Arctic's massive Liquid Freezer II 420 cooler is built for CPUs that like to blaze

Arctic Liquid Freezer II 420 All-In-One Cooler
(Image credit: Arctic)

For the most part, all-in-one liquid coolers come in three general sizes: 120mm (single fan), 240mm (two fans), and 360mm (three fans). That includes Arctic's Liquid Freezer II line of AIO coolers, but apparently 360mm was not big enough for some customers, who have been urging the company to go even bigger. And it did, with its new Liquid Freezer II 420.

This is still a three-fan cooling unit, but with larger 140mm fans attached to the radiator instead of 120mm fans, as found on the Liquid Freer II 360 model. It exists because, according to Arctic, fans kept asking, "Will Arctic ever release the Liquid Freezer II in bigger sizes?" Why yes, yes it will.

From end-to-end, the radiator is actually 458mm long, but 420 sounds cooler (and coincides with the combined size of the three 140mm Arctic-P fans). Arctic says it is the company's largest and most powerful cooler to date, but that's selling it short. It's also one of the biggest AIO coolers ever made. The only other 420mm-class AIO I can think of is AlphaCool's massive and refillable Eisabaer unit. I think a cooling shootout is in order.

Arctic introduced its Liquid Freezer II line last year. The Liquid Freezer II 280 earned an Editor's Choice award from our friends at Tom's Hardware, and I can only imagine how much better the new 420 model performs, with a bigger radiator and another fan attached. This is especially enticing as Intel plays fast and loose with power draws in pursuit of higher clocks on its aging 14nm node.

Your next upgrade

(Image credit: Future)

Best CPU for gaming: the top chips from Intel and AMD
Best graphics card: your perfect pixel-pusher awaits
Best SSD for gaming: get into the game ahead of the rest

The Liquid Freezer II 420 is compatible with all the modern sockets, among them AM4 for AMD's Ryzen CPUs, and LGA 1200 for Intel's Comet Lake processors (plus others like LGA 115x). It also has sleeved cables, integrated cable management, and a PWM controller pump that Arctic says it developed in-house.

While big in size, the Freezer II 420 is only moderate in price—it costs $140 (€120), which undercuts pricing on some of the best CPU coolers. For example, Corsair's H115i RGB Platinum, our top pick at the moment, is smaller and sells for around $160.

Paul Lilly

Paul has been playing PC games and raking his knuckles on computer hardware since the Commodore 64. He does not have any tattoos, but thinks it would be cool to get one that reads LOAD"*",8,1. In his off time, he rides motorcycles and wrestles alligators (only one of those is true).

Latest in Cooling
Noctua's Thermosiphon cooler concept at its Computex booth in Taiwan.
Noctua's pumpless 'thermosiphon' liquid cooling unit is expected to be released in 2026 and has already given me a free lesson in basic thermodynamics
Endorfy Fortis 5 air cooler on a desk and loaded onto a motherboard.
Endorfy Fortis 5 Dual Fan review
MSI MAG CoreLiquid A15 360 AIO CPU cooler installed close-up of pump
MSI MAG CoreLiquid A15 360 review
Photo of Thermal Grizzly TG Putty
Thermal Grizzly TG Putty review
A screenshot of a video on BiliBilli showing an air conditioning unit attached to a PC with Nvidia, AMD and Intel stickers.
The definition of overkill: Cooling an RTX 4090 to a claimed 20°C with a household air conditioning unit
A Noctua NH-L12S cooler installed on a motherboard.
Noctua NH-L12S review
Latest in News
Image of Cersei Lanniser from Game of Thrones: Kingsroad Steam early access trailer
A new Game of Thrones RPG is coming to Steam today with a cast of 'familiar faces,' which is good because it's really the only way to tell it's a GoT game at all
The new Prime Asset featured in the upcoming update for the Outlast Trials.
The Outlast Trials puts its already paranoid players under surveillance for a time-limited story event
A Viera looking confused in Final Fantasy 14.
Old armor continues to fall victim to Final Fantasy 14's bizarre two-channel dye system, unless you're super into changing the colour of teeny-tiny eyelets: 'Why even bother at this point?'
Starfield: Shattered Space
By the time Bethesda was on Starfield, you'd 'basically get in trouble' for breaking schedule, says former dev: 'A lot of the great stuff within Skyrim came from having the freedom to do what you want'
Otter AI Meeting Agent
As if your work meetings weren't already fun enough, now Otter has a new all-hearing AI agent that remembers everything anyone has said and can join in the discussion
Monster Hunter Wilds' stockpile master studying a manifest
As layoffs and studio closures continue to deathroll the western AAA industry, analyst points out 5 of 8 major Japanese companies hit all-time share prices this year