CoolIT Freezone Elite CPU Cooler

CoolIT is a young company, but have already become well-known for their cooling solutions based on designs that utilize a TEC-aided (Thermoelectric) design. The original Freezone worked well to please enthusiasts and since then, CoolIT has steadily refined their products with the help of much R&D, and it shows with each new release.

In fact, CoolIT announced a new Dual-Bay GPU Cooler built for NVIDIA chipsets at CES, and it impressed us so much that we gave it one of our Best of CES 2008 awards. We will be sure to have a review for that one in a short bit, but for now we are going to tackle the Freezone Elite with included MTEC controller.

The cooler itself is a nice self-contained design which has already been proven to be easy to install and is quite efficient as well. The addition of the MTEC unit now adds desktop flexibility. How well has CoolIT done in implementing it? That’s the focus of today’s review.

Closer Look

I received a pre-production unit so I did not have any factory packaging. I am quite certain that the retail units will be shipped with the usual excellent protection provided by their strong packaging. Below is exactly what I received.

Here is a close up of the MTEC controller package.

Inside the box you’ll find all the cables you will need along with a quick install guide and the software installation CD.

Here is a close up of the actual MTEC controller. Note how it is setup for future CoolIT product integration. They are going to be releasing a dual GPU-based solution that will be easily installed onto the current MTEC controller.

The Freezone Elite unit is rated to dissipate 250W worth of heat. It is a very well constructed unit and comes preassembled with thermal paste on the waterblock as well. According to their website, the TIM is Arctic Silver 5 – a tried and trusted brand.

It really gives a strong air of quality when you take a look at just how well-constructed the Elite is, and the care given to wiring and plumbing. But what a beast! How difficult is it to install? We will cover this next.