Iceberg Thermal IceSLEET X7 Dual CPU Cooler Review : Testing a unique chonker with AMD’s Ryzen 7700X

Pros:

• Unique clamshell design
• Good noise normalized performance

Cons:

• “Buzzing” noise at higher fan speeds

About Iceberg Thermal

Iceberg Thermal is an American company based in Tempe, Arizona. I’ve previously tested their G4 Silent Air cooler with Ryzen 7700X and found it to be a great value with good cooling capacity and quiet performance. Today we’ll be looking at Iceberg Thermal’s higher performance air cooler – the X7 Dual.

While on the books Iceberg Thermal was only founded 3 years ago, their team of experts have over 15 years experience designing cooling products. Their companies lineup currently includes fans, air coolers, thermal pastes, and more. Their expertise doesn’t end with consumer products – they are also experts in industrial cooling solutions with some of their clients including BMW, Panasonic, ASUS, and many other well known brand names! I briefly spoke with IceBerg Thermal’s CEO at CES 2023, you can read more about that at our previous article: A new player enters the cooling game: chatting with Iceberg Thermal at CES 2023

Foreword

Over the past few weeks I’ve been exploring different levels of cooling with AMD’s Ryzen 7 7700X CPU. When I tested EKWB’s AIO Elite 280, it surprised me by able to keeping the CPU under TJmax in intensive workloads – I had been under the impression that it was “impossible” to keep Ryzen 7000 CPUs under TJMax in intense workloads. On the opposite end, I tested BeQuiet’s Pure Rock LP SFF cooler – which was only able to cool 66W.

In the past I’ve mentioned how my past testing of coolers had focused on Intel CPUs because they were the most challenging to cool and also consumed the most power. When Alder Lake was released, I noticed that the thermal difficulty of cooling the 12900K was more difficult compared to prior generation products – only a few coolers were able to keep it under TJMax.

Intel’s i9-13900K and AMD’s Ryzen 7 7700X CPUs can be even more difficult to cool in heat intensive workloads – and this trend is likely to continue with future generations of CPUs. As CPUs continue to shrink in size, thermal density rises, increasing the difficulty of cooling. Indeed, it is no longer worrying to run a desktop CPU at it’s peak temperature – it is to be expected in intense workloads without power restrictions or undervolting.

I have been interested to see how different levels of cooling performance effect both AMD and Intel platforms for some time. Thanks to our partner ASRock this is now possible – they sent a sample of their B650E Taichi for testing purposes. I will be taking a closer look at this motherboard in the future – but in the meantime check out reviews of this pristine motherboard on Funkykit & Tom’s Hardware.

Introducing Iceberg Thermal’s IceSLEET X7 Dual, a high performance air cooler

Packaging and included contents

The outside packaging is fairly simple, a plain cardboard box with a sticker attached to indicate the product’s contents. The inside of the packaging, however, is packaged in a rather unique manner!

Opening the box reveals the a smaller box containing the mounting accessories and installation manual

And below that is a box containing the cooler itself

The box containing the cooler is efficiently packaged, and unwraps to reveal the product.

Included with the package are

• Heatsink
• Two Fans
• Mounting for modern Intel & AMD platforms
• PWM Fan Splitter
• Small tube of thermal paste
• Quick Start Guide

AM4 & AM5 Cooler Installation

Step One: Remove the default AM5 retention socket

Step Two : Attach mounting standoffs

Step Three: Attach & Secure the mounting bars

Step Four: Secure the heatsink against the mounting bars

Step Five: Insert the middle fan and connect the fans to the motherboard

Features of Iceberg Thermal’s IceSLEET X7 Dual

RAM Clearance	45mm
Coldplate	Nickel-plated Copper
Thermal Compound	FUZEIce Plus 0.8g
Dimensions	135 x 150 x 166mm
Radiator Material	98 Aluminum Fins
Compatible Socket	Intel LGA 1700, 1200, 2066, 115X, 2011-0, 2011-3 (Square ILM), 1366, 77 AMD AM4, AM5, , AM3(+), AM2(+), FM2(+), FM1
Manufacturer Warranty	2 Years
Price	$79.99 on Amazon.com

Unique Clamshell Design

The IceSLEET X7 Dual features a unique clamshell, designed to help improve total static air pressure.

Complete Bond Soldering

Nickel Plated Copper base with 7 heatpipes

1x 120mm fan and 1x 140mm fans

There’s more to a cooler than just it’s heat sink, the fans paired with a cooler have a huge impact both total cooling potential and noise levels. The X7 Dual includes 2 fans of different sizes – 1x 120mm, and 1x 140mm fans.

Iceberg Thermal advertises the following with these fans:

• Mechanical Automatic Start/Stop
  • Creates a quiet environment and reduces power consumption, decreasing heat, to create a more comfortable work/play experience. When the fan is in off mode it goes silent, until the PWM duty cycle reaches 21% loading.
• Gleaming ARGB Control Function
  • ARGB function allows YOU to customize the colors you want gleaming from your CPU cooler.
• Dual Heat Sink Towers with Dual Fans for DOUBLE the Effectiveness
  • Two heat sinks connected to the heat pipes with one 120 mm fan and one 140 mm fan. This provides the pinnacle in push-pull technology, creating optimum airflow, allowing you to overclock!

Size	120 x 120 x 25 mm/140 x 140 x 25mm
Speed	500-1850 RPM/500-1600 RPM
Blades	7
Airflow	Up to 76/96 CFM
Static Pressure	Up to 2.8/2.65 mm H20
Rated Noise Level	0-38 dBA
Bearing	Fluid Dynamic Bearing
Connector	4-pin PWM
Lighting	aRGB support
MTTF	Over 150,000 hours

Test Platform Configuration

Test Configuration
CPU	AMD Ryzen 7 7700X
Motherboard	ASRock B650E Taichi (sampled by ASRock)
Computer Case	DeepCool CK560WH (sampled by DeepCool)
PSU	DeepCool PQ1000M (sampled by DeepCool)
Storage	1TB Kingston Fury Renegade
GPU	Intel ARC A770 LE (sampled by Intel)
RAM	32GB (16gb x2) Crucial DDR5-4800 (Sampled by Micron)
Coolers Tested	DeepCool AG500 DeepCool LT720 WH Iceberg Thermal IceSLEET G4 Silent Iceberg Thermal IceSLEET X7 Dual Fractal Celsius+ S28 EK AIO Elite 280 D-RGB BeQuiet! Pure Rock LP

As I’ve only had time to complete testing of seven coolers on this platform, as such there is limited comparison data. This will grow as I continue to test coolers. For thermal results, I’ve tested the CPU in three configurations

• At the default power limits
• With a 95W PPT enforced
• With a 75W PPT enforced.

Noise Normalized Results

Performance only scales by a limited amount with improved cooling capacity with Ryzen 7000. This also means that there is less of a benefit to running fans at higher performance levels. As such, it can be useful to see how coolers compared when noise normalized for quiet operation.

In this noise normalized scenario for silent performance, the IceSleet X7 offers a small performance increase vs lower end air coolers. At 111 vs 107 watts, we’re looking at a 3.7% increase in total cooling capacity vs DeepCool’s midrange cooler offering when fans are set to run quietly.

Default Power Limits

At the default power limits, the most intensive loads can be difficult to cool and result in the CPU running at TJMax. As such, we’ll be looking at two metrics in this situation where the CPU temperatures reach TJMax: Noise levels and watts cooled.

Iceberg Thermal’s IceSleet X7 does well here, cooling just over 10W more than their G4 Silent air cooler and a few watts more than DeepCool’s AG500.

At 48.7 dBA, the total system noise levels are certainly audible but not what I would consider loud.

Some of y’all might notice that the graph starts at 36 instead of zero – this is because my sound meter cannot measure noise levels lower than 36 dBA. Since that is the noise floor of this meter’s recording capabilities, 36 dBA is the “zero” for our testing purposes. For those concerned that this might distort results – there’s no worry. If anything, the graphs above will minimize the differences in noise levels because dBA measurements are logarithmic.

For a more detailed explanation of how decibel levels correspond to perceived noise levels, please check out the video below from BeQuiet! which makes it easy to visualize and understand the true impact of of increasing dBA levels.

95W PPT

Imposing even a minor power consumption limit on AMD’s Ryzen 7700X reduces cooling difficulty dramatically resulting in the ability to easily to cool the CPU under TJMax (95c), as such in these situations the total noise levels are more important. It’s also important to test in these TDP restricted situations, because most “real life” workloads will not push the CPU to it’s limits.

The results in this scenario show that most air coolers will likely perform similarly in this scenario, with Iceberg Thermal’s X7 matching the results of DeepCool’s AG500. When tied to my motherboard’s default fan curve, it was one of the louder offerings in this scenario.

75W PPT

Lowering the PPT to 75W further reduces the cooling difficulty, bringing CPU temperatures down to 40C over a 23C ambient temperature. The thermal results for this low power result were interesting, with the IceSleet X7 slightly outperforming Fractal’s 280mm AIO.

At only 40.9 dBA when running at the default fan curve of ASRock’s b650E Taichi, the noise levels here are relatively low. It’s important to remember that if you prefer fully silent operation, the noise normalized results shown earlier demonstrate that you won’t lose any performance in these power limited scenarios if you set fan speeds to run silently.

Conclusion

Iceberg Thermal’s IceSLEET X7 Dual offers a unique aesthetic with it’s clamshell design and provides great performance with Ryzen’s 7700X, especially when noise normalized for silent operation.

The IceSleet X7 Dual is currently available for $79.99 USD at Amazon.