Arctic Liquid Freezer III 360 and 420 Review

Gaming Thermals

OC3D CPU Cooler Gaming Test

With this new CPU testing rig, we wanted to experiment with analysing the “gaming” performance of CPU coolers. After all, all-core stress tests are not a common workload for PC users. Games do not usually put huge levels of stress on all cores of your processor, especially if your CPU has a high core count. We also wanted to see if your choice of CPU cooler impacts GPU thermals under a GPU-focused stress test. After all, your CPU cooler can have a huge impact on the overall airflow pattern of your PC.

For our CPU game test we used Final Fantasy XIV Endwalker’s benchmarking tool for our gaming test. This is a test that can run for a long time, and moves between CPU and GPU limited parts of the game. This test was used at a resolution of 1080p at maximum settings.

Liquid Freezer III series 1000 RPM performance

The first thing that we will note below is that maximum GPU thermals are lower when we use an all-in-one CPU liquid cooler inside our heatsink test system. This is likely due to the fact that these heatsinks effectively add more exhaust fans to our system, increasing overall system airflow.

Overall, Arctic’s Liquid Freezer coolers perform admirably here, delivering better results than any air cooler that we have tested. That said, this isn’t a hugely intensive CPU workload, and that gives higher-end CPU coolers little room to separate themselves from each other in the charts below.

Liquid Freezer III series 1500 RPM performance

Moving up our cooler’s fans to 1500 RPM, we see a minor drop in CPU thermals. That said, the difference is minor.

Liquid Freezer III series Max RPM performance

At maximum fan RPMs, CPU and GPU thermals drop further. That said, the Arctic Liquid Freezer III series maintains a similar position in our gaming performance charts.