ARCTIC Liquid Freezer III Pro 360 - AIO CPU Cooler, 3 x 120 mm Water Cooling, 38 mm Radiator, PWM Pump, VRM Fan, AMD AM5/AM4, Intel LGA1851/1700 Contact Frame - Black

I recently purchased a Liquid Freezer II 360 with the intention of installing it on my 13900K main system here, but a month later still not got round to doing so, when Arctic launched this week their updated Liquid Freezer III AIO at an unbelievable price. The price alone for the LFIII 360 was what made me purchase it in all honesty, even if I have an unopened LFII sat here, but I am glad that I did!No longer do I need to undervolt the CPU or restrict power limits to the CPU to keep temperatures under control (although if you play games that use the Unreal Engine 5, you may still want to do this).Running Cinebench R20 (which puts a load on the CPU much higher than what 99% of applications or games will) on the 13900K will almost automatically send the temperatures up to the thermal throttle limits within a few seconds of starting the test, but with the Arctic LFIII installed, temperatures have not even approached anywhere the thermal limits of the CPU, therefore it does not throttle & stays at full turbo speed for longer. With the CPU overclocked to 5.9Ghz all P-Cores & 4.4Ghz all E-cores, a maximum temperature of 82C has been experienced with no throttling what so ever. Before with a Noctua NH-D15 (one of the very best air cooling solutions available), 100C+ could be reached within 2-3 seconds of starting the test causing the CPU to throttle back by upto 300Mhz during the a single test run or more if you are running it for a longer period of time.During game sessions, I have yet to see the CPU temperature on any core get higher than 63C and not had the fans spin up any more than about 40% of their maximum speed (no change in noise basically with the fan curves I have set).There is one drawback though which stops me from buying more of the LFIII units & that is that it is not compatible with ANY other Intel sockets than LGA1700 (12-14 gen) or the upcoming LGA1851 that is going to be used with newer generations. That means if you have a i9 9900K/10900K/11900K (or any older socket platform), you cannot make use of this cooler. I feel Arctic are losing out on sales because of this as it is obvious that the cooler can be used with the more traditional style mounting solutions as they use this with the supplied AM4/AM5 mounting kit. For the sake of an extra £2-3, Arctic could have provided a mounting solution for LGA115x/2011 and still be cheaper than virtually every other AIO brand on the market. Same applies with the tiny amount of MX6 thermal compound supplied with the cooler. This is a one time application and with contact frames having to be torqued correctly to make sure that all memory channels are present (if overtighten the screws or not provide even pressure on all sides when tightening it down for the contact frame you run the risk of some pins not making a good contact with the CPU) & if you find after installing the cooler that half your memory is not available or system is unstable because of this, you will need additional thermal compound to be able to remove the cooler, reseat the CPU & frame, then reattach pump block. Putting a 2g syringe of MX6 in (£3 if sold separately) still will have the package much cheaper than other available (this is something that should be aware of & have to hand just in case if you have not fitted a 3rd party contact frame before or seen any of the YouTube videos talking about them). In short, tighten the screws 1 turn at a time working in a X/star (top left, bottom right, top right, bottom left, repeat) pattern until the thread bottoms out under 2 fingers turning the screwdriver - DO NOT OVER TIGHTEN!I haven't even mentioned the other benefit of having a fan mounted on the block that cools the VRM’s on the motherboard as well which is silent even at full speed. Unlike other similar VRM cooling solutions built in to an AIO, if it fails, it it can be easily replaced without having to dismantle the whole system & pump block by simply lifting off from the pump as is connected by 2 magnets. Power to the VRM fan is provided by pogo pins on the pump itself that make connection to the fan motor when the magnets engage. You also get a choice of mother board connections as well - two cables are provided - one with a single 4 pin PWM connector that powers the main fans, pump & VRM fan together with a single PWM curve or a 3 way PWM cable (fans, pump & VRM fan) for setting individual PWM curves for each part individually (ie run the pump at 100%, steeper curve on VRM fan & a flatter/steeper curve on the main fans). Regardless of which solution you choose to use, the 4 pin ribbon cable is the same size for ease of cable management.Other than the 2 minor issues that buyers could run into, every thing else I don’t think can be beaten for performance, let alone the price, unless you go full custom loop water cooling (which is going to cost a LOT more than the LFIII does!). For any new machines that I build going forward, the Arctic LFIII will be my first choice of cooler for them as you get all the benefits of a top end liquid cooled cooler at the price of a mid-priced air cooler. If you want/like RGB, then there is also an A-RGB version available for roughly £10 more than the non-RGB version, which when compared to other AIO’s available is still around half the price of other brand equivalent in performance!

First off, let's start with the 2 big cons with this AIO liquid cooler. 1) Installation is a bit of a pain until you've done it the first time. First up, like some cheaper coolers, on AMD you have to place 4 plastic standoffs, then rest metal plates onto these, before screwing all of this into the sockets from the motherboard backplate (the ones that come ready fitted on AMD motherboards, obviously you have to remove the plastic lug system before starting this, but that is easy using the included tool). Needless to say, often the standoffs refuse to stay put, and you end up having to put them back and start again with this. Better is the method used on the Deepcool AIOs where you just screw metal standoffs into the backplate, even if they combined this with a mounting plate it would be easier to use. Then you come to actually installing the CPU block. It attaches using 2 screws captive in a sprung plate, thing is that once you get the one in just a little bit, the 2nd becomes very difficult to coax in due to the spring mechanism. I much prefer individually sprung screws in the 4 corners to this method honestly. Then you finally get the block installed, having followed the instructions, to realise that the instructions skipped the step of installing one of the 2 control cable options, which plugs into the CPU block, and threads through a slot in the very bottom of the plastic cover right at the very bottom by the motherboard, and you can't do this now without uninstalling the CPU block again, then doing it all over again, so yeah the instructions are missing a step as well, take not of this and installing your chosen cable BEFORE you install the block.The 2nd con is also a pro. This AIO is oversized in many ways. The radiator is VERY VERY thick. I thought I would have more than enough space in my case (a Gamemax Infinity dual chamber model), and also my motherboard only has a small VRM heatsink at the top. However the fan screws are literally pressed against the VRM heatsink, and the cables from the CPU power connectors at the top of the board have a LOT of pressure on them from the fans too. This is with an offset placement in a fairly large mid tower case... If you have something smaller, or a motherboard with big heatsinks, this cooler is not going to fit, end of. Then there's where the pipes exit at the bottom of the CPU block/pump. The pipes are larger than usual, I had to remove my vertically mounted GPU before I could install the block at all, and now I have to have it mounted closer to the side window to give the pipes clearance as they come out of the block, these pipes also sit right over my top M.2 slot, so if you have an M.2 drive with a tall heatsink on it, be aware of this also, as again you are going to have issues.Onto the pros. No, this isn't going to give you temps lower than say a DeepCool LS720 (I literally compared it, and got roughly identical temps), what it WILL do however is give you the same temperatures QUIETER. I've been able to change my case fans over to monitor motherboard temps rather than CPU temps, leaving only the fans and pump on the Liquid Freezer 3 set to monitor CPU temps (and these fans are fairly quiet and efficient ones), meaning that the case fans never have to spin up as high as they used to, but I am still getting the exact same temps under load in Cinebench R23. Thus making for MUCH quieter operation of my PC, whilst maintaining sub TJmax temps on my Ryzen 7 7800x3D CPU. My wife is much happier now, as she kept complaining about the hurricane on her side of my PC whenever my CPU was under heavy load (I didn't like to point out that the fans on that side are intake fans, so if anything they'd be pulling not blowing.. lol)....TLDR; Awkward to install, seriously big for a 360mm liquid cooler, but nice and quiet way to get decent temps on hot running CPUs, at a really fantastic launch price right now that won't last forever.

I recently upgraded to the Arctic Liquid Freezer 3 360mm AIO in black, and I couldn't be more pleased with the performance improvements over my previous cooler, the NZXT Z73. The installation process was straightforward, and the sleek, non-RGB design was not an issue as I already had RGB fans which perform better than the stock ones (ThermalTake SWAFAN's).In the British summer heat, where ambient temperatures can challenge even the best cooling solutions, the Arctic Liquid Freezer 3 has proven its worth. My CPU now idles at a remarkably cool 44°C, a noticeable improvement from the 45°C idle temperatures with the NZXT Z73. Under heavy loads, such as running Cinebench R23, the difference becomes even more pronounced. The Arctic Liquid Freezer 3 keeps my CPU's maximum temperature down to 82°C, compared to the 86°C peak with the NZXT cooler.This cooler isn't just about numbers; it also offers quieter operation, which is a big plus during extended gaming or rendering sessions. The efficiency and performance gains are substantial, making the Arctic Liquid Freezer 3 an outstanding choice for anyone looking to enhance their system's cooling capabilities.Overall, the Arctic Liquid Freezer 3 360mm AIO has exceeded my expectations. It delivers excellent cooling performance, even under demanding conditions, while maintaining a whisper-quiet profile. I highly recommend it to anyone seeking a reliable and efficient cooling solution for their high-performance PC build.