Introduction

Arctic is a leading manufacturer of PC coolers and components. The company has a 20-year history of pushing the envelope on what consumers can expect regarding quiet PC cooling components. Be it air coolers, liquid coolers, fans, or thermal paste, Arctic has a legacy of releasing exceptionally received products. From the Freezer 7 Pro during the Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Quad days to the more recent Liquid Freezer II lineup on top of their success with thermal pastes such as the MX series, suffice it to say that Arctic is well known in the enthusiast DIY PC market, and considering their track record, the recognition is well deserved.


The Arctic Liquid Freezer II 280 A-RGB is an eye-catching all-in-one liquid CPU cooler you will either love or hate in regards to the pump design. At first glance, it is, in my opinion, ugly, but part of that is due to an included fan in the pump housing for cooling the motherboard's VRM. So while the feature is gimmicky, it may prove useful on budget motherboards. Regardless, this feature is the main reason for the chunky pump/block design and thus its lack of visual appeal. Still, with growing support showing just how good these coolers perform for some, the trade-off of looks vs. performance is an easy one to make. That said, it's also time to take a closer look!

Packaging

Starting with the front of the box, you will find a full-color look at the Arctic Liquid Freezer II 280 A-RGB in all its glory. Along with the support for all major ARGB motherboard implementations and inclusion of Arctic's MX-5 thermal paste. Moving to the left side gives us the detailed unit specifications, such as fan and pump RPM ranges, overall dimensions, etc. Meanwhile, the back has a QR code for the online installation manual.


The right side has another QR code for technical support, but nothing else, and the top just has the product name and company logo.

Contents

While the packaging is stylish and bold, I find the protection it affords a bit lacking. While our unit arrived safe and sound, the cooler was packaged with the radiator and pump secured via some cardboard and nothing else. Being less elaborate with the packaging helps keep costs down, but I would like to see more protection afforded to the product just for the sake of peace of mind.


The cooler supports all the current and most past mainstream sockets, including Intel's LGA115x, LGA1200, and even LGA1700. Only the Intel LGA1366 socket appears to have been left out. On the AMD side, only Socket AM4 is supported. No support is listed for older AMD sockets, but considering how old those sockets are now and how far behind in terms of performance, it is not unexpected. As for the mounting hardware itself, this unit had the Arctic LGA1700 kit added, so there is some overlap in the supplied parts; I listed everything my unit came with below.

Common parts supplied for mounting include:

• 8x radiator screws
• 8x fan screws
• 8x radiator fan screw washers
• 4x Intel LGA2066 / LGA2011 standoffs
• 4x Intel LGA1700 / LGA1200 / LGA115x standoffs
• 4x AMD mounting screws
• 4x AMD spacers
• 4x Intel Socket LGA1200 / LGA115x flat plastic washers
• 4x washers for Intel LGA1700 / LGA1200 / LGA115x
• 4x washers for Intel socket LGA1700 backplate
• 4x thumb nuts
• 4x mounting arm screws
• 4x backplate nuts
• 4x rubber O-rings
• 2x Intel mounting arms
• 2x AMD mounting arms
• 1x Intel backplate *old design
• 1x Intel metal backplate *new design
• 1x tube of MX-5 thermal paste