Review: Akasa's Lo-Noise Cooler and Arctic Cooler's Freezer 64 Pro

Thinking of buying a new HSF or upgrading your old one? Ian Waugh keeps cool as he looks at two low-noise, low cost units for AMD's CPUs…

Product	Akasa Lo-Noise Cooler AK-861CU
Company	Akasa
Web	www.akasa.com.tw
Price	Around £9.50
We like	Compact and easy to fit
We don't like	Not quite as cooling as the Freezer 64 Pro
Rating	6/10
Requirements	AMD, AM2, Athlon 64 Socket 754/939/940

You'll be aware how vitally important it is to keep your PC's CPU cool (see How to Fit and Change a Heat Sink and Fan - opens in separate window).

But all heat sinks and fans (HSF) are not equal and a recent PC build gave us the opportunity to try a couple of cooling options with the AMD Phenom 9600 CPU and Asus M3A32-MVP Deluxe motherboard.

Akasa Lo-Noise Cooler

Initially we installed the Akasa Lo-noise Cooler AK-861CU. Like many HSFs, the base comes already covered with thermal compound.

The CPU socket on the M3A32 motherboard has three fixing lugs either side of the CPU. Tthe Akasa only has two clips which hook onto the middle ones so fitting was easy - especially as we did it before fitting the motherboard into the case!

With our PC assembled and switched on (although not performing any tasks), we checked the temperature which hit a high of 43°C.

We then ran a set of benchmarks (they were benchmarks, not stress tests) and the temperature rose to 52°C.

As we didn't plan at that time to use the PC for any continuous or seriously heavy processing, we felt that the Antec case's rear fan and additional front fan were sufficient for the system. The two fans have Low, Medium and High settings and we initially had them set to Low to minimise the noise.

We put them both on High and ran the benchmarks again. The temperature this time dropped to 46°C so it's reassuring to klnow that they are doing their job.

However, for normal use we'll set them to Low or Medium because the fans do get noisier when turned up.

Freezer 64 Pro

Product	Arctic Cooling Freezer 64 Pro
Company	Arctic Cooling
Web	www.arctic-cooling.com
Price	$19.99/£9.19 (from Amazon)
We like	Nice price and very cooling!
We don't like	May be too big for some cases
Rating	9/10
Requirements	AMD Athlon 64 (X2) (Socket 754/939/AM2), AMD Athlon FX (Socket 939,AM2)

Arctic Cooler's Freezer 64 Pro is a larger HSF with a massive set of fins so we would expect it to cool better

It also comes with thermal compound on the base and we had to remove the old compound and clean the CPU before fitting it (see Fitting and Changing a Heat Sink and Fan - opens in separate window).

The Freezer 64 Pro uses all six lugs on the M3A32. It would be difficult to say if this make for a better fit than the Akasa's two-lug fitting but it certainly was solid.

What we can say is that the Freezer 64 Pro was more difficult to fit as the motherboard had now been fitted inside the case! We chose this tricky option in the hope that we could fit it without removing the motherboard.

And we did - but not without a struggle although that's not the fault of the unit - it would be just as easy to fit as the Akasa had we removed the motherboard.

Being larger, the Freezer 64 slightly overhangs the first RAM socket although the fan can unclip from the heat sink to help RAM fitting and removal if necessary although, in the confines of the case, that is not a simple job, either.

Of course, on other motherboards, the fitting and overhanging of components will likely differ and if you have a case smaller than standard-size it's worth checking if the Freezer 64 Pro will fit at all.

With the Freezer 64 Pro fitted, the idling temperature was 35°C, immediately an 8°C improvement over the Akasa.

With the fans set to Low, the temperature during benchmarking was 41°C, cooler than the Akasa's idling temperature, and with the fans set to High that dropped to 39°C.

So the fans are still obviously doing their job although we didn't get an awful lot more cooling for the increase in speed (and noise!)

The fans on both HSF units were relatively quiet but by no means silent.

Conclusion

Before you take these figures as gospel, be aware that a whole range of factors can affect the CPU temperature, not least, the case, the motherboard and case fans. In different systems the temperatures may well be different although, based on these results, we would expect the Freezer 64 Pro to cool better than the Akasa.

Having said that, the Akasa is a smaller unit and may be worth considering if the Freezer 64 Pro is too large for your system.

Ian Waugh
Read More of Ian's music reviews and tips at www.making-music.com