Verdict and Conclusion
When I first saw the Thermaltake Frio Extreme’s box I thought “Hey, this could be good!“. I have not been disappointed.
The heatsink itself is quite large, if you have a small case or a motherboard like the Biostar TZ77XE4 that uses the slot nearest the CPU for a full PCIe slot you may be in trouble. On a more standard motherboard layout and with a decently sized case you’ll be fine.
I found that I get close to as good performance with just the middle fan, leaving tons of ram clearance room. The fans do not work in “pull” however, which is annoying. They dig into the heatsink and make horrible noises. These are push only! They do look nice though, and even at full blast the noise isn’t bad at all. At low speed temps are still great and the fans are very quiet.
The fan controller is a nifty little thing, it’s keyed to only work with the Frio Extreme’s fan, probably to protect it from people putting Serious Fans on it and burning it up.
The mounting hardware has a lot of parts, but none of it is hard to put together, the instructions are good as well.
The fan clips generally work well, but can be annoying at times. Most fan clips suffer from this, really.
Price wise this thing is not cheap, it’s going for around $87 right now! Given its cooling performance, fans and fan controller this seems like a reasonable price. It’s not a price that makes me drool, but it isn’t a cringe inducing price either.
The cooling performance is excellent, it trades blows with the TRUE cooling a 3770k and beats the TRUE across the board on a 2600k.
Due to the large size you may have issues with tall ram on some motherboards, same as with any Big heatsink.
All told there are lots of pros:
- Great cooling performance.
- Comes with a fan controller.
- Fans give excellent airflow for their noise level.
- Mounting hardware is nice and secure.
- Looks great.
There are some cons, too:
- Not cheap.
- Tall ram and small motherboards or cases can be an issue.
- Cable management is difficult with the fan controller, a “Y” connector would be nice.
- Fans will not work in a “pull” configuration.
As I mentioned before I am quite impressed, this is definitely a good cooler. There aren’t many issues with it and there are lots of good things about it. I give it a 9.1/10 and definitely recommend it if it’ll fit your case!
SCORE
9.1/10
