The CPU cooler market is more competitive than ever, especially in the last year. Companies like Thermalright have raised the bar for value and performance with air coolers like the Phantom Spirit 120 EVO in the price range of $40.
But ID-Cooling has recently started to challenge Thermalright’s claim to the throne of the cheapest cooling products. Most recently, the company has released the FX 360 Proa 360mm AIO liquid cooler with performance comparable to coolers twice as expensive. Today we look at the company’s latest challenger, the A620 Pro SE air cooler. This cooler is a revision of the previously released A620ID-Cooling promises comparable performance to the original model for only $30 while also running more quietly. That certainly sounds good.
Does the A620 Pro SE live up to these lofty promises? Does it have what it takes to earn a spot on our list of the best air coolers? We’ll have to test it to find out. But first, here are ID-Cooling’s specs.
Cooler specifications
| cooler | ID-Cooling Frozn A620 Pro SE |
| RRP | 29,99 € EUR |
| Heatsink material | aluminum |
| Nominal lifetime | Not listed |
| Socket compatibility | Intel socket LGA 1851/1700/1200/115x AMD AM5 / AM4 |
| base | copper |
| Max. TDP (Our test) | ~233W with Intel’s i7-13700K |
| Installed Size (with fans) | 120mm (L) x 142mm (W) x 157mm (D) |
| guarantee | 3 years |
Packaging and scope of delivery
The internal contents are protected by cardboard and plastic covers to protect heatsinks, fans and accessories during transport.
The cooler comes with the following items:
- Dual tower heatsink
- Two 120mm fans
- Mount for modern AMD and Intel platforms
- Frost X25 Thermal Paste
- PWM splitter cable
LGA 1700 Installation
The installation process for ID-Cooling Frozn A620 Pro SE is simple.
1. First, press the back plate of the cooler against the back of your motherboard and secure it with the included mounting bolts.
2. The second step is to place the mounting rods on the bolts and secure them with the included wing bolts.
3. Place the heatsink on top of the mounting rails and secure it with a screwdriver.
4. Secure the fans with the included fan clips and then connect the PWM splitter to your motherboard to complete the installation process.
Features of the FX 360 Pro from ID-Cooling
● Budget 30 USD RRP
The most impressive feature of this cooler is its price – at just $30, it’s cheaper than most coolers on the market – including those from Thermalright, which is known for its budget-friendly options.
● Support for a third fan
ID-Cooling includes an additional pair of fan clips in case you want to supplement the performance of this cooler with a third fan.
● Limited RAM compatibility
If you use larger DIMMs, like the G-Skill Trident Z DDR4 I use, you’ll need to raise the front fan to avoid interfering with your computer’s RAM slots. This won’t result in any noticeable performance loss, and our benchmarks show that performance is good.
● Six copper heat pipes
The CPU plate is connected to six copper heat pipes to transfer the heat to the two heatsink towers.
● Frost X25 Thermal Paste
The AIO comes with a tube of Frost X25 thermal paste from ID-Cooling. This is the company’s entry-level paste with a stated thermal conductivity of 10.5/MK. We will look at this paste in our next updated Thermal paste tests.
● Two 120mm fans
As I say in almost every cooler review, there is more to a cooler than just the heatsink or radiator. The fans that come with it have a significant impact on cooling and noise levels, as well as how the cooler looks in your case.
| Model | Article number ID12025M12S |
| Dimensions | 120x120x25mm |
| Fan speed | 300-2000 rpm ± 10 % |
| Airflow | Up to 58 CFM |
| Air pressure | Not listed |
| Bearing type | Hydraulic bearing |
| lighting | None |
| MFFT | Not listed but comes with a 3 year warranty |
LGA1700 socket bending
There are also many factors other than the CPU cooler that can affect your cooling performance, including the case you use and the fans installed in it. A system’s motherboard can also affect this, especially if it bends, causing poor contact between the cooler and the CPU.
To prevent flexing from affecting our cooling results, we included Thermalright’s LGA 1700 contact frame in our test setup. If your motherboard is affected by flexing, your thermal results will be worse than those shown below. Not all motherboards are affected by this issue equally. I tested Raptor Lake CPUs on two motherboards. And while one of them showed significant thermal improvements after installing Thermalright’s LGA1700 contact frame, there was no temperature difference at all on the other motherboard! Check out our contact frame review for more information.
Testing methodology and how my tests differ from those of the competition
My cooler tests are specifically designed to simulate the conditions a user would actually experience when working with a computer. Some reviewers test coolers on an open bench. I don’t like this method, it reduces the cooling effort. If you use a case, the internal temperature of the case will be higher than the ambient temperature of the room, increasing the saturation of the cooler and the overall cooling effort. Testing outside of a case gives an advantage to weaker coolers, especially those with not very powerful fans.
Others test with a heat plate. This method has all the disadvantages of an open test bench, but also does not accurately represent the cooling of a CPU. A heat plate distributes the heat load evenly across the copper heat pipe square. The problem with this type of testing is that with modern AMD Ryzen and Intel Core CPUs, most of the heat is concentrated in a few hot spots – and cooling a concentrated heat source is more difficult than cooling an evenly distributed source.
The final point I do differently than some cooler testers is that I insist on using relatively new CPUs for cooler testing, since people building new PCs should be using recent CPUs. Also, heat density is just different on newer CPUs. Products like Ryzen 3000 “Zen 2” and older 14nm Intel CPUs have lower heat density compared to modern counterparts, due to a combination of older manufacturing processes and lower clock speeds. Using a weaker cooler with an older CPU can make the cooler look more powerful than it actually is with current generation silicon.
Today’s high-end CPUs, whether Intel or AMD, are difficult to cool under intense workloads. In the past, it was a cause for concern when the temperature reached 95 degrees Celsius or more on a desktop CPU. However, with today’s high-end CPUs, this is considered normal operation. Similar behavior has been seen on laptops for years due to cooling limitations in tight spaces.
All tests are performed at a room temperature of 23 degrees C. Several thermal tests are performed on each CPU to test the cooler under different conditions. In addition, acoustic measurements are taken on each result. These tests include:
1. Noise normalized test at low noise level
2. Thermal and acoustic tests directly in the standard configuration
a. No performance limitations enforced
b. Since the CPUs in this scenario are reaching TJ Max, the best way to compare cooling performance is to record the total power consumption of the CPU package.
3. Thermal and acoustic tests in power-limited scenarios
a. Power is limited to 175 W to simulate a medium intensity workload
b. Power is limited to 125 W to simulate a low intensity workload
The thermal results included are for 10-minute test runs. To make sure this was long enough to stress the cooler, we tested both Thermalright’s Assassin X 120 R SE and DeepCool’s LT720 with a 30-minute Cinebench test using Intel’s i9-13900K for both 10 and 30 minutes. The results barely changed on the longer test: average clock speeds dropped by 29MHz for DeepCool’s LT720 and 31MHz for Thermalright’s Assassin X 120 R SE. That’s an incredibly small 0.6% difference in sustained clock speeds, an error difference that tells us the 10-minute tests are indeed long enough to properly test the coolers.
