The Frio is an excellent cooler and so far I haven\'t really touched on its best aspect, its price. At around £40, it provides performance that\'s on par or slightly trailing the best air coolers out there, and considering the inclusion of the two fans, the Frio looks more of a bargain. The Thermalright Venomous X is priced similarly but lacks extra fans and other coolers, such as the Coolink Corator DS or the liquid cooler, need a supplementary fan to match the Frio. The Frio is reminiscent of the Coolermaster 212 plus - a budget cooler that features all the important tower cooler designs to compete with some of the best coolers on the market. Thermaltake have taken that ideology further to create a heatsink sporting five 8mm heatpipes a dense fin array for excellent heat transfer and dissipation. While it doesn\'t have the elaborate designs of some of the other heatsinks, the Frio proves that simplicity can pay off.



Furthermore, the fans aren\'t mere generic offerings but come with manual fan control using voltage regulators. Not only does it bring practicality but also an aesthetically pleasing finish. The plastic fan brackets are also very user friendly avoiding the need to fiddle with wire clips, with the added benefit that the rubber mounts prevent vibrations.

The Thermaltake Frio has a few drawbacks. Firstly, installation is awkward and not as intuitive as competing products. Secondly, the fan controls are always hidden inside the case so accessing them will be quite restricted should users want to change the fan speed. Noise could be considered an issue at maximum speed but that\'s easily resolved with the voltage regulators at no cost of performance.

Pros
+ Very well packaged
+ Includes two fans
+ Voltage regulators on both fans
+ Innovative fan mounting
+ Excellent performance
+ Price

Cons
- Installation
- No external fan control

The Thermaltake Frio thoroughly deserves the Vortez Hardware Gold Award.