[section_title title=”Closer Look”]
Closer Look
Let’s take a look at the Arctic Freezer i32 in a bit more detail from the outside-in.
The packaging itself is really sturdy; made of roughly 1mm thick corrugated cardboard it’s able to withstand being squeezed with quite a bit of force which means you are going to be very unlucky to have it damaged in transit. The front shows a large image of the cooler and fan as well as highlighting the 6-year warranty.
Around the back, we have a noise / heat graphic to show when to expect the passive cooling and when the fan should kick in. There’s also a chart displaying the benefits in terms of cooling and noise compared to the previous iteration i30 and Intel’s stock cooler. Lastly, there’s a clear exploded image of the main included components and how they fit together.
On the side of the box, we see the specifications and contents list as well as multi-lingual information.
Around the other side are more images as you would find on the product web page highlighting the improved compatibility as well as the benefits of the included Arctic F12 fan.
Once we break into the box we are met with the black and white F12 fan, a cross shaped backplate some paperwork and the brackets and screws that hold it all together. There’s also a pouch of MX-4 thermal compound and 4 fan brackets – that’s enough for a pair of fans in case one isn’t enough.
The F12 fan’s cable is adequately braided and features a splitter to allow you to fit an additional fan to the same motherboard header.
Then we come to the Freezer i32 itself, and it’s a fairly nondescript stack of cooling fins. For a cooler with a 120mm fan, it’s rather delicately proportioned with a slender body in comparison to some of the other coolers I’ve reviewed recently.
It comes with four U-shaped heat pipes that sit directly atop of the CPU rather than being enclosed in their own copper block which should go a long way to effectively dissipating the heat from lightweight CPU tasks even when the fan isn’t operating.
Hi, thx for review! I have strange question… I have i5 6500 and case with 3 intake and 3 outtake fans. Can I use this heatsink without cooler?) And maybe you will recomend me somehing? thx a lot.
Hi Denys, It’s a while since I used this cooler for the review but I recall the fan was only really necessary once the CPU reached about 30’C. I think that the i5 6500 runs a bit hotter than that so if you are relying on purely passive cooling from the 6 fans you already have then it will depend on their placement and how the air flows internally. It will also depend on what you are using the PC for whether or not the temperature of the CPU climbs. Since you have so many fans already I don’t think another one attached to the CPU cooler would be problematic though if they are all connected to the motherboard you may have to start using a hub for some of them. If you try it set up purely as a passive cooler though I would be very interesting in hearing your findings.