Verdict: The worst CPU HSF we've ever seen.

Although the focus of this Labs test is CPU HSFs, not water-cooling kits, the Evercool Silver Knight has more in common with the former than the latter, despite using water-cooling technology.

The base of the Silver Knight is the same as that of most CPU HSFs, with a large copper contact plate. However, instead of using heatpipes to conduct the heat into the fins, the Silver Knight has a copper tube filled with antifreeze. The antifreeze is moved around the tube by a small pump on the left-hand side of the Silver Knight, and is supposed to conduct the heat from the contact plate into a nest of aluminium fins, which in turn are cooled by a variable-speed 92mm fan.

Officially, the Silver Knight is only compatible with LGA775 CPUs and older AMD64 CPUs (Socket 754, 939 and 940). Installed in our Core 2 Quad test PC, the Silver Knight was unable to prevent the CPU from reaching 110ûC, which caused Thermtrip to shut down the system. A further examination revealed that, although the copper contact plate works well, most of the heat remains trapped in the coolant in the copper tube, rather than being transmitted into the fins, which means that the fins and fan provide little or no cooling.

Despite its combination of liquid and air-cooling technologies, the Silver Knight's dire cooling ability shows that it's best to stick with one cooling technology or the other. If you ever wondered why a good quality water-cooling kit costs more than £100 then a quick look at the Silver Knight's abysmal cooling results should tell you all you need to know.

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