Arctic has broadened its lineup of Liquid Freezer III Pro coolers with two new additions featuring 280 mm and 420 mm radiators. These units now come with wider radiators, cooled by 140 mm fans—the familiar 7-blade P14 Pro models. The enhanced cooling efficiency is a definite upside, but there’s a caveat: you’ll need to check if your case can physically accommodate them. If compatibility isn’t an issue, you’re free to explore their potential.
The initial launch included only models with 120 mm fans (P12 Pro and P12 Pro A-RGB), but now Arctic is introducing Liquid Freezer III Pro coolers with one size larger fans. These larger fans bring with them bulkier radiators and, naturally, a steeper demand on case dimensions—particularly in terms of width.
In narrower cases, there often aren’t any mounting points at all that would allow the Liquid Freezer III Pro 280 or Liquid Freezer III Pro 420 to be installed. This is something to watch for. The latter model—the Liquid Freezer III Pro 420—is relatively long, so even support for wider radiators doesn’t necessarily mean it will fit. Sufficient space for the length of the cooler will also be required. That usually correlates with extra height (for front or side mounting) or depth (in the case of top-mounted installations), or a combination of both. The 420 model features three 140 mm fans, while the smaller version—the Liquid Freezer III Pro 280—uses two.
Neither model currently includes RGB lighting. Both come equipped with Arctic’s standard P14 Pro fans, though the company has confirmed that A-RGB versions are in development. These are expected to arrive down the line—Arctic says they’re coming, just not quite yet. When they do, we’ll be reporting on it.
Bigger cooling hardware often correlates with better performance, and that’s a key selling point here. The Liquid Freezer III Pro series features coldplate designs tailored to the thermal hotspots of supported CPUs. As the diagrams show, the cooler focuses heat transfer where it’s most needed—be it the southern portion of AMD’s AM5 chips (where the CCDs reside), or the northern region of Intel’s CPUs from the Core Ultra 200S line.
Cooling performance with the Core Ultra 9 285K (reportedly drawing around 245 W) is said to improve noticeably over earlier Liquid Freezer III models—at least on Intel platforms. According to Arctic’s internal data, the Liquid Freezer III Pro can achieve a nearly 5 °C drop in temperature under comparable noise levels (28 dBA), which might be the average value for all the P-cores; or around 4 °C at maximum fan speed—where, intriguingly, the newer cooler might even be quieter. That said, independent testing is still pending, which includes us, as we have yet to publish a thorough analysis of how the Liquid Freezer III Pro stacks up against its predecessor. But it’s coming.
The difference in cooling performance on AMD’s Ryzen 9 7950X appears to be less pronounced, likely due to a tighter thermal bottleneck on the CPU’s side when it comes to heat dissipation. In this scenario, the cooler may be somewhat less effective than on Intel’s platform—yet Arctic’s own data still reflects encouraging performance metrics, suggesting worthwhile gains nonetheless.
Another contributor to the improved TDP handling in the Liquid Freezer III Pro lineup is the thicker radiator design. All models across the LF III Pro range (including non-Pro variants) share a substantial 38 mm radiator thickness. But with the 420 mm variant specifically, it’s worth noting its full length—an imposing 458 mm. That size may exceed the capacity of some cases, even among larger ones. Support for this flagship model is expected to remain relatively limited to generously sized or full-tower cases.
Arctic has set the MSRPs for the new Liquid Freezer III Pro models at 121 EUR for the Liquid Freezer III Pro 280 (P/N: ACFRE00179A), and 141 EUR for the Liquid Freezer III Pro 420 (P/N: ACFRE00181A).
English translation and edit by Jozef Dudáš
