Verdict: Superlative cooling and a quiet fan make this the best LGA775 HSF around

Arctic Cooling brazenly claims that the Freezer 7 can handle CPUs up to a 4.4GHz Pentium 4e, even though this CPU doesn't even exist and Intel has no intention of making it.

However, the Freezer 7 isn't all mouth and no trousers, as it cooled our overclocked and overvolted 3.96GHz Pentium 4e to 12ûC below the reference Intel HSF.

Four large heatpipes transfer heat from the small copper base into a nest of aluminium fins, which are cooled by an open 80mm fan. This spins at a reasonable 2,500rpm, quick enough to move 36cfm of air, but quiet enough not to give you a headache.

Unfortunately, the Freezer 7 uses the same awkward mounting method as Intel's reference design, which involves pushing pins through the board and twisting them to lock the HSF in place. However, as the heatsink is mounted on top of four large heatpipes, it's very easy to get a good grip on the mounting columns at the corners.

As the Freezer 7 is slightly less awkward to fit than all the other LGA775 HSFs, provides far superior cooling compared with the reference Intel HSF, and costs just £19.99, it's the obvious choice for cooling an LGA775 Pentium 4.

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