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 When I was told I was getting a Polo 735 to review, I thought they were saying I needed a wardrobe change; but then this sexy HSF arrived on my desk and a huge smile came upon my face. As many of you know I recently have put together an AMD Athlon 64 system and was using the Generic HSF. However, as a Hardcore gamer I do not trust generic HSFs so you can imagine how elated I was to receive the Polo 735.
After I got over the excitement of having a new HSF, I took the package and just held it and looked at it. First thing that came to mind was how the heck am I going to get this into my case. The Fan is large. Not only is this fan large, it’s quite heavy too. Which is good, I guess, because it means it’s sturdily constructed and won’t fall apart if dropped. The cooling “fins” are very thin, which gives it much more surface area in order to dissipate heat better. I have dealt and installed many HSF in the past and you could tell right away that this particular unit is top of the line.
So came time to figure out a way to install the Polo 735. Piece of advice when ever installing new hardware I recommend that you make sure all wiring is where it belongs. Check to see there aren’t any loose screws and with a can of compressed air blow out any dust. So now my dilemma is getting this thing in the case! I was panicking a little bit, but then I checked double checked the packaging to make sure it’s designed for my processor so I know for sure that it will fit. I remove the Generic Fan that came with my Athlon 64 and installed the Polo 735. To my surprise installing it was as easy as installing the stock fan that came with my Athlon 64.
This fan also came with two speed control knobs: one that could be mounted in a PCI slot, and the other in a front drive bay. Both were pretty simple to hook up, I installed the PCI one to try it out. All of my PCI bays are full so it really wasn’t an option for me I just wanted to see if it worked and it did, so I uninstalled it. I then installed the drive bay controls this was pretty easy as well. Now that I have my sexy new HSF installed I am off to test the bad boy out.
I didn’t really have any noise complaints with the stock fan that came with my Athlon 64. But this fan runs even quieter than that one. What’s better is that the fan speed is adjustable via the knob, so I can control how loud or soft it is (to a certain extent. Don’t want to fry your CPU just because you want it silent). There’s not much else to a CPU fan other than noise and temperature. And this fan performs pretty well on both. I did some heavy gaming with that leaked French version of Halo (Shhh don’t tell Microsoft) and Doom 3 and I monitored my CPU Temps. When the temps seemed to go high I raised the knob a bit. I was a bit skeptical that the temp of the CPU would actually lower when I raised the speed of the fan, but what do you know, the temp actually dropped as the fan speed went up. I even noticed improved performance during game play and during heavy multi tasking sessions.
I will conclude with this. Great fan, great design, great looks (if I were a female HSF I’d ask it out), winner all around. The only note that I have to give is that the fan speed controller is a little hard to reach in my machine. But that’s just due to the construction of my case rather than the product itself. So I guess I have no real complaints.
 The Polo 735 is awarded the HWG Must have award.
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