| Thermaltake Frio OCK CPU Cooler CLP0575 |  |
| Reviews - Featured Reviews: Cooling | |
| Written by David Ramsey | |
| Tuesday, 12 July 2011 | |
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Thermaltake Frio OCK Detailed FeaturesThe base of the cooler has a finely-grained circular finish. The texture can just barely be discerned with a fingernail. The base seems to be perfectly flat.
The back plate is comprised of black plastic and is of the increasingly popular "universal" design: flip it so that "Intel" shows for mounting to Socket 775, 1155/56, and 1366 systems; flip it the other way (to reveal "AMD") for Socket AM2/AM3 systems. 
The mounting method is completely different from the original Frio (which used all-metal mounting hardware), but of a design that's becoming standard for many coolers: screws pass through the backplate and motherboard to locate standoffs, which in this case are knurled black plastic.
Two mounting plates are secured using the "thumb nuts" provided.
Small brackets attach to each side of the heat sink's base. Captive spring loaded screws will secure the heat sink to its mounting brackets, and the springs will provide the clamping pressure: just tighten the screws until they won't turn any more.
Here's the cooler installed on the ASUS Sabertooth X58 motherboard I use for heat sink testing. In most cases, you'd probably install it with the fans blowing out the rear of the case, but Benchmark Reviews has found that slightly better results can be obtained when the heat pipes are oriented horizontally. Fortunately Intel's square mounting hole layout makes it easy to install most coolers this way. In either orientation, though, this cooler overhangs the first RAM slot in my test motherboard, although the Corsair memory I'm using would fit if I removed the separate fins on top. Low-profile memory is just something a lot of coolers force on your these days, and it's something to keep in mind when buying memory with tall heat spreaders that can't be easily removed.
The original Frio did well in our testing, although the results from that test aren't directly comparable since my new test setup is much more demanding of a cooler's capabilities! Let's see how this one does.
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