[SOLVED] Need help!!...ARCTIC Freezer 34 Esports Duo or Noctua U12S chromax black?

RajTheGeek

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Aug 12, 2020
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Hello there,

I'm planning to buy a cpu air cooler for my system. Here's my specs:
Ryzen 3 3100
MSI B450 TOMAHAWK MAX
Corsair CX 550W
GTX 1060

I live in India so our ambient temps are pretty high especially in summer(45C+). Also my AMD stock cooler is starting to make soo much noise. Now I have gone through soo many coolers and reviews. Based on what's availability I basically have these 2 coolers.

ARCTIC Freezer 34 Esports Duo: https://www.arctic.de/en/Freezer-34-eSports-DUO/ACFRE00060A
Noctua NH U12S chromax black

I also have hyper 212 evo(version 1 old one), rgb black edition available here in my region but it seems these 2 comes out on top. I really want to buy freezer 34 as its cheaper, offers 10 years of warranty and cooling performance is great and also it has dual fans so I'll add the 2nd fan as the exhaust fan. freezer 34 costs $56 at the moment. And U12S chromax black around $90 in my region. The thing I worry about is noise level and installation process. I read somewhere that freezer 34 installation in AM4 socket is tricky. Also I'm planning to upgrade my CPU with 6 cores such as ryzen 5 5600 or other 6 cores cpu in the future. Please let me know your suggestions.

Thanks.
 
Solution
Hello there,

I'm planning to buy a cpu air cooler for my system. Here's my specs:
Ryzen 3 3100
MSI B450 TOMAHAWK MAX
Corsair CX 550W
GTX 1060

I live in India so our ambient temps are pretty high especially in summer(45C+). Also my AMD stock cooler is starting to make soo much noise. Now I have gone through soo many coolers and reviews. Based on what's availability I basically have these 2 coolers.

ARCTIC Freezer 34 Esports Duo: https://www.arctic.de/en/Freezer-34-eSports-DUO/ACFRE00060A
Noctua NH U12S chromax black

I also have hyper 212 evo(version 1 old one), rgb black edition available here in my region but it seems these 2 comes out on top. I really want to buy freezer 34 as its cheaper, offers 10 years of warranty...

iPeekYou

Distinguished
Jul 7, 2014
392
77
18,790
Hello there,

I'm planning to buy a cpu air cooler for my system. Here's my specs:
Ryzen 3 3100
MSI B450 TOMAHAWK MAX
Corsair CX 550W
GTX 1060

I live in India so our ambient temps are pretty high especially in summer(45C+). Also my AMD stock cooler is starting to make soo much noise. Now I have gone through soo many coolers and reviews. Based on what's availability I basically have these 2 coolers.

ARCTIC Freezer 34 Esports Duo: https://www.arctic.de/en/Freezer-34-eSports-DUO/ACFRE00060A
Noctua NH U12S chromax black

I also have hyper 212 evo(version 1 old one), rgb black edition available here in my region but it seems these 2 comes out on top. I really want to buy freezer 34 as its cheaper, offers 10 years of warranty and cooling performance is great and also it has dual fans so I'll add the 2nd fan as the exhaust fan. freezer 34 costs $56 at the moment. And U12S chromax black around $90 in my region. The thing I worry about is noise level and installation process. I read somewhere that freezer 34 installation in AM4 socket is tricky. Also I'm planning to upgrade my CPU with 6 cores such as ryzen 5 5600 or other 6 cores cpu in the future. Please let me know your suggestions.

Thanks.

If your concern is noise and installation, I'd go with Noctua in this case. Their Secu-firm stuff is real neat IMO, although from what I know Arctic's mounting isn't particularly horrible itself. If you can mount a Hyper 212 with CM's mounting kit, you can do either Arctic or Noctua; Hyper 212's mounting has a lot to improve.

Noise levels generally push choices over to Noctua. Their fans are top-tier in terms of performance vs noise; for instance, Scythe's included fans are usually too silent for their own good, while Cooler Master's are capable but noisy.

IMO, I'd go with Freezer 34 since it's cheaper, but then again I never cared much about noise. Plus that sleek Chromax look is certainly appealing.
 
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RajTheGeek

Commendable
Aug 12, 2020
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If your concern is noise and installation, I'd go with Noctua in this case. Their Secu-firm stuff is real neat IMO, although from what I know Arctic's mounting isn't particularly horrible itself. If you can mount a Hyper 212 with CM's mounting kit, you can do either Arctic or Noctua; Hyper 212's mounting has a lot to improve.

Noise levels generally push choices over to Noctua. Their fans are top-tier in terms of performance vs noise; for instance, Scythe's included fans are usually too silent for their own good, while Cooler Master's are capable but noisy.

IMO, I'd go with Freezer 34 since it's cheaper, but then again I never cared much about noise. Plus that sleek Chromax look is certainly appealing.
Yeah I agree. But u12s costs almost twice as freezer and performance isn't that higher comparatively. Also is it possible to mount 120mm Noctua or any other silent fan in cooler?
 

iPeekYou

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Jul 7, 2014
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Yeah I agree. But u12s costs almost twice as freezer and performance isn't that higher comparatively. Also is it possible to mount 120mm Noctua or any other silent fan in cooler?

Of course, there's always the option to buy whatever tower air cooler then getting Noctuas to replace the fans. Noctua performance and quiet operation with less money.

You can also do that on your Hyper 212 --I think I saw a few experiments on that with good improvement over stock fan.
 
Having just put a 34 duo on my wife's 2600x I can say it is doung a better job then a Corsair H100iv2 with less noise in a room with ambient temp of 22-24c or 72-75f.
Doing a Aida64 Fpu test it topped out at 74c
With a fan curve of
40c-45%
60c-65%
75c-80%

But with his summertime temps most coolers will have a hard time not being noisy.

On another thread a Op put the 34 duo on a 5600x and was very surprised on how quiet it is in his warm climate.
 
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rubix_1011

Contributing Writer
Moderator
Of course, there's always the option to buy whatever tower air cooler then getting Noctuas to replace the fans. Noctua performance and quiet operation with less money.

You can also do that on your Hyper 212 --I think I saw a few experiments on that with good improvement over stock fan.

Why buy a Hyper 212 simply to buy premium fans for it? Why not just buy a better cooler to begin with? There are plenty of options that make better logical sense by simply re-allocating those 'upgrade parts' and getting a better one to begin with.

Kind of like buying an old Honda Civic and spending a ton of money on parts to make it 'go fast, run better'.

Could have just gone ahead and used the same money to buy a newer/better car.
 
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iPeekYou

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Why buy a Hyper 212 simply to buy premium fans for it? Why not just buy a better cooler to begin with? There are plenty of options that make better logical sense by simply re-allocating those 'upgrade parts' and getting a better one to begin with.

Kind of like buying an old Honda Civic and spending a ton of money on parts to make it 'go fast, run better'.

Could have just gone ahead and used the same money to buy a newer/better car.

It's always an option --sometimes quite cost-effective compared to outright buying Noctua coolers. Some countries also have stuff that are more expensive than the NA market due to importing and stuff. I assumed the OP still has the Hyper 212 also.

Plus, tuned Civics can be fast. It won't make sense to a lot of people, but we can't say there isn't a big community on doing that specifically.

Obviously, you can't beat, say, a tuned V8 with a Civic with the same amount of money --but again, in some places those V8 machines are much, much more expensive than doing upgraded internals, turbo, and a computer tune on a Civic.
 
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