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Arctic Cooling only made some minor changes between the Freezer 7 Pro and the Freezer 64 Pro, but with the Vapochill Micro, Asetek has been even more subtle and only changed the mounting plate. However, this is even more awkward to fit than the Freezer 64 Pro, as you have to remove the screws that hold the cooler retention bracket in place.

Oddly enough you still have to use the retention bracket, as rather than using some kind of mechanism that hooks on to the sides of the retention bracket, asetek is using the screws to hold the mounting plate in place. The downside to this is that on some motherboards the rear plate of the cooler bracket isn’t glued to the back of the motherboard and this means that you might have to remove the motherboard to fit the cooler. Some board manufacturers are using screw less cooler brackets as well, which means that you couldn’t use the Vapochill Micro with such a board unless you get a different cooler bracket.

Another problem with the plate that is being used to hold the cooler in place is that you can rotate the cooler even though it is meant to be screwed in securely. asetek really needs to come up with a better solution for mounting its coolers, especially considering how well they’ve managed this with the watercooling kits.

Cooling performance isn’t terrible, but the rise in temperature from idle to full load isn’t as impressive as the Freezer 64 Pro. With the High End fan fitted the idle temperature was a mere 35 degrees Celsius, although at full load it hit 46 degrees and was the nosiest option on test. Changing it to the Ultra Low Noise fan the idle temperature went up by three degrees to 38 degrees Celsius with a full load temperature of 46 degrees.

The Ultra Low Noise version would set you back £30.54 instead of £21.08, but it is well worth it for the reduction in noise. Overall the Vapochill Micro isn’t a bad cooler, but it needs a better retention mechanism that’s easier to fit.

Verdict

The Vapochill Micro is a good cooler, but it’s too hard to fit and the Ultra Low Noise version is far to expensive compared to the Freezer 64 Pro which offers similar performance.

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