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The COOL BLUE AKASA EVO 98
Akasa are indisputably without one of the best suppliers of excellent Power Supplies and various types of Heat Sink fan Coolers and when we got the call on Thursday to say that their new HSF cooler was on the way we awaited with baited breath to see just how far they had pushed both their engineering and design teams. In this arena we are always looking for something that brightens up the system chassis but maintains effective cooling and very low or if any noise output. This time round we were not to be disappointed as the product was some to behold. With the packaging of the unit, AKASA have certainly maintained their high quality standards and this product is very secure for shipping. This product we are looking at today is aimed squarely at the E-tailers and the online buyer who is looking for a sound robust HSF with optional addition of either using their own cooling fans they have already purchased or buying something new to give the HSF that added umpf of look. Here is were Akasa could have skimped a little on packaging and considering the cost of the part they have in Akasa’s true fashion; maintained professionalism right through. On an important side note and for the high street buyer who actually likes to look at what they are buying directly off the shop floor; then the Akasa EVO 97 will be available soon from places like PC World and will have an exquisite pre-mounted 92mm hi-performance quiet fan with crystal blue blades. So what’s hidden inside the box? EVO 98 utilises enhanced heatpipe technology for rapid and even heat transfer. 6 precision embedded hi-capacity heatpipes and 52 high density aluminium fins for ultimate heat dissipation. The copper base facilitates more efficient heat absorption. The EVO 98 has been designed for both Intel P4 LGA 775 and AMD K8 socket 754/939/940, for now this shall give many users a good spectrum of choice.

The test package arrived in a secure well packaged box and on opening we see an array of parts from first impressions which certainly would fulfill the task across the spectrum of mainboards currently available. The package comes with explicit instructions for all the major International languages covered. Installation instructions were simple enough for anyone to use; and yes the initial array of wires when its all plugged in may seem daunting but once they are neatly wrapped, packed and stacked you have no worries.
Onwards to a few pictures and what’s in the box.



How did it perform? For the test we utilised major products that require significant cooling for the system build and the Benchmarks used most certainly stretching the full I/O of the system producing considerable amounts of heat. Utilising the following system build below the results speak for themselves in the chart below. 1 X MSI K8N Diamond Plus SLI Mainboard 2 X 1GB (2GB Total) 4400PRO Corsair TwinX Memory 1 X AMD Opteron 180 with AKASA EVO 98 AMD HEATPIPE COOLER utilising Akasa HI-Spec Pro-Grade + 5022 Thermal Compound, with PaxPower 92MM Cooling Fans 1 X AKASA ALLInONE controller 1 X NVIDIA Quadro FX 3500 Professional Graphics Card 2 X Western Digital 150GB 10K Raptor with 16MB Buffer Configured to Raid 0 1 X AKASA ECLIPSE-62 Chassis 1 X AKASA POWERPLUS iQ 650W 1 X AKASA 120MM Ultra Quiet Amber Series for the Intake Fan 1 X AKASA 120MM Ultra Quiet Amber Series for the Exhaust Fan. One thing we can never get enough of is how cool the system is and what temperature the HSF is running at and what temperature our exhaust fan are pulling out. All the stuffed in peripherals produce heat and one point always forgotten about is how much heat is being actually taken out of the system. Taking this into account we can actually then determine if we have enough cooling in our systems. Too much heat going out means 2 things; either not enough cool air coming in which means we need to look at overall cooling of the system. Or, the exhaust fan is actually doing its job very well. Benchmarks, Software Used and Conclusions (32 Bit Mode) To complete all of the tests on the system has taken some considerable time. Maintaining the fair play rules we did not manipulate any of this mainboards superb overclocking facilities just to see accurate the Heatpipe Cooler and fans actually performed, therefore the mainboard was left at its default settings. All tests have been conducted at 1280 X 1024 @ 70Hz in 32 bit colour. Microsoft Windows XP Professional SP2 with full Updates PCMark 2005 Advanced with patch 1.1.0 SPECviewperf® 9 For many readers SPECviewperf® 9 is an unknown benchmark but heavily used in the professional graphic card arena and unreservedly stretches and tests the system to the maximum and at some points stretching the system I/O to its fullest. The PCMark 2005 is well known by all and it too can push the system right to the limits. To ensure that we saw a speedy return of temperature outputs we left the AKASA ALLInONE Controller with its default automatic settings. At the introduction many eagle eyed viewers would have noted the acrylic shroud and solitary small 3 pin connector wondering what these are for! Well, as you can see below when the system is flashed a cool blue neon light emits from all around the HSF. For the discerning overclocker and gamer, this sure is a cool bit of kit that most certainly will show off the upper end of your system through the side panel viewing window.


	EVO 98 With 1 X 92mm Fan	EVO 98 With 2 X 92mm Fans	Temp Variance with 2 Fans
Post to Desktop	25.6C	25.2C	0.4C
SPEC Viewperf 9
max-04 to ensight-03	31.0C	27.3C	3.7C
light-07	32.5C	28.4C	4.1C
Sw-01 and ugux-01	33.5C	28.8C	5.0C
End of Benchmark Run	33.6C	28.6C	5.0C
PC Mark 2005 Advanced
Mid Point of Benchmark	30.1C	27.8C	2.3C
End of Benchmark Run	30.6C	28.0C	2.6C
All the temperatures throughout were what we had hoped for with an ambient room temperature of 25C! On reaching peak test levels we saw the CPU fan's powering up and reaching maximum speed when running the PCMark 2005 and SPEC Viewperf 9 at certain key sections. Acoustics’ were not an issue either as the user has an optional control to automatically turn up and down the fans to suit their needs in the manual mode. With this showing there should be no need to switch over to manual control, but then again some overclockers will require that additional cooling when the clock speeds are tweaked and the manual override will come into its own maintaining optimal performance throughout.
Conclusion Our thanks go to AKASA to show what potential this nifty heatpipe cooler has got to offer and purchase of the AKASA EVO 98 maybe obtained soon from most good E-tailers and the EVO 97 from the likes of PC World and your local PC Stores. Current price on the product has to be finalised however estimates are approximately £30.00 Ex Vat and shipping. Really good value for money when you look at the engineering build and parts used to of the final product, ultimately the actual returned test results speak volumes. What has been shown is that correct systems build and the thermals you will always produce a stable and reliable platform. With the peripherals supplied today from Akasa this certainly is a sound platform which one can rely upon – even you faithful overclockers. For a very long time we have utilised both the Akasa EVO 33 and 120 cooling devices on Intel and AMD CPU’s having no issues with new updated CPU chips. Each HSF maintained the CPU at cool optimal operating temps throughout tests, a paramont here with the new professional graphic cards requiring absolute system stability. The Technical and Design Wizards at AKASA have certainly produced an item which should keep us all happy for many years to come. With this said …….it looks like the EVO 98 will be staying put in our test system for some time to come.
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