Back in 2015 Artic decided to, pardon the pun, dip their toes in to the burgeoning All In One water based CPU cooling solutions market place. While the original Liquid Freezer’s main claim to fame was giving ‘full’ HEDT-sized cooling coverage and using ~1.5-inch/38mm radiators, it was not really until 2018 that buyers outside the enthusiast community started to really pay attention to the plucky little company best known for their Thermal Interface Material. With its combination of Arctic’s excellent P120/P140 fans, excellent radiator, and an honest to dog VRM fan cooler baked into a, non-Asetek, custom water block the Liquid Freezer II set the standard… and kept being the gold standard upon which all AIO’s were judged right up until now. Even now, the only reason it no longer the gold standard is because Artic did not rest on their laurels for the past ~5 years and instead spent that time rebuilding a better… stronger… faster AIO using cutting edge technology. One that promises to be better than the A.L.F. II was in all areas and yet not cost any more than the ALF 2 demanded (…let alone 6 Million dollars). In fact, the flagship A-RGB White edition of the Liquid Freezer III has an online average asking price of less than 120 USD.
We are not being hyperbolic when we say that the asking price does raise a few eyebrows. Typically, 3x140mm AIO options demand a certain… premium in the MSRP department. Typically, A-RGB enhanced AIOs also usually come with a certain amount of “cost plus” baked into the asking price. Typically white AIOs also cost more than their black brethren. Yet here we are with a “420” A-RGB, all white AIO from a company known for excellence with an asking price lower than some 280 class AIOs. Hell, if you look hard enough you can even find 240s that cost more than the Arctic Liquid Freezer III 420.
Make no mistake, we highly… highly doubt the performance of the Liquid Freezer III will be anything but superb as we are looking at the 420mm edition. But it is unusual to see any product have the exact same MSRP as a circa 2018 model, and even rarer to see it go for noticeably less than MSRP so quickly after launch. This can, will, and does raise flags in experienced builders’ minds. Furthermore, Artic did catch lightening in a bottle with the Liquid Freezer II series and its successor was always going to be highly scrutinized… as we are a tribal bunch that hates change. As such we are going to be paying more attention to what has changed, for the better and the worse. Then and only then will we give our opinion on wither or not Arctic is either A) simply not being ClownWorld™ greedy like many AIO makers, or B) they know they had to reduce asking price lest it get drowned by the competition who have not only caught up but exceeded the Liquid Freezer II series overall abilities. So let’s see which of those two options prove to be correct.
