Verdict: Quiet, but not cool

The Evo 120 is an oddity of a CPU HSF, with its fan and fins mounted well above the CPU. If a Triffid and an HSF managed to produce offspring, this is what it would look like. Unfortunately, the unusual design of the Evo 120 fails, not through a lack of heatpipes (it has three), but because of its weak mounting mechanism and high centre of gravity. These two factors mean that the Evo 120 wobbles around all over the place and doesn't make good contact with the CPU heatspreader. As a result, even with a high-quality 120mm Akasa Amber fan, it isn't up to the job of cooling an overclocked and overvolted CPU.

In our Pentium 4 test PC, the Evo 120 failed to prevent the CPU from overheating and shutting down, even at maximum fan speed. It fared slightly better in our Athlon 64 test PC, cooling the CPU to 4ûC lower than the reference AMD HSF at maximum fan speed, although the CPU was 1ûC warmer at minimum fan speed.

Because of its poor cooling performance, we can't recommend the Evo 120 for either an Athlon 64 or Pentium 4 system. At £35, it's tantamount to daylight robbery.

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