Arctic Freezer 4U SP5 in detail
Arctic’s new cooler – the Freezer 4U SP5 – is a bit different from the coolers we normally cover. It’s designed for the high-end AMD SP5 platform, which is reflected in its unconventional base. At first glance, it looks like the cooler has two bases, and in fact, its entire structure is reminiscent of two mainstream Freezer coolers stuck together. Such a design makes sense though.
Arctic Freezer 4U SP5 in detail
Right from the start, we would like to point out that this article is only an overview of the details and does not contain any tests. We don’t use the AMD SP5 platform to test coolers, but we’ll still take a look at the latest and greatest Freezer in Arctic’s lineup. What has the manufacturer done and what can we expect from this cooler?
One tower, but a massive one, weighing up to 1150 grams. The heatsink is characterized by fins with an above-standard width of 91 mm. And although it’s not a square footprint like, for example, Scythe Ninja coolers, the Freezer 4U SP5’s aluminum fins are not far from it.
In any case, this is a thick cooler, on which two 120-millimeter fans are appropriately used. These will, especially at lower noise levels, maintain some airflow in the rear of the heatsink fins as well, so cooling performance shouldn’t drop dramatically at lower speeds. And what will also contribute to the effort to keep the pressure drop inside the heatsink as low as possible are the closed side walls. Or rather, perpendicular locks on the shorter side of the fins that fit into each other, making this area almost airtight. That’s a good thing in this case.
The fans used are similar to the Arctic P12 Max fans. Speed-wise (300–3300 rpm), but also by the shape of the impeller. It has five large blades with distinctly curved leading edges and a hoop into which the tips (of the blades) are embedded. From fan tests (for example, Arctic P12 PWM PST-A RGB), you know that this design is characterized by above-standard cooling efficiency, or in other words, the airflow per unit of noise is attractive. Especially on radiators, to which the usage scenario on the Freezer 4U SP5 radiator might be closest.
The front fan cable has two connectors (PST technology), male and female, where one is used to daisy chain the rear fan. So on the motherboard, this cooler will only occupy one header and both fans will run on a shared PWM signal.
While the aerodynamic design of the fans is based on the Arctic P12 Max, there are points where these fans (used on the Freezer 4U SP5 cooler) differ. Of the highly visible elements, it’s the design of the frame. Its mounting is tailored exclusively for this heatsink. To avoid traditional clips, Arctic has added short tunnels to the fan frames. These contain beaks that snap the fan into the fins of the heatsink. And it sticks to them really well. There’s a certain downside, of course, in case of a need for replacement. Fans with a standard mounting can only be attached to the heatsink in a “DIY” way, e.g. by attaching to the heatpipes with zip ties.
One of the differences from the P12 Max fans (with FDB in the current revision) is the use of double row ball bearings. This is typical for this type of coolers, which expect continuous operation.
The Freezer 4U SP5 targets productivity-focused builds and will be no stranger to server racks either. It is formatted to be no more than 4U in height. With 145 mm in this direction, it has quite a decent margin though. The largest dimension of this cooler is the width – 147 mm. In terms of depth, the Freezer 4U SP5 then has 124 mm.
And now to the base. It consists of up to ten heatpipes, which are divided into two halves. They are also separated from each other by an aluminum barrier in the block that holds the heatpipes together. Such heatpipe separation responds to the situation of processor chiplets on the AMD SP5 platform (and AMD Epyc processors). These are, if we focus exclusively on the CCDs/CPU cores, four in number. Thus, half (5) of the heatpipes is for two chiplets and the other half (5) for the remaining two. Above the fifth, I/O chiplet, is an inefficient, do-nothing piece of aluminum, but this place is relatively easy to cool.
The greatest need for heat dissipation is precisely above the CCDs, above which there are those heatpipes. Their contact is of “DHT” (direct heatpipe) technology, i.e. without an intermediate element in the form of a copper coldplate. The heatpipes are truncated and are in direct contact with the processor’s IHS.
To sum up: The Arctic Freezer 4U SP5 is a new large cooler exclusive to the AMD SP5 platform (AMD Epyc processors) that comes with a small (1.6g) pack of Arctic MX-6 thermal paste.
The manufacturer’s suggested price for the Arctic Freezer 4U SP5 is 64,99 EUR.
English translation and edit by Jozef Dudáš
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- Arctic Freezer 4U SP5 in detail
