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.
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
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
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!
Test Platform Configuration
- 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
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.
95W PPT
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.