Thermaltake Frio CPU Cooler Unboxing and installation.
zoidbergmerc, 2-Mar-11 » Thermaltake Frio CPU Cooler Unboxing and installation.
Any part of a good gaming PC is having a CPU that's overclocked to the extreme and to be able to reach said extremes, you're going to need an aftermarket CPU cooler.
Thermaltake's latest answer to big air CPU cooling is the FRIO.
It's a box!
My box is a little beat up because my postman hates me. But thanks to the very efficient packaging, the components are as good as ever.
Inside the Box there is, the cooler, two fans (one on the cooler already, one loose), Thermal paste and mounting plates for all the CPUs on the market these days; LGA 775, 1155&6, 1366 and AM2/3, Nylon Washers, screws, rubber fan mounts. Oh and instructions too... pfft.
Stuff that was in the box!
The cooler its self is a pretty good looking unit and has a solid quality feel to it. Weighing in at just over 1kg it's no surprise it feels solid. The base of the cooler isn't perfectly polished and mine was slightly concaved when matched up with my trusty razor blade. Nice plastic shrouds around the edges of the cooler makes mounting the fans a breeze and helps direct airflow.
Not quite a mirror finish.
The 5 copper heat pipes take the heat away from the base and up to the 0.5mm Nickel plated Aluminium fins capable of handling a claimed 220watt thermal load.
The 120mm speed adjustable fans that are included are really good looking units too. Capable of pushing up to 101CFM with their pretty while blades, but I'm wondering how long they'll look clean for... Tt have also added these gigantic "Warranty void if removed" stickers to the power cables on the fans, why? I can't figure that out.
why Tt?!
Thermal paste is the part that connects the cooler to your CPUs IHS, so it's important to use a high quality paste in order to achieve maximum cooling efficiency. Unfortunately the paste that comes with the cooler is just some generic goo that I don't trust so luckily I had some OCZ Freeze handy. OCZ Freeze is the best in the business and only costs $9 for 3grams which is enough for many applications; a wise investment indeed.
Tube of Grey gooey fail
Mounting the FRIO was pretty easy once I figured out which bits to use. Screw the little ] shaped bits to the cooler, then poke the threaded studs through the mother board and attach the backing plate with the nuts provided, probably the easiest heat sink I've mounted, no swearing involved at all. The Frio cooler on this ASUS mobo didn't interfere with the RAM slots at all which is surprising considering it's size.
Now to the important bits, results.
Like a glove
Nice to see a cheap big air cooler with a backing plate :)
The computer I'm using is a new one I just built to see what i5 was all about. Specs as follows:
ASUS P7P55D-E LX mobo
Intel Core i5 760
8gb G.Skill Ripjaws DDR3
2x WD Caviar Black 500gb on RAID0
Gigabyte Radeon HD6850 1GB OverClocked Edition
Antec Dark Fleet DF-30 Case
Corsair GS-600 PSU
The rig where the Frio resides.
Stock standard this Core i5 760 CPU runs at 2.8Ghz but with its new cooler hopefully we can turn up the clocks a little.
To really stress out this rig I used LinX to run the CPU at 100% for over 20mins; this isn't a real representation of any normal usage but it's a good way to test a cooler and make sure your overclock is stable. Temperature monitoring was handled by RealTemp and CPU-z told me what clocks it was running. I only ran the cooler with one fan at its max and min speeds, fan #2 was busy cooling graphics cards.
Even at stock CPU speeds the difference was quite noticeable. All temps in Degrees Celsius. Ambient temps were around the 18 degrees mark.
Any part of a good gaming PC is having a CPU that's overclocked to the extreme and to be able to reach said extremes, you're going to need an aftermarket CPU cooler.
Thermaltake's latest answer to big air CPU cooling is the FRIO.
It's a box!
My box is a little beat up because my postman hates me. But thanks to the very efficient packaging, the components are as good as ever.
Inside the Box there is, the cooler, two fans (one on the cooler already, one loose), Thermal paste and mounting plates for all the CPUs on the market these days; LGA 775, 1155&6, 1366 and AM2/3, Nylon Washers, screws, rubber fan mounts. Oh and instructions too... pfft.
Stuff that was in the box!
The cooler its self is a pretty good looking unit and has a solid quality feel to it. Weighing in at just over 1kg it's no surprise it feels solid. The base of the cooler isn't perfectly polished and mine was slightly concaved when matched up with my trusty razor blade. Nice plastic shrouds around the edges of the cooler makes mounting the fans a breeze and helps direct airflow.
Not quite a mirror finish.
The 5 copper heat pipes take the heat away from the base and up to the 0.5mm Nickel plated Aluminium fins capable of handling a claimed 220watt thermal load.
The 120mm speed adjustable fans that are included are really good looking units too. Capable of pushing up to 101CFM with their pretty while blades, but I'm wondering how long they'll look clean for... Tt have also added these gigantic "Warranty void if removed" stickers to the power cables on the fans, why? I can't figure that out.
why Tt?!
Thermal paste is the part that connects the cooler to your CPUs IHS, so it's important to use a high quality paste in order to achieve maximum cooling efficiency. Unfortunately the paste that comes with the cooler is just some generic goo that I don't trust so luckily I had some OCZ Freeze handy. OCZ Freeze is the best in the business and only costs $9 for 3grams which is enough for many applications; a wise investment indeed.
Tube of Grey gooey fail
Mounting the FRIO was pretty easy once I figured out which bits to use. Screw the little ] shaped bits to the cooler, then poke the threaded studs through the mother board and attach the backing plate with the nuts provided, probably the easiest heat sink I've mounted, no swearing involved at all. The Frio cooler on this ASUS mobo didn't interfere with the RAM slots at all which is surprising considering it's size.
Now to the important bits, results.
Like a glove
Nice to see a cheap big air cooler with a backing plate :)
The computer I'm using is a new one I just built to see what i5 was all about. Specs as follows:
ASUS P7P55D-E LX mobo
Intel Core i5 760
8gb G.Skill Ripjaws DDR3
2x WD Caviar Black 500gb on RAID0
Gigabyte Radeon HD6850 1GB OverClocked Edition
Antec Dark Fleet DF-30 Case
Corsair GS-600 PSU
The rig where the Frio resides.
Stock standard this Core i5 760 CPU runs at 2.8Ghz but with its new cooler hopefully we can turn up the clocks a little.
To really stress out this rig I used LinX to run the CPU at 100% for over 20mins; this isn't a real representation of any normal usage but it's a good way to test a cooler and make sure your overclock is stable. Temperature monitoring was handled by RealTemp and CPU-z told me what clocks it was running. I only ran the cooler with one fan at its max and min speeds, fan #2 was busy cooling graphics cards.
Even at stock CPU speeds the difference was quite noticeable. All temps in Degrees Celsius. Ambient temps were around the 18 degrees mark.
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Article Stats
| Category: | Hardware Reviews |
| Posted: | 2-Mar-11 11:03:24 am |
| Author: | zoidbergmerc |