish that you had half an hour spare to stick your phone or other cool electronic device into a hotel wall socket and get a few bars back. But what if you’re no where near a hotel?  Arctic wants €39 of your hard-earned cash for a solution. KitGuru ponders the value.

With lithium polymer technology on its side, Arctic has packed a lot of the charge holding material into the new Power Bank 4000.

This slimline device comes in silver or black and takes 6 hours to fully charge.

Once energised, you can carry it around in the side pocket of your hand luggage etc, just waiting for the opportunity to pull it out and act superior as those around you lose their charge and blame it on you.

Jeannie Wong, Arctic marketing guru, told us, “With it’s 2A maximum current output at 4000 mAh, the Arctic Power Bank 4000 can quickly charge all Smartphones, tablets and USB devices”.

All?

“Yes”, she replied. “Take for example the iPhone 5 and the Galaxy S III, it can extend their battery life for as much as 14 hours of talk time or, if you are in the mood for entertainment, around 70 hours of audio playback”.

Jeannie went on, “The smart level LED indicator displays its battery status and charging mode, so that you know
when it’s time to recharge your Power Bank 4000 and always give you the full supply at anytime. Integrated with a safety-protection mode, it prevents damage to both the Power Bank and your connected device, charging will immediately stop if the Power Bank overloads your device”.

So how big it is?

“At only 11mm thick, it fits in any pocket!”, she smiled. “And the elegant brushed aluminium cover, with anti-slip back, mean better grip for safe use”

It’s available from Amazon already – other stores to follow.

Slim, slylish and low cost - with a 2 year guarantee. Hard to argue with the Arctic Power Bank 4000

KitGuru says: Opinion is divided in the KitGuru office about this kind of product. Those who have traditionally used Blackberry devices, feel that a spare, fully charged battery for your phone is a better/cheaper way forward. On the other hand, Apple users don’t have that option, in which case Arctic’s solution is a win.

Comment below, in the KitGuru forums or join us online on Facebook.

Without doubt, one of the biggest problem areas for the environment is the professional segment of the market. It’s a huge consumer of all things elec-tricky. While a regular user might accept a small issue with a system – and wait patiently while repairs etc are effected by the store that supplied – mission critical installations have never heard of patience. KitGuru considers a new release from Arctic that aims to keep the polar caps covered in snow and ice.

It’s not often a cooler will come with a 6 year warranty, but the Arctic Alpine 20 PLUS CO has exactly that – and it’s being offered through a variety of resellers like eBuyer and Amazon at just over £10.

So what’s the deal?

Well the Alpine 20 PLUS CO is a low profile CPU cooler with specially selected Japanese bearings – designed specifically for the 24×7 processing environment found in modern server and workstation environments, the 92mm PMW fan supplied will provide a significant improvement over stock LGA-2011 coolers – according to Arctic marketing guru Brice Vandervoorde.

For speed and ease of fitting, the cooler comes pre-coated with multi-award winning Arctic MX-4 thermal compound.

Arctic is doing its bit to try and improve cooling, noise and power consumption for servers and workstations

According to Arctic, it is also quieter than Intel’s stock cooler – but we’re not sure how much of a benefit that will be in most situations.

If you need to run a server or workstation hard, and feel that Intel’s stock cooler isn’t up to par, then Brice suggests that you take a look at the Arctic Alpine 20 PLUS CO.

KitGuru says: Even if it’s just a few degrees, keeping your critical systems cooler and/or using less mains juice, has to be a good thing, right?

Comment below, in the KitGuru forums or join us online at Facebook.

Today we are going to take a look at the Arctic S111 BT Mobile Bluetooth Sound System which is designed for those who are looking for a pair of wireless speakers to use on the go.

Arctic have been producing an extensive range of mobile accessories for a few years now and we have been generally pretty impressed with what we have seen in the past, especially when we consider value for money.

The S111 BT will have a harder challenge than most of their mobile products as the portable Bluetooth speaker market is already quite crowded, with a number of different brands trying to compete.

We were very impressed with the Arctic P311 when we looked at it about three years ago, so we are excited to see what this product has to offer.

Specifications

• Impedance: 4Ω
• Power Input: DC 5V, 1A, Micro USB
• Output Power: 4W (2W x 2) RMS
• Charging Time: 4 – 5 hours
• Battery Type: Rechargeable 2000mAh Lithium-ion Polymer
• Battery Life: Playing : 12 hours
• Connectivity (wired) 3.5mm Stereo Jack on cable
• Connectivity (wireless): Bluetooth 4.0

Today we are going to take a look at a the Arctic Accelero Hybrid II-120 GPU Cooler, an aftermarket graphics cooling solution which is designed to improve the cooling performance of your graphics card, allowing more overclocking headroom while reducing the noise level.

We tested the original Arctic Accelero Hybrid graphics cooler back in July 2012 which was one of the first attempts at closed loop GPU cooling in the market.  This was an impressive product, earning our coveted ‘Must Have’ award.  We are excited to see how they have improved on the design over the past two years.  We will also be comparing the Accelero Hybrid II-120 with the NZXT Kraken G10 that we recently reviewed.

Specification

• Dimensions (radiator module with fan): 150 x 120 x 50 mm (W x H x D)
• Dimensions (water cooler with pump): 70 x 70 x 28 mm (W x H x D)
• Dimensions (Back-Plate): 217 x 98 x 23 mm (W x H x D)
• Weight (total): 793 g
• Fan: 120 mm F12 PWM (400-1300 U / min, 0.3 Sone, 125.7 m³ / h)
• Cooling Capacity: 320 Watts
• Tube: 420 x 11 mm (length x diameter)
• Compatibility (for reference only layout!):
• AMD Radeon R9 290 (X) 270 (X), R7 265, HD 8870, 7870 (XT, GHz), 7850, 6970, 6950, 6870, 6850, – 6790, 5870, 5850, 5830 , 4890, 4870, 4850, 4830, 3870, 3850, 3690
• NVIDIA GTX Titan (Black), 780 (Ti), 770, 760, 750 (Ti), 680, 670, 660 (Ti), 650 (Ti boost), 580, 570, 560 – (Ti, SE), 550 Ti, 480, 470, 465, 460 (SE); GTS 450, 250, 240 (OEM)

Today we are going to look at Arctic’s top-of-the-range GPU air cooler, the Accelero Xtreme IV.  We recently took a look at Arctic’s take on all-in-one graphics card cooling, the Accelero Hybrid II, which performed well, despite being let down by a complicated installation process.  We are excited to see how the Accelero Xtreme IV compares.

We tested the Accelero Xtreme III back in 2012 and were very impressed with what it had to offer, awarding it our coveted ‘Must Have’ award.  Although the design of the coolers are fairly similar, the Accelero Xtreme IV has been updated to offer support for more recent graphics cards and offers a backplate heatsink to further improve heat dissipation.

Specification

• Dimensions: 288 x 54 x 104 mm (W x H x D, with fan)
• Weight: 653 g
• Heatpipes: 5x 6 mm
• Fan: 3x 92 mm (max. 0.5 Sone, 900-2000 U / min, PWM)
• Cooling power: 300 watts
• Manufacturer Warranty: 6 years
• Compatibility (AMD Radeon): R9 290 (X) 270 (X) Radeon HD 8870, 7870 (XT, GHz), 7850, 6970, 6950, 6870, 6850, 6790, 5870, 5850, 5830, 4890 , 4870, 4850, 4830
• Compatibility (nVidia GeForce): GTX Titan, 780, 770, 760, 680, 670, 660 (Ti), 650 (Ti, boost), 580, 570, 560 (Ti, SE), 550 Ti, 480, 460 (SE), GTS 450, 250, 240

Today we are going to look at one of Arctic’s latest products, the P253 BT Bluetooth headset. This has been designed for budget-restricted users who are looking for a decent pair of Bluetooth headphones, particularly those who want to use them for sports.

Even though we are more accustomed to reviewing high-end gaming headsets, we have been very impressed by Arctic’s Bluetooth audio offerings in the past and couldn’t resist when they offered us this model to test.

We reviewed Arctic’s slightly more expensive P311 Bluetooth headset back in 2011 and awarded it our coveted ‘Worth Buying’ award.

Specifications

• Headphone Type: Supra-Aural On-ear, Neckband
• Driver Size: 28 mm
• Microphone: Omnidirectional, -42±3dB
• Frequency Response: 18 Hz – 22 kHz
• Impedance: 32 Ω
• Bluetooth Version: V3.0 +EDR Class 2. V3.0
• Range: 20 m
• Rechargable Battery: 400mAh Lithium-ion Battery
• Playback Time: 20 hours
• Standby Time: Up to 400 hours
• Compatibility: iPhone, Samsung, Blackberry and other phones with Bluetooth connection, Laptops and computers with Bluetooth connection or Bluetooth adapter

Today we are going to take a look at one of Arctic’s latest mobile accessories, the Power Bank 4000.  We have looked at a number of Arctic’s mobile accessories over the last few years and have been generally very impressed with the level of quality and value for money that they offer.

The Arctic Power Bank 4000 is a essentially a backup battery which lets you recharge your mobile devices on the move.  These devices have become increasingly popular over the past few years, as smartphones have also become increasingly demanding on their batteries – with most only going a day or two between charges.

Specification

• Dimensions: 117 (L) x 54 (W) x 11 (H) mm.
• Net Weight: 107 g.
• Battery Capacity: 4,000 mAh.
• Type: Lithium Polymer.
• Output (Voltage, Current): DC 5V, 2A.
• Input (Voltage, Current): DC 5V, 800 mA.
• Charging Time: 6 hours.
• Standby Time: 3 years.
• Life Span: Up to 1,000 cycles.

Today we are going to look at the latest set of Bluetooth headphones from Arctic – the P614 BT.  This headset seeks to break new ground for Arctic, moving the brand into the fiercely competitive premium end of the market.  Can they compete?

We recently tested another Arctic model which sits at the opposite end of the range, the P253 BT, which offered excellent value for money and consequently won our coveted ‘Must Have award’.  Considering that the P614 BT comes in over six times more expensive than the P253 BT, we are very interested to see what else it offers in terms of sound quality, build quality and design.

Specification:

• Wearing Style: Supra-Aural On-ear
• Bluetooth Version: V4.0 Class 2
• Frequency Response: 20 Hz – 20 kHz
• Impedance: 32 Ω
• Microphone Sensitivity: -42dB +/- 3dB
• Sensitivity: 105dB
• Battery: Rechargeable 850mAh Lithium-ion battery
• Playback Time: 30 hours

Arctic is widely known for its CPU coolers and PC case fans but the company  has had its own line of headphones for quite some time. Today we will be taking a look at Arctic’s new P324 BT headphones, offering 20 hours of wireless playback over bluetooth in a sporty design.

The Arctic P324 BT headphones don’t come with a traditional headband, opting for a neckband instead. This is supposed to make them easier to use while your out and about or taking part in sports.

Features:

• Six different colours.
• 400 mAh battery.
• 20 hours of wireless playback per charge.
• 400 hours standby time.
• Compatible with all Bluetooth devices.
• 28mm drivers.
• Neckband.
• 10m BlueTooth range.

The Arctic Freezer series is arguably the most famous ‘first cooler’ in the market. Over the past 14 years, the company has maintained focus on low noise, low cost and low temperatures. More recently, it’s had a tendency to diversify into everything from remote control helicopters to rechargeable batteries and USB desktop fans. But Arctic’s primary business is still cooling. KitGuru had the chance to chat with Peter Jankowski who runs sales.

Arctic started as a pure cooling company – but you have evolved – what is your business these days?
PJ: Our core business is still cooling and cooling accessories. However, we have entered the sound market successfully and do more and more monitor arms. In the meantime, you may have seen different other products from us. Let’s see what else we will introduce to the market successfully in the future. Our basket is full of ideas.

Between cooling, audio and other products – What is the balance?
PJ: We still do 70 % cooling and the other 30 % are sound and other areas.

Your Accelero Xtreme IV did well with KitGuru Labs (GPU Cooler of the Year) – how difficult is it to make GPU coolers fast enough – i.e. with all the new cards launching?
PJ: This actually is the challenge. Here, we have an entire team to work on reliable solutions quickly. We are very proud to be able to always provide a multi compatible cooler with such kind of performance and such a price tag.

Traditionally, Arctic had a strong relationship with HIS etc – do you now spend most of your time making new products for nVidia – or is the split still the same?
PJ: We still have a very good relationship to many VGA manufacturers and especially to HIS. It is not related to AMD or nVidia solutions – we provide both. We provide still to a lot of them solutions.

Intel will announce new processors after Computex starts – Will Arctic be making new coolers specifically for these chips?
PJ: If I remember correctly, in the last 10 years we have always developed a reasonable solution for any chip from AMD or Intel. Just lately, we launched a cooler for the relatively new socket from AMD M1.

Have you noticed any growth in coolers? For example, low profile or high end GPU?
PJ: Honestly, the low end solutions for CPUs as well as GPUs are slowing down. I think that the reason for this is the notebook and tablet consume as well as the implementation of the VGA chip in motherboards. The high end market is still growing because with a reasonable PC you can still enjoy a fantastic game much better in comparison to a tablet.

With the rise in NUC/BRIX type products (APU etc), do you see new markets for cooling in the future?
PJ: Well, we do some projects, but I do not see a huge market here. Most of the time the solutions are just for one mini PC and it would be very challenging to build an aftermarket cooler.

What can we expect from Arctic in 2015/16?
PJ: Spirit of Innovation, less noise, more sound – we are thrilled to make our current award winning products even better. Day by day we try to improve the performance, the efficiency as well as the price. To give you an additional outlook, when you have a look at our portfolio one product is still missing – and this gap we will fill up this year – a CPU water cooler.

Which countries are best for Arctic? i.e. Where are you most popular?
PJ: We are popular in a lot of countries. We have direct distributors in 52 countries currently. The highest turnover we do in Germany. But UK, Sweden, Russia as well as the US market are also very important for us.

KitGuru says: Big thank you to Peter for taking the time to speak with us. Given how good Arctic’s Accelero Xtreme IV cooler was, it will be interesting to see what his R&D team will come up with nVidia and AMD’s next-gen cards.

Following on from our round-up of SilentiumPC air coolers – which you can read HERE – we decided to take the next logical step and do the same for some AIO watercoolers on the market. We were sent 6 different AIOs from 5 different companies – which one comes on top when it comes to performance and value for money?

The specific coolers we have today were chosen as they are some of most popular mainstream AIOs on the market. In other words, if you went to an online retailer and searched only ‘watercooler’, you would find most of these units pretty quickly. Popularity is not always an indicator of a good product, though, so let us dive right in.

As you can see, we have the following coolers proceeding alphabetically. Each cooler has its own dedicated page in this review while there is a big picture overview at the end for direct comparison.

• Antec Kuhler H1200 Pro
• Arctic Liquid Freezer 120
• Corsair H80i V2
• Corsair H100i V2
• Deepcool Captain 240 EX
• Thermaltake Water 3.0 240 Riing RGB Edition

Typically, the better performing 240mm+ watercooling AIOs command a price premium. After all, in our 6 way round-up back in July, the coolers which claimed the top two spots both cost in excess of 100 pounds. However, Arctic are trying to change that with the Liquid Freezer 240, which costs just £75.95.

For that price, the Arctic Liquid Freezer 240 offers consumers four of Arctic’s F12 fans, a 38mm-thick radiator and a clean, minimal design. For the money, it certainly seems like an enticing deal – but before jumping to any conclusions we must assess the performance of the unit. In this review we go over the installation process, raw cooling performance as well as noise output to see if the Liquid Freezer 240 is worthy of your money.

Specifications

• Supports Intel Socket: 1150, 1151, 1155, 1156, 2011*, 2011-3* (*SQUARE ILM (80 x 80 mm spacing) only)
• AMD Socket: AM2(+), AM3(+), FM1, FM2(+)
• Max. Cooling Performance: 350 Watts
• Recommended for TDP up to: 300 Watts
• Radiator width: 120mm
• Radiator length: 272mm
• Radiator depth: 38mm
• Voltage: DC 5V – 12V
• Power Consumption: 2.0 W
• Cold Plate: Micro Skived Fin, Copper
• Tube Length: 326 mm
• Tube Diameter:
• Outer 10.6 mm, inner 6.0 mm
• Pump Dimensions (w/o tubes): 82 x 82 x 40mm (L x W x D)
• Radiator Material: Aluminium
• Fan: 120 mm x 4
• Fan Speed: 500 – 1350 RPM (PWM)
• Airflow: 74 CFM / 126 m³/h per fan
• Voltage: DC 12 V
• Current: 0.25 A (max)
• Noise Level: 0.3 Sone
• Connector: 4 Pins with PST

Many graphics card manufacturers now sell ‘hybrid’ cards – cards which make use of a closed loop cooler as well as a traditional blower-style fan. Rather than shelling out the extra cash for one of those cards, however, Arctic think you should buy their Accelero Hybrid III-140 kit. It is designed to offer the same hybrid experience, but can cater to a much wider array of graphics cards.

In layman’s terms, the Arctic Accelero Hybrid III-140 is essentially an AIO cooler, but for your graphics card. It uses a 140mm radiator to cool the GPU core, while it also provides a dedicated VRM heatsink and 80mm fan to provide active cooling for the VRMs and MOSFETs. While there are different models for different graphics cards, as well as a ‘generic’ kit for those with cards which are not specifically supported, today’s review is of the 980 Ti model, priced at around the £100 mark.

Specifications

Dimensions

• Radiator (no fan): 170 × 140 × 27 mm (L × W × H), weight: 649 g
• Heatsink: 70 x 70 x 28 mm (L × W × H)
• 140 mm fan: 140 x 140 x 25 mm (L × W × H), weight: 147 g
• 80 mm fan: 80 x 80 x 15 mm (L × W × H), weight: 52.5 g
• Backplate: 91 x 120 x 12 mm (L × W × H), weight: 125 g

General

• Max. Cooling capacity: 300 Watt
• Noise Level: 0.3 Sone (~ 22-23 dBA)
• Connection: 4-Pin (pump), PWM (140s-fan)
• Material: Aluminum (radiator), copper (Cold Plate), EPDM (hoses)
• Compatibility: NVIDIA GTX 980 Ti, GTX 1070/1080, Titan X

Following on from our previous articles about fan configuration and static pressure vs airflow fans, today we are looking at thermal paste. Specifically, we are hoping to find out whether or not choosing different types of thermal paste actually makes any difference. To do this, we test 7 products from 6 companies to see how much difference thermal paste really makes.

In another article aimed to help out confused PC builders out there, we are answering the age-old question of whether thermal paste really matters. I remember building my first PC and wondering if it really matters – there is certainly a lot of conflicting information about this online. So we are here to help by showing you if there really is any tangible benefit to using different types of thermal paste.

For this test today, we are comparing the following products:

• Arctic Silver 5 – info HERE
• Arctic Silver Céramique 2 – info HERE
• Arctic MX-4 – info HERE
• Cooler Master MasterGel Pro – info HERE
• Cryorig CP15 – info HERE
• EKWB Ectotherm – info HERE
• Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut – info HERE

What thermal paste do you use?

— KitGuru (@kitgurupress) January 9, 2017

Incidentally, we also ran poll on Twitter recently which found 41% of you use Arctic Silver 5, while 25% of you are happy to use whatever comes with your CPU cooler of choice. In this article we will find out if spending just a few pounds extra on 3rd-party thermal paste is worth it.

While Arctic are best known for their top-quality cooling solutions, today we are looking at a gaming headset from the Swiss company. The P533 features 40mm Neodymium drivers, memory foam ear cushions and on-ear volume control. Does it do enough to justify its £70 price tag?

The Arctic P533 headset comes in 3 different styles: racing, military, and Penta. The actual headset remains the same, but the aesthetics of the P533 varies between the 3 models. I was sent the Penta version, meaning this model was designed in collaboration with Penta Sports, a popular German eSports team.

In this review, we assess build quality, features and performance before giving our final verdict.

Specification

Headphones:

• Wearing Style: Circum-Aural (Over-Ear)
• Driver Units: 40 mm Neodymium
• Frequency Response: 20 Hz – 20 kHz
• Impedance: 16 Ohm
• Sensitivity: > 95 dB/mW
• Weight: 375g

Microphone

• Type: Boom Microphone
• Frequency Response: 100 Hz – 10 kHz
• Sensitivity: > -40 dB/Pa

Cable

• Length: 1.2 m + Extension 2 m
• Connection: 3.5 mm TRRS jack (Extension 2 x 3.5 mm TRS jack)
  

Fresh off of our own analysis of the new AMD Ryzen Threadripper CPUs, Arctic has unveiled its new air cooling solution for the oversized processors. The Freezer 33 TR tower CPU cooler is out now and compatible with all versions of AMD’s new SocketTR4 Platform.

The Freezer 33 TR is an improved version of the original award winning Freezer 33 coolers, notable for its semi passive design, allowing it to be cool while keeping noise levels down. The first noticeable difference comes in aesthetics, with the 33 TR ditching the white design for AMD’s signature black and red. While the red might be a bump in the road for those that specifically colour coordinate their systems, it does already look significantly better hiding its brass under a coat of matt black. The base is also significantly larger, factoring in the sheer size of the Threadripper processors.

Under the hood, The Freezer 33 TR is equipped with a BioniX F120 fan, running between 200 to 1800 RPM with the company’s Patented PWM Sharing Technology (PST) that not only regulates the speed of the CPU fan, but all other fans connected via PST.

Arctic has implemented a silent 3-Phase-motor and enhanced bearings with new alloy/lubricant technology, that it boasts will get rid of any annoying noises in favour of silence during long sessions without sacrificing efficient cooling. These additions help lessen heat development, working in tandem with the improved heat dissipation of the 33 TR’s off-centred heat pipes. While its predecessors used centred pipes to direct heat in a straight line, these new pipes arc to dissipate heat in multiple directions. Arctic further states that “the layout of the 49 aluminium fins creates micro vortices that boost the airflow and circulate it around the heat pipes.”

The Arctic Freezer 33 TR is currently available in limited quantities directly from the company’s web shop, costing £43.99/€47.99.

KitGuru Says: While this seems like a good price-to-performance air cooler, since I’ve moved on to AIO liquid coolers, I haven’t looked back. What CPU/Cooler are you using? Will you be picking one of these up with a Threadripper processor?

Arctic has taken a shine to theming its tower coolers lately, last time giving its Freezer 33 a makeover with AMD’s signature black and red colour scheme. Continuing this trend, the company has revealed the Freezer 33 PENTA, boasting the German eSports team’s logo on top of an orange and black design.

The Freezer 33 PENTA showcases the team’s colours through a distinctly orange 120mm fan, with the renown logo and title stickered in the centre. The fan is mounted to a titanium black heat sink, further emphasising PENTA’s style.

The cooler itself features many of the same functions as its predecessors, with improved heat dispersion that arcs out of each side to improve airflow and enhanced bearings that use the company’s new alloy/lubricant combination for less noise and less retained heat. The cooler can make use of PWM signal, starting at 40% pulse width under load, which the company calls Passive Operation. This aims to save energy, noise and extend the coolers life under high performance gaming.

Where this differs to the Threadripper-specific Freezer 33 TR cooler is that it lacks Arctic’s 3-Phase-motor. It is, however, much less restricted with compatibility, working across many AMD and Intel platforms including the latest Ryzen and Kaby Lake sockets. This is due to the Threadripper’s larger surface area requiring a specifically larger cooler. The smaller size of the Freezer 33 PENTA also helps with compatibility, with Arctic reducing the space that the cooler takes up to avoid interfering with the RAM sockets. Depending on the size and socket placements of your motherboard, this should mean next to no issues with using this cooler alongside high-profile RAM.

The Arctic Freezer 33 PENTA is available for £41.99 /€45.99, directly from the company’s website or official third party retailers.

KitGuru Says: Themed coolers are great, especially for avid fans of each team. That being said, it does restrict the ability to match and colour scheme your build so if that is important to you, this might not be the cooler you’re looking for. What do you think of the Freezer 33 PENTA?

Earlier this month we teamed up with ARCTIC to give four lucky readers the chance to win an ARCTIC Freezer 33 CPU cooler. We have four different colour options to give away: Red, White, Green and Yellow. We received plenty of entries from you guys and now after combing through the entries, we have our four winners!

In order to win, all we needed from you was a comment on our Facebook post, indicating which colour cooler you would prefer. As a refresher, here is what the coolers look like in each colour:

Keep in mind that if you are running an adblocker, you won’t see the image gallery above. These plugins often misread our gallery tool as an advertisement. Disabling it and refreshing the page should fix this. 

Now without further ado, let’s announce our four winners:

1. Yellow cooler: Josh Moores.
2. White cooler: Colin John Hadley.
3. Green cooler: Rich Lander.
4. Red cooler: Pedro Ramos.

We will be in touch with each of the winners shortly to gather shipping details and get the prizes sent out. If you didn’t win this time around, then there is still time to check out our cooler giveaway with DeepCool. We also have a competition currently running with Acer that is well worth entering!

KitGuru Says: Congratulations to all of the winners. If you didn’t win this time around, then keep an eye out as there is always something new around the corner. 

The key thing about the Arctic Freezer 33 TR is the TR suffix stands for Thread Ripper. That’s right, this diminutive 120mm tower cooler claims to have the ability to deal with AMD’s mighty Threadripper that has up to 16 hardware cores and a TDP of 180W.

The secret is that Freezer 33 TR has a larger base than the basic Freezer 33 that is better suited to the enormous AMD Threadripper CPU and this increases the TDP capability from 150W to 200W.

As a neat touch Arctic has chosen a red and black colour scheme that is evocative of the traditional ATi/AMD colours.

Watch the video via our VIMEO Channel (Below) or over on YouTube at 2160p HERE

Specification
Intel Socket LGA 2066, LGA 2011-3, LGA 2011
AMD Socket sTR4, AM4
Max. Cooling Capacity 320W
Recommended Max. TDP 200W
Heatpipes 4x 6mm
Cooler body 49 aluminium fins, 0.4mm thick
Fan 1x 120mm 200-1800rpm, PWM, FDB
Dimensions 155mm tall, 123mm wide, 89mm deep

Installation
Arctic calls this cooler Freezer 33 TR but that is only part of the story as the cooler is also supplied with mounts for Intel LGA 2066/LGA 2011-3/LGA 2011 and AMD AM4, in addition to Threadripper. Intel LGA 115x is specifically not covered.

When you unpack the cooler you will find it comes without instructions. All you get is a small card with a 3D barcode and a note that you need to visit Arctic’s website for further information. In fairness the website is pretty good but this seems like a slightly laborious approach for the customer that might be confusing.

Initially we found the cooler was difficult to install as one of the two brackets didn’t fit the TR4 socket. After a conversation with Arctic we were told this was a fault with the initial batch of 20 TR coolers and some work with a pair of pliers quickly fixed the problem.
With that snag out of the way we had the cooler installed within a couple of minutes. While the Freezer 33 TR looks neat and tidy it doesn’t look especially impressive and we had our doubts about how well it would cope with Threadripper.

Testing
Test system:
CPU AMD Ryzen Threadripper 1920X
RAM 32GB G.Skill FlareX DDR4-3200MHz
Motherboard ASRock X399 Taichi
Graphics MSI GTX 760
SSD Samsung 960 EVO
Power supply 1000W Sea Sonic Prime Titanium

We ran the Threadripper 1920X at stock clock speeds with all cores running at 3.7GHz and then overclocked to 4.0GHz with a core voltage of 1.4V. We also used three different cooling systems on the Threadripper 1920X. The first is the Arctic Freezer 33 TR, the second is the Fractal Design Celsius S24, which is a 240mm Asetek All In One and the third system is a custom loop. The components in the loop are a 240mm Alphacool copper radiator, 2x 120mm Alphacool fans, an EK DDC pump/reservoir unit, an EK Supremacy EVO Threadripper block and Mayhems Pastel coolant.

Cooling Performance
For the first test we ran Cinebench R15 a number of times until the temperature stabilised. At the stock clock speed of 3.7Ghz the Arctic and Fractal Design coolers were inseparable and the custom loop was marginally better. With the CPU overclocked to 4.0GHz the Arctic and Fractal Design coolers again performed identically while the custom loop slightly increased its advantage under load.

For our second test we ran Blender which is a more extreme test as it fully stresses the CPU for some three minutes. At stock clocks the Arctic once again matched the Fractal Design AIO at 57 degrees while the custom loop was notably cooler at 50 degrees. With the CPU overclocked to 4.0GHz the Fractal Design ran at 82 degrees and the Arctic went slightly higher to 85 degrees, however the CPU did not throttle. The custom loop was significantly cooler at 72 degrees.

We didn’t expect much from the Arctic Freezer 33 TR and were astonished to see it performing at the same level as a 240mm liquid cooler.

Acoustics performance
Throughout our testing we had fan speed set using PWM control and all three coolers were very quiet indeed.

Closing Thoughts.

We started this review with the view that the Arctic Freezer 33 TR was likely to suffer when it faced Threadripper. Arctic’s claim about 200W TDP seemed optimistic yet the fact is the Freezer 33 TR surpassed expectations and did a fine job. If you want a cheap and simple cooling solution for your Threadripper this could very well be the answer, especially if you run at stock clock speeds and don’t fancy overclocking.

While this makes sense on paper we question how it will work in the real world. How many people build a system with a £500, £725 or £900 CPU and then look for ways to save a chunk of cash on their CPU cooler. We could be wrong but human nature can be funny like that.

The Arctic Freezer 33 TR is a perfectly respectable cooler for Threadripper however it doesn’t make much of a visual statement and ultimately we suspect that will count against this nifty little tower cooler.

Buy from Overclockers UK for £37.99 inc vat HERE

Pros:

• Surprisingly good cooling for a 120mm tower.
• Quiet PWM fan.
• Base plate makes good contact with CPU.
• Matt black finish seems appropriate for Threadripper.

Cons:

• Installation guide is not included.
• Mounting hardware feels cheap and cheerful.

KitGuru says: Against the odds Arctic Freezer 33 TR keeps the mighty Threadripper under control.

It’s getting close to Christmas, so we are getting in the holiday spirit! This year, we are rolling out the KitGuru Advent Calendar, with a series of giveaways every day throughout December. For Advent Day Nine, we have teamed up with ARCTIC, giving our readers a chance to win a brand new Arctic Freezer 33 eSports ONE CPU cooler!

These are ‘reviewer’ giveaways, meaning in return for the prizes, we ask that readers share their thoughts with us. These reader reviews will then be shared with others on the site and Facebook page. They don’t need to be super in-depth or as detailed as our own reviews, but a summary of your thoughts would be appreciated by not just us, but by readers as well. If you can take some pictures, all the better.

Today we are giving away an Arctic Freezer eSports ONE CPU cooler. This is a brand new cooler that just began selling earlier this month, so this is your chance to own and test something that is fresh on the market. This is an air cooler, equipped with an all black heatsink with a newly developed thermal coating that creates micro-turbulences to optimize heat dissipation. These coolers also come with a new BioniX F120 fan. In all, this cooler packs enough performance to handle up to 200W TDP processors.

For color customization, you can choose between four different colored fans- red, white, yellow and green. The winner can pick their color of choice. You can see all of the options in the gallery below.

Do note that if you have an adblocker activated, the images above may not display. Adblockers often interfere with our gallery tool. Disabling Adblock and refreshing the page should make the images appear.

We are running this competition through our Facebook page, so all you need to do is head over to THIS POST and let us know that you’re interested in reviewing some goodies. We will pick a winner tomorrow morning as we roll out the next mystery giveaway. Keep an eye out over the next couple of weeks because we have something new going up each day!

UPDATE: This competition is now CLOSED. The winner was Nick Poole! If you didn’t win this time, then keep checking back for more. Today we have already kicked off our MSI & Intel giveaway, including a Core i7-8700K and an MSI Z370 Gaming Pro Carbon AC motherboard! You can find all of the details HERE.

KitGuru Says: Good luck to everyone that enters, we’ll pick a winner tomorrow morning!