The Coolage Freezer Orb heatsink is designed for Intel Core 2 Duo processors, and as with most heatsinks seeking to banish the stock Intel heatsink from the PC, it comes equipped with a Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) fan. The 95mm fan spins at speeds of 1000-2800RPM, so under most circumstances this heatsink operates quietly enough to go unnoticed.

If you've been following Frostytech for a while you've recognized that there are quite a few other vendors with nearly identical heatsinks to the Freezer Orb we're testing today. For the most part, this heatsink style manages good to average thermal performance results. The heatsink is comprised of four copper heatpipes extending up from a thin copper base, and many pure aluminum fins. A full copper version of the FO-Z924AL is also in the works, according to Coolage. The Freezer Orb F0-Z924AL heatsink is nice and squat, with the business end of it measuring 42mm tall. The aluminum fins aren't nickel plated, so heatpipe-to-aluminum joints are swaged and not soldered. The four 6mm diameter heatpipes are soldered to the copper base however.

Coolage's Freezer Orb F0-Z924AL heatsink is compatible with socket 775 Intel Pentium and Core 2 Duo CPUs. It retails for somewhere in the region of an estimated $45CDN ($40USD). The heatsink ships with a patch of thermal compound pre-applied to its copper base.

Coolage Freezer Orb Heatsink
	heatsink specsheet manufacturer: coolage model no.: freezer orb (f0-z924al) materials: aluminum fins, copper heatpipes and base fan mfg: hilo ca9525fhs fan spec: 1000-2800rpm, 12v, 0.33a fan dim: 25x95x95mm heatsink dim: 72x109x99mm weight: 440 grams includes: lga775 mounting hardware, thermal compound. Compatible with Sockets: LGA775 Est. Pricing: $40USD ($45CDN / £19GBP)

The fan mounts on posts spaced 80mm apart with little plastic clips that grip the fan frame. The Coolage Freezer Orb heatsink ships with one rear motherboard LGA775 support plate. Since the heatsink uses spring tensioned screws, the supplied plate must be installed prior to the heatsink itself. Translated - you will need to remove the motherboard from the computer case first... which can be a complicated process. The only upside to this kind of mounting hardware is that the heatsink is held on very securely, making the Coolage Freezer Orb potentially ideal for PCs which are transported to and fro constantly.

The Coolage Freezer Orb heatsink will be tested on FrostyTech's Intel LGA775 version of the Mk.II synthetic thermal temperature test platform, and compared against several reference LGA775 heatsinks. The whole test methodology is outlined in detail here if you'd like to know what equipment is used, and the parameters under which the tests are conducted. Now let's move forward and take a closer look at this heatsink, its acoustic characteristics, and of course its thermal performance!