Arctic Liquid Freezer III 360 A-RGB review

With an enviable reputation for producing some of the best AIO liquid coolers on the market, Arctic has avoided making hardware too feature-heavy, striving to provide superior cooling without having to take out a bank loan. Now in its third generation of Liquid Freezer models, models like the Liquid Freezer III 360 A-RGB beat many competitors in terms of value. This is thanks to unique features that enhance CPU cooling efficiency while keeping other parts of your computer cold for much less than many similarly sized options.

They come in a variety of sizes, with both 120mm and 140mm fan configurations, with the model I tested being the Liquid Freezer III 360 A-RGB. If your requirements are more modest, 240mm and 280mm models are also available, as well as a monstrous 420mm model with three 140mm fans.

This review is for the backlit white model with RGB lighting covering both the pump and fans, but if you want to save some money, there are also standard black versions with RGB lighting that cost even less. The equivalent 360mm model I’m looking at here can be had for as little as 77 lbs here in the UK – that’s a good result for a 360mm AIO liquid cooler, by all accounts.

Part of what’s impressive here is the exceptionally chunky radiator. At 38mm, its depth is a good 10mm greater than most other coolers, and the extra internal surface area means more heat can be dissipated with the same airflow. Theoretically, it can handle more heat before its fans have to spin up as well, but the extra thickness could also mean greater limitations.

Fortunately, the fins inside the radiator are spaced slightly wider to reduce this restriction, but it can still be a limiting factor, especially at lower fan speeds. Another issue with a thicker radiator is case compatibility, but most cases that can accommodate a standard liquid cooler can also accommodate the Liquid Freezer III since we’re only talking about another 8-10mm.

When in doubt, this information is often found in the user manual or on the product page, although five minutes with a ruler will also suffice. Still, the thickness requires quite powerful fans, and P12 PWM PST A-RGB fans are included in the kit with a maximum speed of 2000 rpm, although there are AIO liquid coolers with fans well north of that figure. So I hope Arctic did their research and found a balance between fan speed and airflow optimization, as well as a thicker radiator.

Another eyebrow-raising feature is the removable fan located on top of the pump section. This directs air towards the motherboard and helps cold components such as VRMs and SSD heatsinks, which could otherwise become very warm due to the lack of local airflow in an AIO liquid cooler compared to an air cooler. The kit comes with two cables that need to be selected and connected to the pump to enable different control modes.

One combines the pump, radiator fans, and VRM fan into a single 4-pin connector, increasing or decreasing everything depending on CPU temperature. A second cable separates these outputs for individual control. If you’re concerned about the VRM pump or fan being cacophonous (after all, the latter maxes out at 2,500 rpm), luckily you can control them separately using the extra fan headers on the motherboard.

In fact, many motherboards allow you to swap the CPU for VRMs as an input for fan control on specific fan headers, so you can only enhance fan speeds when the VRMs get sultry, which is a fantastic feature. The downside is that the pump section is quite vast and there are sometimes motherboard compatibility issues, especially with Mini-ITX models, so be sure to check the Arctic listing on the product page.

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All these separate cables sound like a nightmare, but Arctic at least combined the 4-pin and RGB cables of the three fans into one line and also routed them through the cooling pipe cover. By using a few cable ties – which you’ll need to get your own as Arctic doesn’t include them – you can easily bundle separate cables into a single strand to keep things tidy. The RGB lighting itself covers the pump and fans from one cable. It is bright and contrasts well with the white elements, although it may not be as dazzling as more steep coolers.

Arctic impressed us even more by adding a contact frame to the LGA1700 and LGA1851 processors to reduce pressure on the processor that could otherwise cause it to bend or affect contact with the pump section. This sounds great in practice, but installation was a bit complicated. Adjusting the pump’s contact plate to be directly above the hottest part of the CPU, which is not exactly centered on current AMD CPUs, also shifts the AMD mount slightly.

Other than that, installation was quite basic, but connecting the right PWM cable for your needs before mounting the pump to the motherboard definitely takes some work, as it’s tricky to do afterwards. The tubes also seem to be quite long, and with the cables pre-organized on the fans, installation didn’t take long.

With everything running at full speed, I recorded a reading of 49 dBA on my sound meter, but without any obnoxious whining or buzzing noises. The removable VRM fan also performed well, lowering the maximum VRM temperature by 5°C without any noticeable enhance in noise levels. The pump was a tad cacophonous at full speed, but the VRM fan housing surrounds it to hide most of the noise inside, plus the pump only reaches full speed when the fans are running at full speed using a single PWM cable.

Reducing the fan speed to 40% made it almost still, and in the case of my Core i7 14700K, I only noticed a 2°C enhance in peak load temperatures. The CPU temperature reached 69°C in my Metro Exodus playtest, but rose to 83°C and 84°C in 3DMark’s Steel Nomad stress test and x264 encoding test, respectively. Cinebench was slightly cooler at 80°C, while returning to idle temperature under load took less than three minutes.

If you’re looking for an affordable AIO liquid cooler that’s capable of handling the hottest CPUs on the market, but also runs very quietly under lower loads, then the Arctic Liquid Freezer III 360 A-RGB is well-made and straightforward to install (for the most part), and even includes RGB lighting. The VRM cooling fan is an added benefit, and the ability to control it, controlling the pump and radiator fans separately to fine-tune airflow, is a welcome addition that will please both die-hard DIY enthusiasts and those who just want to build their PC and start shooting in the head.