Verdict: Big heatsink + big fan + lots of heatpipes = brilliant HSF.

The Infinity is a development of the superlative Scythe Ninja, the only heatsink on the market that's able to passively cool an overclocked and overvolted Athlon 64. However, while the Ninja was designed to work without a fan, the Infinity is supplied with a 120mm fan.

As the Infinity is designed to be cooled by its own fan, and not by airflow through the case, its fins are more densely packed than those of the Ninja. It also has fewer heatpipes, five vs 12, although each of the Infinity's U-shaped heatpipes is much larger than those found in the Ninja. The 120mm fan supplied in the box spins at just 1,200rpm, and is effectively silent.

It's easy to mount the Infinity on a Socket AM2 CPU, as it simply clips into the standard mounting bracket. Once installed, the Infinity proved to be a superlative HSF, cooling the CPU to 12ûC below the reference AMD HSF. The LGA775 mounting mechanism is also fairly straightforward, as the Infinity uses standard push-pins. However, because of its huge girth, it's much easier to fit with the motherboard taken out of the case. The Infinity cooled the Core 2 Quad to 6ûC below the reference Intel HSF, which is another good result.

The Infinity is not only very effective at cooling Socket AM2 and LGA775 CPUs, but it's also extremely quiet. As such, it's definitely worth adding to your shopping list.

• PSUs - 14th July 2008
• Multi-GPU graphics - 20th June 2008
• CPU water cooling - 17th June 2008
• Hard disks - 20th March 2008
• Audio hardware - 29th February 2008
• Graphics cards - 24th January 2008
• CPUs - 21st December 2007

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