10 reviews for ARCTIC Liquid Freezer II 240 – Multi
Compatible Al
Rated 5 out of 5
Mo –
FIrst time building a PC with AIO, watched a few videos to understand how to orient the radiator in the case. Pretty easy setup after that. So far very happy with it.
Rated 5 out of 5
Erica Mosher –
Keeps CPU around 29°C-35°C range. I highly recommend this cooler. Great price for a great product!
Rated 5 out of 5
MX rider –
Great lil cooler. Keeps my 5600x idling in the upper 20’s. In the 40’s when gaming. And in the 60’s with heavy loads or benchmarks / stress test. Can’t ask for better than that. I do have a additional 2 120mm fans on it in a push / pull setup that is front mounted in the case. Couldn’t be happier with it.
Rated 5 out of 5
Mason W –
I got this to cool my i9-12900k for my new build.
It has done a great job at it this far.
The only concern I have is that on of the fans on the radiator is making a strange clicking like sound, or a sound like it’s hitting a cable.
I took the fan out and made sure it wasn’t coming into contact with anything, but it’s still making the sound.
Rated 5 out of 5
Miem –
I’ve had this for over 2 years now, and it’s still going strong
Rated 4 out of 5
Justin OConner –
Let me get this out of the way first: this has been a great AIO so far. I really appreciated the pre-mounted fans and the included, but not pre-applied, thermal paste (as this let me use my own without wasting the included MX-4). Performance is measurably better than the Noctua NH-D15 it replaced, which is allowing my Ryzen 5800x to boost a bit higher. I personally enjoy the aesthetics; the silver stripes on the tube sheathing look nice without being too showy and the lack of RGB means I can avoid being blinded by my own PC.
Now for the warning: while I haven’t tried to mount this on an Intel socket, mounting it on AM4 is painful. I was mounting it into an existing system, so it’s possible this is easier on an external motherboard, but the problems all come down to the backplate. The backplate must be supported and held very close to the motherboard during both installation of mounting hardware and the cooler itself. Failure to do this will result in issues.
My particular issue, for example, came from having an ASUS Prime X570-Pro motherboard. For whatever reason, it appears there is less space on this board between the socket and the left side capacitors than Arctic was expecting. Watching the instructional videos and the installation guide GIFs led me to believe that the AM4 bracket on the cooler unit would comfortably mount without interference once I had the mounting hardware installed on the motherboard. However, it appeared that the left side capacitors would block installation of the cooler. The capacitors seemed to physically block the bracket from reaching the mount. In reality, this only happened because the backplate wasn’t fully flush against the motherboard, so the posts weren’t coming through all the way. Even with the mounting hardware installed, the mount is loose until the cooler is screwed on. Once fully installed, the top left part of the bracket sits _just barely_ above the capacitors; I haven’t measured but there’s probably 1mm or less space between them.
I was able to eventually find an awkward way to reach behind my tower and hold the backplate in place while thumb-tightening the cooler to the mounting hardware. This was made more challenging by the cooler not sitting still while trying to mount it–being an AIO, it’s got fairly rigid sleeved tubes coming out of the unit and those like to pull on it while you’re trying to use one hand to hold the plate and the other to screw it down. You’ll really benefit from having someone hold the plate for you (or, you can try just taping it to the motherboard, though this didn’t work well for me).
I only knocked one star off the rating because of the mounting challenges. One usually mounts a cooler only once ever few years and, while annoying, I was able to eventually do it solo. Other than installation woes, it has proven so far to be a very capable and effective CLC, and is basically silent under anything but heavy load. However, I definitely wanted to put up a warning for anyone that might be slightly less adventurous but looking to try a very well-rated water cooler. You’ll definitely have to work for it, at least if you’re on AM4.
Rated 4 out of 5
golfpilot –
Replaced a 7 year old H110i cooler with this at the same time I replaced the case (last two parts). This cooler is pretty nice. The directions are on your phone or tablet via a QR code, which is kinda cool and it allows them to update it which is nice. Mounting wasn’t too difficult. The radiator is pretty big and I top mounted it on the P360A case. You need to plug everything into the top of the motherboard before you install the radiator in a P360A case! When it actually came time to mount the cooler I checked to make sure it lined up with the cooler and stopped when it didn’t look like it did. I went back and made sure everything was in the right position. It was. So I opted to full send it. Well it must have come into contact right because my 3700x will idle below 30 when I am away from the computer, sits around 40 when I’m doing light work (like right now, 5 chrome tabs open 1 youtube video playing). After a 3 hour gaming session, running hardware info64, my highest temperature was 65. Ya, sure, that isn’t a full load since most games are GPU intensive, but 65 is cool. A 10 minute cinebench test left a peak of 72. Now those temps aren’t as good as my 7 year old H110i, but that was a 280mm radiator, attached as intake, and I was using liquid metal in lieu of thermal paste on that. I used the included thermal paste (MX-4) that came with the cooler. Which brings up another thing. The thermal paste came in a mini syringe tube. There is enough paste in there for at least 4 applications! I was expecting a one time use, rip open, type thing. That saves me $8 bucks when I finally get a 59xx series chip! Vram fan I can’t speak anything about. My Meg Unify board already runs real cool. If that fan stopped, I likely wouldn’t even notice. So mostly all PROS for me. but if I had to be picky, here they are Cons- Wish they gave you a way to confirm your cooler will align with the cpu properly. When you come in sideways and try to see it just doesn’t look like it will match up. There is no way to see water temperatures. With the H110i I was able to set my fan curve based on the water temp. Which lead to ultra smooth ramping. So far the cpu fans haven’t been annoying but I may swap the fans from cpu to something else later. Pump noise- ya, pumps make noise, this one buzzes a little. I am really sensitive to buzzing noises. I would say this pump ties my overhead fan’s motor for buzzing (and I have a real nice overhead fan). Most people won’t notice it. If you are real sensitive to buzzing you will. The H110i had the option to run the pump in silent mode or performance mode. I’d rate this Artic pump buzzing somewhere between the H110i’s two modes. Probably closer to the silent side though since I also went from a closed, insulated case, to the most open case I could get. Tubing length- ya this is a real nit picky thing to complain about since the complaint is purely aesthetic and I am using the pump in pretty much the smallest case you can top mount it in. The Tubing is too long and it comes down and blocks my RTX 3080’s LED lighting. Overall: I would recommend this cooler to anybody who insists on water cooling their system.
Rated 3 out of 5
D. Irwin –
It works well and seems well made enough, but the manufacturer has made the installation process maddening by including a huge number of adapters, screws, washers, standoffs, etc for the various sockets, and decided that none of them should be labeled directly, or even logically grouped together in their respective little plastic bags.
First time I tried to install the brackets for the water block assembly I used the wrong screws and nearly damaged the water block. The manufacturer KNOWS they have this problem, because they’ve helpfully included an extra warning that screws should go in easily and not be forced, so I’m sure tons of people have broken their products using the wrong unlabeled screws. These screws a very small, use tiny threads, and are very difficult to distinguish based on the poor quality of the instructions.
Arctic, stop trying to penny-pinch on printing, label your dang screws or at least group them together logically (All AM4/AM5 in one bag, common screws in another bag, all Intel 1700 in another bag, etc… etc…)
Rated 5 out of 5
jeninmaine –
The stock cooler on my PC died after just a year and I did a bunch of research before deciding on this cooler. I had never replaced one myself before and admittedly was intimidated by the process. I didn’t like that the installation instructions live online but was able to get to them easily enough, and they weren’t too difficult to follow. Arctic also has a very detailed installation video on YouTube that I followed as I went that was invaluable, so definitely look that up.
The one thing I will say, especially if you don’t have a lot of experience installing these things, is note that the mounting rails that go on the motherboard ARE DIFFERENT. When I was taking everything out of the box and separating it I completely didn’t notice the round cutouts are different sizes/positions and the outer edges are rounded/squared to help you tell them apart (derp). The first time I put them on I did so backwards, and nearly attempted to mount the CPU block the wrong way. Take a minute to look at how these rails need to be installed for your CPU position and motherboard.
I had also never had to remove or install thermal paste before and while it seemed intimidating it ended up being very easy. The first time I applied it I had it backwards and the good thing about taking it apart is I could see that the method I used (dot x) fully covered the plate on the CPU, so that was encouraging. Once I got things turned around I had just enough paste to do a second application and get it assembled.
Assembly wasn’t terrible; however I would suggest that you have another person assist so you have a second set of hands to help hold things in place while you are screwing them down. It took some fiddling to get the base mounting rails attached which would have been pretty tough to do alone, and the radiator in my case is positioned vertically in the front so it was invaluable to have someone to hold it in place for me so I could line up all the screws.
Best of all, the entire works only needs one plug for the radiator fans. My previous cooler had four fans all with their own power supply cords so it was drawing a ton of power and they were loud (something I didn’t fully realize until I had the Arctic installed). This made finishing installation super easy, and everything worked perfectly the moment I turned it on for the first time. I was shocked at how quiet the fans are, I have my case two feet from me on the end of my desk and I can barely hear them most of the time. Even when they’re spinning up they don’t get that loud and I certainly can’t hear them if I’m wearing headphones.
Best of all the cooling power has been nothing short of amazing. My CPU was pinning at 91C at startup with the old failing cooler and now it runs at a chill 38C on startup, and even when playing the most intensive games on Ultra settings with my RTX 3070 the max I’ve seen runs from 77-83C and those spikes are literally momentary before dropping down to an average speed of 65C, while only drawing 30-40W.
Very, very happy with this cooler. Thanks for letting me see every single blade of grass in RDR2 again!
Rated 5 out of 5
Amazon Customer –
Ryzen 5600x and lowered gaming temps by 10 degrees C.
Mo –
FIrst time building a PC with AIO, watched a few videos to understand how to orient the radiator in the case. Pretty easy setup after that. So far very happy with it.
Erica Mosher –
Keeps CPU around 29°C-35°C range. I highly recommend this cooler. Great price for a great product!
MX rider –
Great lil cooler. Keeps my 5600x idling in the upper 20’s. In the 40’s when gaming. And in the 60’s with heavy loads or benchmarks / stress test. Can’t ask for better than that. I do have a additional 2 120mm fans on it in a push / pull setup that is front mounted in the case. Couldn’t be happier with it.
Mason W –
I got this to cool my i9-12900k for my new build.
It has done a great job at it this far.
The only concern I have is that on of the fans on the radiator is making a strange clicking like sound, or a sound like it’s hitting a cable.
I took the fan out and made sure it wasn’t coming into contact with anything, but it’s still making the sound.
Miem –
I’ve had this for over 2 years now, and it’s still going strong
Justin OConner –
Let me get this out of the way first: this has been a great AIO so far. I really appreciated the pre-mounted fans and the included, but not pre-applied, thermal paste (as this let me use my own without wasting the included MX-4). Performance is measurably better than the Noctua NH-D15 it replaced, which is allowing my Ryzen 5800x to boost a bit higher. I personally enjoy the aesthetics; the silver stripes on the tube sheathing look nice without being too showy and the lack of RGB means I can avoid being blinded by my own PC.
Now for the warning: while I haven’t tried to mount this on an Intel socket, mounting it on AM4 is painful. I was mounting it into an existing system, so it’s possible this is easier on an external motherboard, but the problems all come down to the backplate. The backplate must be supported and held very close to the motherboard during both installation of mounting hardware and the cooler itself. Failure to do this will result in issues.
My particular issue, for example, came from having an ASUS Prime X570-Pro motherboard. For whatever reason, it appears there is less space on this board between the socket and the left side capacitors than Arctic was expecting. Watching the instructional videos and the installation guide GIFs led me to believe that the AM4 bracket on the cooler unit would comfortably mount without interference once I had the mounting hardware installed on the motherboard. However, it appeared that the left side capacitors would block installation of the cooler. The capacitors seemed to physically block the bracket from reaching the mount. In reality, this only happened because the backplate wasn’t fully flush against the motherboard, so the posts weren’t coming through all the way. Even with the mounting hardware installed, the mount is loose until the cooler is screwed on. Once fully installed, the top left part of the bracket sits _just barely_ above the capacitors; I haven’t measured but there’s probably 1mm or less space between them.
I was able to eventually find an awkward way to reach behind my tower and hold the backplate in place while thumb-tightening the cooler to the mounting hardware. This was made more challenging by the cooler not sitting still while trying to mount it–being an AIO, it’s got fairly rigid sleeved tubes coming out of the unit and those like to pull on it while you’re trying to use one hand to hold the plate and the other to screw it down. You’ll really benefit from having someone hold the plate for you (or, you can try just taping it to the motherboard, though this didn’t work well for me).
I only knocked one star off the rating because of the mounting challenges. One usually mounts a cooler only once ever few years and, while annoying, I was able to eventually do it solo. Other than installation woes, it has proven so far to be a very capable and effective CLC, and is basically silent under anything but heavy load. However, I definitely wanted to put up a warning for anyone that might be slightly less adventurous but looking to try a very well-rated water cooler. You’ll definitely have to work for it, at least if you’re on AM4.
golfpilot –
Replaced a 7 year old H110i cooler with this at the same time I replaced the case (last two parts). This cooler is pretty nice. The directions are on your phone or tablet via a QR code, which is kinda cool and it allows them to update it which is nice. Mounting wasn’t too difficult. The radiator is pretty big and I top mounted it on the P360A case. You need to plug everything into the top of the motherboard before you install the radiator in a P360A case! When it actually came time to mount the cooler I checked to make sure it lined up with the cooler and stopped when it didn’t look like it did. I went back and made sure everything was in the right position. It was. So I opted to full send it. Well it must have come into contact right because my 3700x will idle below 30 when I am away from the computer, sits around 40 when I’m doing light work (like right now, 5 chrome tabs open 1 youtube video playing). After a 3 hour gaming session, running hardware info64, my highest temperature was 65. Ya, sure, that isn’t a full load since most games are GPU intensive, but 65 is cool. A 10 minute cinebench test left a peak of 72. Now those temps aren’t as good as my 7 year old H110i, but that was a 280mm radiator, attached as intake, and I was using liquid metal in lieu of thermal paste on that. I used the included thermal paste (MX-4) that came with the cooler. Which brings up another thing. The thermal paste came in a mini syringe tube. There is enough paste in there for at least 4 applications! I was expecting a one time use, rip open, type thing. That saves me $8 bucks when I finally get a 59xx series chip! Vram fan I can’t speak anything about. My Meg Unify board already runs real cool. If that fan stopped, I likely wouldn’t even notice.
So mostly all PROS for me. but if I had to be picky, here they are
Cons-
Wish they gave you a way to confirm your cooler will align with the cpu properly. When you come in sideways and try to see it just doesn’t look like it will match up.
There is no way to see water temperatures. With the H110i I was able to set my fan curve based on the water temp. Which lead to ultra smooth ramping. So far the cpu fans haven’t been annoying but I may swap the fans from cpu to something else later.
Pump noise- ya, pumps make noise, this one buzzes a little. I am really sensitive to buzzing noises. I would say this pump ties my overhead fan’s motor for buzzing (and I have a real nice overhead fan). Most people won’t notice it. If you are real sensitive to buzzing you will. The H110i had the option to run the pump in silent mode or performance mode. I’d rate this Artic pump buzzing somewhere between the H110i’s two modes. Probably closer to the silent side though since I also went from a closed, insulated case, to the most open case I could get.
Tubing length- ya this is a real nit picky thing to complain about since the complaint is purely aesthetic and I am using the pump in pretty much the smallest case you can top mount it in. The Tubing is too long and it comes down and blocks my RTX 3080’s LED lighting.
Overall: I would recommend this cooler to anybody who insists on water cooling their system.
D. Irwin –
It works well and seems well made enough, but the manufacturer has made the installation process maddening by including a huge number of adapters, screws, washers, standoffs, etc for the various sockets, and decided that none of them should be labeled directly, or even logically grouped together in their respective little plastic bags.
First time I tried to install the brackets for the water block assembly I used the wrong screws and nearly damaged the water block. The manufacturer KNOWS they have this problem, because they’ve helpfully included an extra warning that screws should go in easily and not be forced, so I’m sure tons of people have broken their products using the wrong unlabeled screws. These screws a very small, use tiny threads, and are very difficult to distinguish based on the poor quality of the instructions.
Arctic, stop trying to penny-pinch on printing, label your dang screws or at least group them together logically (All AM4/AM5 in one bag, common screws in another bag, all Intel 1700 in another bag, etc… etc…)
jeninmaine –
The stock cooler on my PC died after just a year and I did a bunch of research before deciding on this cooler. I had never replaced one myself before and admittedly was intimidated by the process. I didn’t like that the installation instructions live online but was able to get to them easily enough, and they weren’t too difficult to follow. Arctic also has a very detailed installation video on YouTube that I followed as I went that was invaluable, so definitely look that up.
The one thing I will say, especially if you don’t have a lot of experience installing these things, is note that the mounting rails that go on the motherboard ARE DIFFERENT. When I was taking everything out of the box and separating it I completely didn’t notice the round cutouts are different sizes/positions and the outer edges are rounded/squared to help you tell them apart (derp). The first time I put them on I did so backwards, and nearly attempted to mount the CPU block the wrong way. Take a minute to look at how these rails need to be installed for your CPU position and motherboard.
I had also never had to remove or install thermal paste before and while it seemed intimidating it ended up being very easy. The first time I applied it I had it backwards and the good thing about taking it apart is I could see that the method I used (dot x) fully covered the plate on the CPU, so that was encouraging. Once I got things turned around I had just enough paste to do a second application and get it assembled.
Assembly wasn’t terrible; however I would suggest that you have another person assist so you have a second set of hands to help hold things in place while you are screwing them down. It took some fiddling to get the base mounting rails attached which would have been pretty tough to do alone, and the radiator in my case is positioned vertically in the front so it was invaluable to have someone to hold it in place for me so I could line up all the screws.
Best of all, the entire works only needs one plug for the radiator fans. My previous cooler had four fans all with their own power supply cords so it was drawing a ton of power and they were loud (something I didn’t fully realize until I had the Arctic installed). This made finishing installation super easy, and everything worked perfectly the moment I turned it on for the first time. I was shocked at how quiet the fans are, I have my case two feet from me on the end of my desk and I can barely hear them most of the time. Even when they’re spinning up they don’t get that loud and I certainly can’t hear them if I’m wearing headphones.
Best of all the cooling power has been nothing short of amazing. My CPU was pinning at 91C at startup with the old failing cooler and now it runs at a chill 38C on startup, and even when playing the most intensive games on Ultra settings with my RTX 3070 the max I’ve seen runs from 77-83C and those spikes are literally momentary before dropping down to an average speed of 65C, while only drawing 30-40W.
Very, very happy with this cooler. Thanks for letting me see every single blade of grass in RDR2 again!
Amazon Customer –
Ryzen 5600x and lowered gaming temps by 10 degrees C.