Arctic Freezer 33 face-to-face with SilentiumPC Fera 3 v2

With the i/A32 cooler series, Arctic made a really good impression and created a decent opponent for the excellent Fera 3. In the meantime, Swiss have strengthened their ranks and advanced to battle with Freezer 33. However, the expected drama with fight for every detail did not happen. Because of a design mistake of one of the players, the winner is quite dominant under standard circumstances.

Basic parameters

*These measures indicate distances between the cooler and RAM slots, or more precisely the nearest PCIe × 16 slot.
**The data reflect the situation on Mini-ITX boards which typically have 50 mm from the center of the socket to the first slot. With the ATX format, it can be up to 7 mm more and that means one extra slot and a wider compatibility than is mentioned in the table. We measured the height limit with fans that are aligned with the maximum specified coolers height.

Details

The construction of the Freezer 33 heatsink is based on the well-established predecessors design and it is not that distinct from the i32 on the outside. This means that the ribs have a conservative shape without any curvature, perforations, surface adjustments, or other elements that benefit the marketing more than the cooler itself. The three cuts at the top rib are an aesthetic matter and even the manufacturer does not find them very functionally relevant.

It is clear that the emphasis was placed on the most effective use of materials. The heatpipes are no longer behind each other (nor next to each other), but they pass the ribs more evenly. Thanks to that, they have a much wider outreach than those of the Freezer i30. Although i30 had more weight, the potential was hampered by the ineffective design of pipes that were too close to each other and a big part of the heatsink was not used optimally.

Heat transfer at the base is also almost perfect. Well, as long as we consider the type with pipes that have a direct contact. The trimmed pipes are tightly next to each other and the air gap between them is not even a tenth of a millimeter (perhaps only CM 212 Evo is more precise in this).

The fan is not terrible too. The character of its sound is more or less aerodynamic. Subtle spinning can be heard only with the rotor right next to your ear. It completely disappears at 10 cm distance. Compared to conventional rotors, it has two extra blades. At comparable RPM, it pushes more air, but that makes it also considerably louder.

SilentiumPC has a slightly different idea of how the cooler that aspires to become the bestseller should look like. Fera 3 v2 has two changes compared to the first version. One cosmetic – for a better look, the caps were fitted at the ends of the heatpipes, and the other more practical, which is supposed to advance the cooler one step further.

The height of the heatsink was increased by 4 mm, but the weight has not changed. The number of ribs is the same as well as the perforation of their surface. And apparently, the spacing between the ribs is wider, which may be helpful and increase efficiency with a very low flow.

The base is conceived a bit differently than the Freezers. It is still the DHT type, but the goal was to create a larger contact area. Obviously, large enough to be in contact with the sides of the IHS of Intel HEDT processors. As a result, 2,2 mm of aluminum filling was formed between the pipes, which does not transfer any heat to the heatsink. Therefore, there is a more intense heating in these areas. Especially in the case when the ineffective filling is also in the middle where are the highest heat exchange demands. Who knows how would Fera fare with Freezer 33 base.

The snarling of the fan is a bit more noticeable this time, but not unbearable. In very quiet computers, however, it can be quite annoying and if you consider yourself a demanding user, you will probably replace it.

With the i/A32 cooler series, Arctic made a really good impression and created a decent opponent for the excellent Fera 3. In the meantime, Swiss have strengthened their ranks and advanced to battle with Freezer 33. However, the expected drama with fight for every detail did not happen. Because of a design mistake of one of the players, the winner is quite dominant under standard circumstances.

Test procedures

Tests begin with the analysis of fans. Using the Gophert CPS-3205 II laboratory power supply and the UNI-T UT372 laser tachometer, we detected the initial speed. That means determining the minimum voltage required to move the rotor in the idle stage. Subsequently, we regulated the revolutions by hundreds (from 400 rpm to the round maximum), which gave us the first part of the data to create a curve that indicates the noise increase according to rpm. To make the results as accurate as possible we took the average values of 30 seconds long sequences and regulated the fans by the hundredths of volt until the tachometer reached a specific value, for example 800 rpm. Finally, we noted down the maximum rpm and put values into the parameters table.

To assign a specific noise level to a specific speed, we put the coolers with corresponding voltages to the soundproof box, in which we measured the noise. This was done using the Reed R8080 sound level meter that was recalibrated before each set of measurements. The positions of the polyethylene pad on which the coolers were fixed, and the sound level meter were always the same. To achieve the most precise logging even with the lowest flow the distance between the sensor of the meter and the fan was approximately 25 cm. Each measurement was performed in real time. The meter sent 30 sound samples to the computer, from which we took the average value and put it into the charts. The most important part was to find and to align the fan settings to fixed noise levels. In this case, 45, 42, 39, 36, 33, and 31 dBA were selected, and with the exception of the last and the penultimate mode, each further decrease of rpm reduced the noise level by a half. On the one side there was noisy 45 dBA and on the other almost completely silent 31 dBA.

If one of the modes is missing in the charts, it is either due to insufficient cooling performance or because it was not possible to regulate the fan to the desired noise level. Each test lasted 600 seconds. We simulated the burn in IntelBurnTest (7500 MB) and the result represents the average of maximum temperatures of CPU cores, which were captured in Core Temp. At the time when some of the cores reached 95 °C, the tests were interrupted and considered unsuccessful.

Cooling performance tests were done in our plexiglass wind tunnel with a motherboard in the vertical position, just like in a usual tower case. The scheme of the system cooling was traditional, balanced flow was provided by four Noctua NF-A12S PWM fans. Two were at the input and two at the output, regulated to 550 rpm.

The intake air temperature was 21 – 21.3 °C, ensured in our air-conditioned lab so we could also accurately measure the automatic regulation PWM. Only during this process we put the processor with TDP 140 W back to the factory settings. The curve of the profile of the impulse modulation was set, regarding to low noise level, to 20 % ≤ 20 °C – 30 % ≤ 40 °C – 40 % ≤ 60 °C – 100 % ≤ 90 °C.

*Without overclocking the power consumption of the configuration during IntelBurnTest load was around 170 W; 225 W with overclocking (approximately 180 watts by processor).

With the i/A32 cooler series, Arctic made a really good impression and created a decent opponent for the excellent Fera 3. In the meantime, Swiss have strengthened their ranks and advanced to battle with Freezer 33. However, the expected drama with fight for every detail did not happen. Because of a design mistake of one of the players, the winner is quite dominant under standard circumstances.

Automatic regulation

With the i/A32 cooler series, Arctic made a really good impression and created a decent opponent for the excellent Fera 3. In the meantime, Swiss have strengthened their ranks and advanced to battle with Freezer 33. However, the expected drama with fight for every detail did not happen. Because of a design mistake of one of the players, the winner is quite dominant under standard circumstances.

Max. RPM

With the i/A32 cooler series, Arctic made a really good impression and created a decent opponent for the excellent Fera 3. In the meantime, Swiss have strengthened their ranks and advanced to battle with Freezer 33. However, the expected drama with fight for every detail did not happen. Because of a design mistake of one of the players, the winner is quite dominant under standard circumstances.

45 and 42 dBA

With the i/A32 cooler series, Arctic made a really good impression and created a decent opponent for the excellent Fera 3. In the meantime, Swiss have strengthened their ranks and advanced to battle with Freezer 33. However, the expected drama with fight for every detail did not happen. Because of a design mistake of one of the players, the winner is quite dominant under standard circumstances.

39 and 36 dBA

With the i/A32 cooler series, Arctic made a really good impression and created a decent opponent for the excellent Fera 3. In the meantime, Swiss have strengthened their ranks and advanced to battle with Freezer 33. However, the expected drama with fight for every detail did not happen. Because of a design mistake of one of the players, the winner is quite dominant under standard circumstances.

33 and 31 dBA

With the i/A32 cooler series, Arctic made a really good impression and created a decent opponent for the excellent Fera 3. In the meantime, Swiss have strengthened their ranks and advanced to battle with Freezer 33. However, the expected drama with fight for every detail did not happen. Because of a design mistake of one of the players, the winner is quite dominant under standard circumstances.

Conclusion

Freezer 33 surprised in an unexpected way. After the success of i32, who would guess that its successor will end up falling behind the Fera by 17°C at 36 dBA. And unfortunately, this is not a problem of a single faulty piece. To be sure, we ordered the second sample from the store (the first one was directly from the manufacturer). Very poor results were confirmed again, quite accurately.

The pressure of the cooler was more than decent, we can assure you. It seems that the heatpipes efficiency rapidly decreases in the vertical position of the motherboard. And even though it sounds crazy, the Freezer 33 in the horizontal position slightly dominates over Fera, similar to how i32 dominated. The problem is that such an orientation is very unusual and rarely used in practice. Heatpipes efficiency naturally differs in different positions, but we have never seen such a significant difference before. How so? That is a question for Arctic engineers.

Due to a very good previous experience with this concept, we will not condemn the cooler and we believe that Arctic will put everything in order with the next production. Even though the situation looks grim, we would like to highlight the semi-passive mode in which the fan is automatically turned off when the CPU is idle. However, when temperatures rise a bit, at certain intervals, the fan will spin at a low speed for a short time. How often depends on whether you are working in a text editor or watching a video.

As part of the upcoming tests, we will look at the heatsink in more detail and we will continue to observe its behaviour.

Current Fera has successfully passed all tests. It did not lose breath even at 31 dBA, although the temperature was over 80 °C. The point of the quietest of the modes is to test the capabilities of more expensive coolers that should have no trouble with it.

SPC Fera 3 v2 was not caught off guard even by a massive overclocking with low rpm. Kaby Lake with 1.4 V represents no obstruction after delid at 33 dBA. But a real fan of silent computers will not be satisfied with the buzzing fan. In this case, Freezer wins over Fera.

Anyway, SPC heatsinks were almost perfected over the years and their efficiency is really top-notch. We cannot tell whether it is or it is not the best choice for a total of 30 euros at most (fan included) yet. However, we will soon test the Arctic Freezer i32 which appears to be the strongest competitor in the current offer. But of course, we can recommend Fera 3 v2 already. It definitely won‘t be a mistake in a lower budget configuration.

Finally, we have to commend a clever assembly system based on SecuFirm. The only flaw that it has is a plastic backplate, which is, unfortunately, becoming a standard in this price category.

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