CoolIT Freezone CPU Cooler

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by Greg King on November 6, 2006 in Cooling

With the growth of CPUs, more cores mean more heat. We are constantly interested in new ways to keep our processors cool and the CoolIT Freezone appears to be just that, a new approach to keeping your CPU cool. Does it deliver?

Page 1 – Introduction


It’s been an exciting time in the CPU world the past year. Intel released their superb Core 2 Duo line of chips and if that wasn’t enough, Core 2 Quadro was just unleashed. To compete with this, AMD slashed their prices to compete which made chips that were previously unaffordable, obtainable for the masses without large bank accounts. AMD’s 4×4 is also just around the corner so these are great times indeed for us in the technology industry. Good times indeed’

The first Pentium 4s were hot, really hot. You needed some robust cooling to keep them in check. During this time, the first dual core CPUs hit the market and with the more cores there is bound to be more heat. You have a few options to keep your hardware cool. Some choose to use the stock heatsink that comes with their product and for most people, this is enough. Then there are others who either want better cooling or a quieter solution can always purchase an after market cooling solution. Going up the cooling ladder, you can always go with water cooling your PC. This offers better performance than air and usually is less noisy. From here, we get into the hardcore cooling such as peltiers or phase change. These are not solutions for the faint of heart but by far offer the best cooling solution.

Today we are working with CoolIT’s Freezone. The Freezone is unique in the sense that it is a TEC (Thermo Electric Coupler), or peltier, that chills the radiator instead of sitting directly on top of the CPU itself. Based out of Calgary, Canada, CoolIT has made a name for themselves by offering the cooling solution for Alienware’s high end PCs. They also offer a USB powered beverage chiller/coaster. Today we are going to get into the nitty gritty with the Freezone and see just how well it does, or does not, cool my Core 2 Duo E6600.

For the sake of time, and the reader’s sanity, I am not going to get into the specifics of the Peltier effect but to consolidate it down, the unit uses an electrical effect to get one side of the unit very cold and the other side, hotter than hell. This is why a peltier unit goes had in hand with water cooling kits to keep the hot side cool enough to efficiently operate. If you would like to read up on the Peltier effect you can read more here.

The CoolIT Freezone came shipped in the retail packaging. This is the box that anyone would receive if they were to order this unit. The package is colorful and full of any information that one might need to know. Some of it is useful, some of it is marketing but the overall package is well done.

Once open, we see the Freezone tucked away safely in styrofoam with all of the accessories with it.

Once we open it up, we see the manual and more accessories.

The Freezone comes with an adapter that can be used for mounting the Freezone on a PC that lacks the 92mm fan holes. Why Freezone choose to neglect to use a 120mm fan is beyond me but I would imagine that Alienware and their cases that use 92mm fans had a lot to do with the design of the Freezone.

As you can see, CoolIT has thought of most systems. You have mounting adapters for Intel socket 478 and 775, which will be used today as well as AMD s939, 940 and AM2.

Digging further into the box, we see the Thermal Control Module which controls the power that goes to the TECs as well as how fast the fan needs to spin.


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