Installation

Installing the Arctic Liquid Freezer II 280 A-RGB is fairly straightforward on the AMD front. First, you will need to remove the mounting brackets from the motherboard, but keep the backplate. Next, secure the AMD mounting arms to the backplate by placing the AMD mounting screws through the bracket and plastic spacers. Once ready, secure that assembly to the motherboard by tightening the screws into the backplate. It should be noted that there are two sets of holes. For AMD Ryzen 3000 and 5000 series processors, the top holes on both brackets are for an offset installation that provides better cooling performance as the copper coldplate will better align with the processor's hot spots. For other AMD processors, using the bottom holes is preferable. At this point, you can apply the thermal paste.


Next, you will need to prepare the pump by securing the mounting arms to it via the four included screws. With the mounting arms secured to the pump/block, you can slide it onto the motherboard brackets and secure it via the four thumb nuts.


Now secure the radiator to the case. The fans are pre-installed, but since I had to take everything apart for the photos, I also have to reinstall the fans. I suggest leaving the fans as they are since everything is already cable-managed for you. Unfortunately, I butchered the cable management since I was in a rush.

Overall, the installation was more involved than I normally see for an AIO, but it is not difficult. Arctic could still implement minor improvements to better streamline the process. Also, it would be nice if an installation manual was included. Scanning the QR code to load it up is an option, but a physical copy would have been a nice inclusion for the installation procedure.