Introduction

In the past we looked at several small HTPC inspired coolers and walked away from all of them dissatisfied with the performance they achieved. Some of the coolers were outright dangerous for the applications claimed by the manufacturer and we needed to make it clear that such a small cooler was not really intended for flagship, "Extreme" processors.

Arctic Cooling has stepped up to the plate to deliver us a silent performer that is made exclusively for the Intel LGA platform, and can apparently cool a 90 watt processor. The new Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 LP is designed for slim enclosures where limited height is a concern; many slim HTPC systems and home built 2U servers including NAS servers coming to mind. This is a market that is dominated by OEM coolers and many enthusiasts do not have access to these custom coolers, yet still find that the retail Intel heatsink makes too much noise for their application.

The new Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 LP is not designed to break any performance records, but it should allow HTPC owners the opportunity to get leading class performance. Let's take a look and see just how good a slim cooler can perform.