ID-Cooling Frozn A720 Black Air Cooler Review - Is It A Noctua Killer?

Table of Contents

I have been busy testing Noctua’s new flagship coolers namely NH-D15 G2. This time around, I am testing another promising flagship cooler from ID-Cooling. Say hello to Frozn A720. This cooler has been tested on several requests from our community to include this cooler in the graph. This is a dual tower configuration with two 140mm non-RGB fans. It is compatible with Intel LGA 115x / 1200 / 1700 / 1851 / 20xx and AMD AM4 / AM5 sockets. This cooler retails at USD 69.99 on Amazon at the time of this writing.

Specifications

Packaging and Unboxing

The ID-Cooling Frozn A720 comes inside a cardboard-made shipping box. The main colors on the box are orange and black. This is a black variant as indicated by the full name of Frozn A720 Black. The following are included in the box:

1x Black Heatsink
2x 140mm non-RGB Fans
1x Intel Backplate
4x Intel LGA20xx Standoff Screws
2x Intel Mounting Brackets
4x Thumb Nuts
4x Intel LGA1700 Spacers
4x Intel LGA1200/115x Spacers
2x AMD Mounting Brackets
4x AMD Standoff Screws
4x AMD Spacers
1x Y-Splitter Cable for Fans
1x Installation Guide
1x Thermal Paste
4x Fan Clips

Design

ID-Cooling Frozn A720 is a new flagship air cooler competing against the might of competition like Corsair A115, be quiet! Dark Rock Elite, Noctua NH-D15 G2 and man, I am giving a spoiler, this cooler is damn good. Users of A620 will be happy to know that they have a good upgrade path though I am not sure how much of a difference is between the A620 and A720. This cooler is compatible with Intel LGA1700 and AMD AM5. Let’s start with the Heatsink.

The front and rear ends of the heatsink are identical in layout. Hence, I am showing the front side of the heatsink. This assembly has a fin count of 46+6 on each tower making a total count of 105 fins. This provides a large surface area for effective heat transfer. These fins are laid in a micro wave design. This design helps reduce the noise generated from air turbulence and improves heat dissipation. As you can see this is a step design. There are 6 fins in the stepped area. This will help in a better RAM clearance from the heatsink.

The left and right sides of the heatsink are also identical. Take a look at the bottom fins on the right side. They are bent. ID-Cooling needs to up its game in the QC department and possibly in the shipping department as well. There are insets on each end in which the head of fan clips are inserted.

Taking a look at the top of the heatsink, you can see two stylish plastic covers. These are a stylish and bold design that looks pleasant in person. FROZN is printed at the lower end of each cover. These covers hide the terminating tips of the heat pipes.

The mounting plate on Frozn A720 comes pre-installed over the base. This plate has two spring-loaded screws. The plate rests over the fin-designed aluminum stack.

This cooler has 7x 6mm copper heat pipes. The complete assembly is black color coated or sprayed. You can see the step design on the fins clearly in the above picture. The heat pipes cover the maximum area inside the fin stack for effective heat dissipation. There is a protective sticker pasted over the base. Don’t forget to peel it off.

The ID-Cooling Frozn A720 has a nickel-plated copper base that has a dimension of 50x40mm. This is large enough size to cover modern CPUs. ID-Cooling has provided a high-performance FROST X25 thermal paste with this cooler.

Let’s check the 140mm PWM Fans

There are two 140mm non-RGB all-black fans provided with this cooler. There are 9x blades on each fan. The mounting corners have cut-to-size anti-vibration pads. You can see a slope-down design near the borders of the mounting corners. The center has the ID-Cooling brand logo.

Looking at the backside of the fan, there is a 4-arms assembly in a spiral design. One arm catches the wires coming from the center. The fans are made in China and their power rating is mentioned on the back as well.

The frame of these fans is quite sturdy. There are two arrow markers on one side. These provide the direction of airflow through the fan and the direction in which blades spin.

These fans are PWM regulated. Each fan has a flat black cable that has a 4-pin PWM connector. The salient specifications are as under:

Fan Dimension	140x140x25mm
Bearings	Fluid Dynamic Bearing
Speed	500 to 1800 ± 10% RPM
Air Flow	98.6 CFM
Air Pressure	2.26 mmH₂O
Rated Current	0.36A
Power Input	4.32 W
Noise	33.5 dB(A)

Installation

I am not covering the installation details. Please refer to the user manual for that. The overall installation on the AMD platform is simple and straightforward. I did not see any observation during the installation.

Clearance

The ID-Cooling Frozn A720 has a dimension of 140x153x163mm (LxWxH). The clearance-related observations are as under:

The heatsink itself has a clearance of 58mm for the RAM without the front fan. This is 1mm less than the Noctua NH-D15 G2 cooler.

If we have to fully seat the front fan then the RAM clearance is 28mm which is less than the 32mm on the Noctua NH-D15 G2.

Taking a hypothetical example, if we are using a 34mm tall RAM. The height of the front fan needs to be raised which would increase the overall height of the cooler to 170mm from 163mm.

There is no PCIe slot clearance issue on the AORUS MASTER X670E motherboard.

The cooler has no clearance issue for the large size cover on the rear and top of the motherboard.

You would need a PC Case with a minimum of 165mm of CPU cooler’s height clearance when using a low-profile RAM.

Testing

The following configuration is used for thermal testing:

AMD Ryzen 7950X
GIGABYTE X670E AORUS MASTER
Kingston Renegade Fury 32GB 6400MHz CL32 DDR5 kit
ASRock Phantom Gaming RX 7600 Graphics Card for Display
Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus 2TB NVME SSD
Be quiet! Straight Power 11 850W Platinum PSU
Praxis Wetbench

Here is the settings table for testing:

Clock (MHz)	Auto
Voltage (V)	Auto
PBO	Advanced
Power	205W
Thermal Paste	Noctua NT-H1
Thermal Paste Application	Dots Method
Test Run Time	30 minutes
Idling Time	10 minutes
All Fans Speed	100% PWM Duty Cycle
Pump Speed	100% PWM Duty Cycle
Stress Software	CINEBENCH R23.2
Monitoring Software	HWINFO64

The testing is done on an open-air bench system. Once inside the chassis, the temperatures are expected to rise and would largely depend upon the optimal airflow inside the chassis.

Result

Holy Moly! The ID-Cooling Frozn A720 has managed to beat Noctua’s new flagship cooler NH-D15 G2 on this test bench although it is a narrow margin. This is quite an impressive performance. However, there is a catch. This was louder than the Noctua’s cooler. Hence, the noise-to-performance ratio category is where the Noctua is ruling like a champ. But when it comes to the price to performance, the situation reverses. More on this in the conclusion.

Conclusion

I have tested ID-Cooling’s flagship air cooler Frozn A720 Black which is a successor of the popular A620. ID-Cooling has kept things simple and tried to achieve a superior performance and I am telling you, they have done it. The Frzon A720 is a dual-tower design that comes with two non-RGB 140x25mm black fans. The heatsink has a step layout on both towers to provide better RAM clearance.

Each tower has a total of 52 fins with 46 fins on the main area and 6 fins on the stepped portion. This provides a large surface area for effective heat dissipation. The fins are in microwave design for better heat dissipation. The complete assembly is black color coated/sprayed. I have noticed a few bent fins on the main heatsink. Seems like QC or the shipping department needs to up its game.

There are 7x copper heat pipes having 6mm thickness. The base of this cooler is nickel-plated though it does not seem like a chrome finish. This cooler is rated for 300W TDP making it competitive in the market. This is critical data for comparison with the Noctua NH-D15 G2 which has 8x heat pipes and more fins per tower. ID-Cooling has managed to offer the performance level of G2 while keeping the standard footprint as on the many other flagship coolers.

The mounting plate is pre-installed over the base of this cooler and there are two spring-loaded screws on this plate. This is a two-point contact which is common on these coolers. Since we have a solid nickel-plated copper base, the heat pipes don’t make any contact with the CPU.

ID-Cooling has provided two non-RGB black fans in 140x25mm size. Each fan has 9x blades. These fans are rated for up to 1800 ± 10% RPM at 12VDC. The airflow is rated at 98.6 CFM at 12VDC. The air pressure rating is 2.26 mmH₂O at 12VDC. The noise level rating is 33.5 dB(A). These fans use Fluid Dynamic Bearings. These fans are PWM regulated. You can combine both fans using a Y cable.

The installation of this cooler on an AMD AM5 socket requires 10 items and 3 steps to install the mounting hardware. This is a typical ID-Cooling style mounting as I have seen on many other ID-Cooling coolers including SL360. Installation of this cooler is a straightforward process and I did not observe anything glaring to report here. The clearance is subject to RAM height. You can increase the height of the front fan to make room for tall RAM but that would increase the overall height of the cooler. 32mm is supported with a front fan fully seated.

This cooler is compatible with Intel LGA20xx / 1851 / 1700 / 1200 / 115x and AMD AM4 / AM5 sockets. What is impressive about this cooler is its pricing. It retails at USD 69.99 and comes with a 3-year warranty. This cooler beat (narrow margin of 0.2ᵒC) the Noctua NH-D15 G2. This is a serious competitive performance from A720. If this does not tell you anything then nothing would! ID-Cooling has done some magic to A720 and it is paying off.

This beast costs less than half of the Noctua cooler and even less than the majority of flagship coolers on the market yet managed to beat all of them. This is a superior cooling performance for which I can turn my eye off of the 3-year warranty which is still reasonable, particularly for the air cooler. But I can’t fold my ears as this cooler is a bit louder than the Noctua cooler. Still, if I paint the overall picture, the ID-Cooling Frozn A720 is one heck of a complete package that can handle modern CPUs easily without a hiccup, and all this at a fraction of the cost that does not hurt your wallet. Job well done, team ID-Cooling! This cooler has won our Must Have and Value awards.

Now, I know why our community was hailing us to cover this cooler. Guys, we heard you and we did it.

Pros