Arctic Liquid Freezer III 420 Review

Final Score: 94 out 100

The Arctic Liquid Freezer III series represents the logical continuation of a design philosophy that has proven to not only be able to easily withstand the test of time but arguably be the sanest and most logical of all AIO blueprints created to date. That design philosophy is simple to state but extremely hard to beat. That is to say: give the buyers everything they want and do so without any of the typical MSRP boosting dross that other companies’ design teams are addicted to included. The end result is an AIO design that will continue to outperform the competition and yet ironically cost less than said competition.

Of course with that said, philosophy can only get you so far – as it is guiding hand behind the design… not the design itself. This is where ALF’s engineering team enter the chat and it is this team of dedicated enthusiasts who allowed Arctic to go from the ‘upstarts’ to a household name in a relatively short period of time. All via a simple ‘why did we not think of that’ inclusion: a fan. A fan on the waterblock. Put simply, the inclusion of a VRM heatsink cooling fan integrated into the waterblock was game changing back in 2018. For the first time enthusiasts could get all the benefits of water cooling without worries over the motherboard components overheating. After all mosfets and the various ICs are all passively cooled on a motherboard and their heatsink(s) are designed around the assumption of a certain amount of air movement from the CPU cooling solution’s fan… which does not exist with nearly any other AIO water based CPU cooling solution.

With the 3rd version the change from a small axial fan to a large… extremely large (in both width and height) fan pays massive dividends. Gone is the sometimes downright annoying ‘buzzsaw’ that made many a builder hard limit the VRM fan to 50%. Gone is the only modicum of air movement, that while better than nothing was just that: better than nothing. Mix in the fact that it is easily replaceable and all the gripes and snipes focused on the A.L.F II series have been neatly negated via good ol’ fashioned engineering… and a management team willing to embrace “make it bigger” as a serious answer to their previous model’s problem.

The same holds true with the radiator design. All In One cooling solutions typically came with ‘thin’ radiators. While better than nothing a ~28mm thick rad has consistently proven to not be up to the task of always optimally cooling a 200… 300… 400 watt CPU. To solve it, Arctic’s management said ‘make it bigger’ and in thus the design team were allowed to opt for a 38mm ‘thick’ radiator. A rad which offers noticeable larger surface area fold fin array, noticeably larger water channels to take advantage of said fin array, and noticeably more internal water volume to help even out the ups and downs of CPU work load cycles. Of course, after proving the viability of a thick rad AIO, others followed the ALF’s trailblazing with their own ‘thick’ rad options.

However, just as with the Liquid Freezer I and II series, those big boi options from the competition have cores that could never fully harness this form-factor. To be precise those ‘thick’ rads only have cores that are 26 to 28mm tall due to the typical 5-6mm (per side) standoff “fan shroud” that ‘must’ be included. Once again Artic management said “yes” when told that the answer was ‘make it bigger’. This outside the box freedom combined with the inclusion of cutting edge 140mm fans (that are as powerful as they are pretty) gave the Artic Liquid Freezer III design team the ability to increase the water channels and fin array height without increasing overall thickness. To be precise shaving 2 to 3mm off each side’s standoffs height allow for a rad core that is an impressive 32mm thick… and yet does not suffer from dead zones directly in front of the fans’ hub. In cold hard facts that represents a surface area difference of between ~14 and ~23 percent compared to the competition. Put another way this change is almost as big a performance difference as going from a thick 360mm AIO to a ‘thin’ 420mm AIO. Yes. It is that big a deal, and that impressive to say the least.

When one then mixes in quality of life enhancements like having the choice to either go ‘all in one’ on power/control cablings or sperate control for each component (VRM, pump, fans); the baking in an AM5 ‘offset’ for optimal cooling directly into the mounting hardware; or even being given for free a custom Intel Contact Frame (that usually costs between 20 and 40 bucks up here in Canukistan), with the drop dead gorgeous aesthetics the end result is clear. Artic has once again raised the bar on what buyers should expect (and demand) from premium grade All In One cooling solutions. The fact that they once again have done all that and not priced it like the typical ‘premium’ AIO is simply astounding.

With all that said the Artic Liquid Freezer III series is not perfect and there is still noticeable room for improvement. The most obvious of which is the M.2 heatsink height limitation we went over in multiple parts of this review. Without beating a dead horse, anything that negatively impacts the cooling of the M.2 port is going to be a deal-breaker for many. Especially if your motherboard comes with a ‘stock’ M.2 heat sink that are ~30mm or taller… as ooof. Having to downgrade the M.2 cooling solution in a custom ‘premium’ build is going to be a rather tough sell to say the least.

Mix in pet peeves like the block’s cabling not being sheathed (or even fused together into one ‘ribbon’) with lack of cooling for motherboards top M.2 PCIe 5.0 x4 slot… and the ALF III is not going to be perfect for all builds nor scenarios. Which is perfectly acceptable. When you buy laser focused products… sometimes one of the various ‘jack of all trades’ alternatives is going to be a better fit for certain scenarios. As long as you are aware of, and can accept the couple minor to moderate issues the ALF 3 has the choice is clear. Pick the appropriately sized Liquid Freezer III and buy it… and when in doubt opt for the biggest ones your case can fit. We say that as the 420 White A-RGB edition is the pick of the litter. It is a cooling beast that arguably works better in some “tower” cases than some of those PC case manufactures very own AIO models. Color us impressed, but look for forward to a ALF III revision 2 model that hopefully fixes the underlying issues with the core design.