Verdict: Still a good choice, particularly if you like peace and quiet

The P120S has been basking in the glory of its CPC Elite status since Issue 24, but this month it's up against the stiffest competition yet. With more than one drive meeting, or exceeding, its 125GB-per-platter areal density, and a number of them sporting 16MB caches, the P120S's Elite status was seriously under threat.

The P120S still reigned supreme in the synthetic HD Tach 3 RW tests, offering faster sustained read and write throughput than any other drive this month. However, this didn't translate to such excellent real-world performance. In our Paint Shop Pro test, the P120S was usurped by the two Western Digital Caviars, and equalled by the Hitachi Deskstar 7K500 in S-ATA II mode. In our Far Cry game level loading test, the Western Digitals crept in front again, along with the 250GB Seagate 7200.8. The Hitachis were way ahead, but only in S-ATA II mode.

The P120S isn't all about performance, however; it's also one of the quietest drives around. On paper, the P120S is quieter when accessing data than most drives are when idle. Having tested this in our feature on making your PC quiet, we can vouch for the P120S's near-silent operation.

The P120S is still a quick drive, and it's good value. With whisper-quiet operation as well, it remains a great all-rounder. If you don't need a huge-capacity disk, and require more general application performance than gaming prowess, then the P120S is worth choosing over the Hitachi Deskstar T7K250.

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