For those looking for a heatsink fan to cool a custom build of an Ampere Altra / Altra Max server or workstation, the ARCTIC Freezer 4U-M ends up being a very potent option that offers similar performance to more expensive Ampere Altra heatsinks while providing similar performance.
There are few retail heatsinks readily available at Internet retailers for Ampere Altra and Ampere Altra Max processors, especially ones that are designed for 4U servers/workstations and designed to operate at a respectable fan noise level especially for workstations… One of the first and most well known after-market Ampere Altra heatsinks is the Noctua NH-D9 AMP-4926 4U, but the downside there is that it retails for around $130 USD. ARCTIC Cooling recently introduced a Freezer 4U-M Ampere heatsink with Ampere Altra compatibility for around half the price of the Noctua heatsink.
The ARCTIC Freezer 4U-M Ampere fits within 4U rackmount server cases or other workstation enclosures, features eight heatpipes, aluminum fins, and dual 120mm PWM fans in a push-pull configuration. The PWM fans are rated for 40 dBA noise level and 71.90 CFM airflow while spinning up to 2300 RPM.
With dimensions of 160 x 141 x 211 mm it’s compact enough to fit two of them within most ATX dual socket server motherboards if desired. At least with the ASRockRack ALTRAD8UD-1L2T motherboard used for testing, it didn’t pose any problems blocking any of the DDR5 memory slots either.
ARCTIC also makes a Freezer 4U-M variant that is compatible across not only Ampere Altra processors but also Intel Xeon and AMD EPYC/Threadripper workstation/server processors too. In fact, the Ampere heatsink model still includes mounting brackets for LGA-4189 / LGA-4677 and AMD SP3 CPU sockets.
