EVGA CLC 120 Review - Debatable Value

**Testing EVGA's CLC 120 and CLC 280 Radiators**

In our previous tests, we've seen that EVGA's entry-level AIO liquid cooler, the CLC 120, is not quite living up to its promise. However, with the introduction of a new 120mm radiator, the CLC 120 is now available in two different variants: 500 and 2500 RPM versions. We put these coolers through a series of tests to see how they perform compared to other popular AIO liquid coolers on the market.

**Testing the EVGA CLC 280**

One of our test coolers, the EVGA CLC 280, is still one of the most impressive and effective radiators we've tested. It's able to run at high speeds without making excessive noise, and it performs better than many air coolers on our bench. We were able to achieve a slightly better performance-to-noise profile with the EVGA CLC 280 compared to the X52 at 800 RPM. However, this comes at a significant price hike.

**Comparing the EVGA CLC 120 to Other Coolers**

When it comes to noise, the EVGA CLC 120 is not doing well for itself. It's only marginally better than one air cooler on our bench, and its performance-to-noise profile is not as good as some of the other coolers we've tested. The CLC 120 is available in two different variants: a $90 model that operates at around 40.78°C/selT (50.92°C/selT) when running at 1500 RPM, and a more expensive variant that's similar to the X42 and H100i V2.

**Comparing the EVGA CLC 120 to Other Radiators**

When it comes to noise, the EVGA CLC 120 is not doing well for itself. It's only marginally better than one air cooler on our bench, and its performance-to-noise profile is not as good as some of the other radiators we've tested. The 2500 RPM variant of the CLC 120 is unbearably loud with a noise output of 53.9 dB(A), similar to many other high-end radiators on the market.

**Comparing the EVGA CLC 280 to Other Coolers**

In terms of performance and price, the EVGA CLC 280 is very competitive. It's priced at around $130, which is lower than some of the other popular AIO liquid coolers on the market. The 2500 RPM variant of the CLC 120 is also available, but it's only marginally better than a good air cooler and costs more.

**Recommendation**

Overall, our recommendation is to go with one of the larger radiators available, such as the Corsair H100i V2 or the NZXT Kraken Z73. These coolers offer better performance, noise profiles, and prices compared to the smaller 120mm radiators like the EVGA CLC 120. If you're looking for a smaller radiator that can fit in your case, an air cooler may be a good option. However, if you have a small form factor case, the CLC 120 may not be a viable option.

**Conclusion**

The EVGA CLC 280 is still one of the most impressive and effective radiators we've tested, but it's also priced higher than some of our other recommendations. The smaller CLC 120 radiator, on the other hand, is not doing well for itself in terms of performance and noise profile. If you're looking for a good AIO liquid cooler that can fit in your small form factor case, we recommend going with one of the larger radiators available or an air cooler.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enEVGA CLC 280 has already gone through our bench for thermals and noise testing with the conclusion being that it served as a competitive option when matched against the NZXT x62 and Corsair h115i the CLC 280 and 120 both Tred to land between their major competitors offering comparable Cooling and noise performance to nxt's rivaled Kraken line but with simplified lighting effects to help reduce cost today we're reviewing the CLC 120 from EV G's new series we've already posted a tear down of the cooler if you're curious about more but before get into that this coverage is brought to you by Catalyst energy mints a three-pack of catalyst contains the equivalent energy to over 21 energy drinks and at just $20 it works out to be a much more affordable and portable option use code Gamers Nexus in the link below for 5% off the EVGA CLC 120 is pretty straightforward this is it versus the 280 it's all the same other than the size so basically if you saw our 280 review the CLC 280 the feature set in terms of the RGB LEDs the pump plate the inside of it the acch Gen 5 pump all of that is identical the difference is that this Radiator on this one is 120 mm and the other one is 280 and of course the fans are different as a result this is a 120 mm fan its range maxes out at about 2500 rpm whereas the 140 mm fan maxed out somewhere around 2200 RPM give or take the usual percentage for manufacturing variance and tolerance so so we're really just looking at a smaller version of it and that means that we're in the 120 140 mm range for looking at competition NZXT is Kraken X42 is a 140 mm competitor to this that is actually quite expensive it's about $40 more so the EVGA CLC 1220 is priced at $90 the X42 which is 140 mm cooler with way more RGB functionality is priced at $13 and then Corsair has some flanking options there's plenty of air coolers as well that compete with these smaller radiators so keep that in mind but for today we're primarily focusing on the 120 and how it Compares against its larger Alternatives rather than looking at the air coolers that'll come in a future video so 120 versus the 240 280 140s all of those will be the main content for today testing methodology as always is linked in the description below in the full article and written review of this we've also already torn this down as stated and you can find some photos of that there for the testing the very Basics you can find test system and it specs in that article but we're still doing the same second to Second ambient logging using thermocouple readers and then averaging out six cores of temperature data over about a th cells to get the average numbers we have overtime numbers uh we do Delta values for most of the computations and that's pretty much the basics of it and you can find the rest again in the article as with last time let's first start with just the EVGA CLC coolers that'd be the 120 and 2 280s for temperature readouts and then we'll add the others we're seeing the EVGA 280 CLC at 1050 RPM outperform the EVGA 120 CLC at his maximum fan RPM of 2500 and that's about a 1.2 Celsius difference between them keep in mind that our variance is about 0.5 C so we're outside of the margin of test variance dropping down to a more reasonable fan speed the EVGA 120 CC at 1500 RPM post a load temperature of 50.92 Celsius delta T now about 10 C warmer than the 39.5c delt T 280 mm temperatures when at 1050 RPM fan speed finally the 1050 RPM EVGA 120 unit operates with an idle temperature of 11.4 C delta T and load about 57 or somewhere nearing 80 celsus if we were to add ambient back in pretty damn warm at that point if you're curious we also tested the cing depth with the 280 mm cooler to see if the fan casing made any real difference and the shorter answer is no it didn't but you can find that in our 280 mm written review which we'll throw down below as well and just like last time let's now add NZXT back into the results NZXT is closest competition in terms of size is the X42 but the price is so much higher that they're not really head-to-head in terms of target market the X42 at 1050 RPM outperforms EVGA CLC 1220 at500 RPM by 4 Celsius give or take showing a clear advantage in noise to Performance from the extra radiator side and of course different and larger fan design the x52 uses the same one 20 mm sized fans but has two of them on its 240 mm radiator so that matters we're able to run the x52 at 800 RPM and achieve a slightly better performance to noise profile than evga's CLC 120 at 1050 RPM but again you're dealing with a major price hike to the x52 here's the chart with everything added in the EVGA CLC 280 is still at the top and is still exceptionally loud it's not until way down the list that we get to the smaller 120 mm radiator which makes its first appearance right around the 1700 RPM X42 ndxt cooler where the EVGA 120 CLC operates at about 40.78 CSUS delt T the more reasonable 1500 RPM version of our test places the EVGA 120 CLC at 50.92 Celsius delt T only marginally better than the one air cooler presently on our bench we'll have to add more of those soon but again future content piece for that finally looking to the noise table we see the EVGA CLC 1220 Landing between the X42 and h100i V2 both at 1050 RPM when the EVGA CLC is running at the same fan speed this makes sense since the h100i has similar 120 mm fans strictly from a noise perspective the performance to volume is better with the larger radiators and by volume I mean noise not size but your cost also increases substantially moving to the EVGA CLC 120 at500 100 RPM this is also where it's most likely to be used we're resting right at around 40.7 DBA comparable to the dark Rock 3 at 2,000 RPM and EK Predator 280 at400 RPM the 2500 rpm EVGA CLC 120 is unbearably loud with its 53.9 DBA output just like its neighboring 50 plus DBA coolers like again the EVGA 280 at 2200 RPM EVGA CLC 280 makes a lot of sense in terms of the price and performance positioning of that cooler which is again cheaper than nxt's options it's about $130 and a bit more than corsair's competing option but has some more LED functionality but the CLC 120 is a much tougher sale and it's for a few reasons one of them it's $90 and it's performing really not that great it's about where a good air cooler would be and those will generally be cheaper depends on what you're picking up but the price compared to 140 mm options from Corsair and NZXT cool coolers although pretty competitive and cheaper in some ways especially versus NZXT it's just not a great position you'd be better off picking up either a good 140 cooler or maybe something that make more sense if you could fit it would be a 240 mm cooler because if we look to the Corsair h100 iv2 which has been a strong competitor throughout the last year or so even against the Kraken line and Cheaper by the way the Corsair h100 iv2 is priced at around $100 it's $10 more than this and it performs better and it's got a better price better noise to Performance profile all that stuff uh for 10 bucks more so if you can fit the 240 that would be the way I would go rather than one of these in a 120 variant unless you really like the look of that pump plate and you also can't afford or can't fit the 280 mm alternative of this that EVGA makes so you put themselves in an interesting position you really should either go with a 140 mm or larger cooler with the better performance the noise profile or you go with an air cooler if it can fit in the case which The Only Exception is going to be small form factor and if the looks are what you want so that's really all this one comes down to not nearly as exciting as the EVGA CLC 280 performance isn't fantastic uh but it's still overall a pretty good entrance to a new market for EVGA the 280 is absolutely the one that they should uh push as their Flagship and just kind of push that one off into a corner somewhere because the 280 makes them look damn confident it's their first Venture into aios and it's very competitive with the x52 the x62 and the Corsair h100 iv2 and H sorry h15 iv2 as well it's competitive with all of those and it's price competitive uh so let's just forget about this one if you are interested in the others I'll have links in the description below for the 280 if you want to watch that review and learn more about it subscribe as always for more patreon Link in the postal video to help us out directly patreon.com Gamers Nexus or Gamers nexus.net to read the full coverage I'll see you all next timeEVGA CLC 280 has already gone through our bench for thermals and noise testing with the conclusion being that it served as a competitive option when matched against the NZXT x62 and Corsair h115i the CLC 280 and 120 both Tred to land between their major competitors offering comparable Cooling and noise performance to nxt's rivaled Kraken line but with simplified lighting effects to help reduce cost today we're reviewing the CLC 120 from EV G's new series we've already posted a tear down of the cooler if you're curious about more but before get into that this coverage is brought to you by Catalyst energy mints a three-pack of catalyst contains the equivalent energy to over 21 energy drinks and at just $20 it works out to be a much more affordable and portable option use code Gamers Nexus in the link below for 5% off the EVGA CLC 120 is pretty straightforward this is it versus the 280 it's all the same other than the size so basically if you saw our 280 review the CLC 280 the feature set in terms of the RGB LEDs the pump plate the inside of it the acch Gen 5 pump all of that is identical the difference is that this Radiator on this one is 120 mm and the other one is 280 and of course the fans are different as a result this is a 120 mm fan its range maxes out at about 2500 rpm whereas the 140 mm fan maxed out somewhere around 2200 RPM give or take the usual percentage for manufacturing variance and tolerance so so we're really just looking at a smaller version of it and that means that we're in the 120 140 mm range for looking at competition NZXT is Kraken X42 is a 140 mm competitor to this that is actually quite expensive it's about $40 more so the EVGA CLC 1220 is priced at $90 the X42 which is 140 mm cooler with way more RGB functionality is priced at $13 and then Corsair has some flanking options there's plenty of air coolers as well that compete with these smaller radiators so keep that in mind but for today we're primarily focusing on the 120 and how it Compares against its larger Alternatives rather than looking at the air coolers that'll come in a future video so 120 versus the 240 280 140s all of those will be the main content for today testing methodology as always is linked in the description below in the full article and written review of this we've also already torn this down as stated and you can find some photos of that there for the testing the very Basics you can find test system and it specs in that article but we're still doing the same second to Second ambient logging using thermocouple readers and then averaging out six cores of temperature data over about a th cells to get the average numbers we have overtime numbers uh we do Delta values for most of the computations and that's pretty much the basics of it and you can find the rest again in the article as with last time let's first start with just the EVGA CLC coolers that'd be the 120 and 2 280s for temperature readouts and then we'll add the others we're seeing the EVGA 280 CLC at 1050 RPM outperform the EVGA 120 CLC at his maximum fan RPM of 2500 and that's about a 1.2 Celsius difference between them keep in mind that our variance is about 0.5 C so we're outside of the margin of test variance dropping down to a more reasonable fan speed the EVGA 120 CC at 1500 RPM post a load temperature of 50.92 Celsius delta T now about 10 C warmer than the 39.5c delt T 280 mm temperatures when at 1050 RPM fan speed finally the 1050 RPM EVGA 120 unit operates with an idle temperature of 11.4 C delta T and load about 57 or somewhere nearing 80 celsus if we were to add ambient back in pretty damn warm at that point if you're curious we also tested the cing depth with the 280 mm cooler to see if the fan casing made any real difference and the shorter answer is no it didn't but you can find that in our 280 mm written review which we'll throw down below as well and just like last time let's now add NZXT back into the results NZXT is closest competition in terms of size is the X42 but the price is so much higher that they're not really head-to-head in terms of target market the X42 at 1050 RPM outperforms EVGA CLC 1220 at500 RPM by 4 Celsius give or take showing a clear advantage in noise to Performance from the extra radiator side and of course different and larger fan design the x52 uses the same one 20 mm sized fans but has two of them on its 240 mm radiator so that matters we're able to run the x52 at 800 RPM and achieve a slightly better performance to noise profile than evga's CLC 120 at 1050 RPM but again you're dealing with a major price hike to the x52 here's the chart with everything added in the EVGA CLC 280 is still at the top and is still exceptionally loud it's not until way down the list that we get to the smaller 120 mm radiator which makes its first appearance right around the 1700 RPM X42 ndxt cooler where the EVGA 120 CLC operates at about 40.78 CSUS delt T the more reasonable 1500 RPM version of our test places the EVGA 120 CLC at 50.92 Celsius delt T only marginally better than the one air cooler presently on our bench we'll have to add more of those soon but again future content piece for that finally looking to the noise table we see the EVGA CLC 1220 Landing between the X42 and h100i V2 both at 1050 RPM when the EVGA CLC is running at the same fan speed this makes sense since the h100i has similar 120 mm fans strictly from a noise perspective the performance to volume is better with the larger radiators and by volume I mean noise not size but your cost also increases substantially moving to the EVGA CLC 120 at500 100 RPM this is also where it's most likely to be used we're resting right at around 40.7 DBA comparable to the dark Rock 3 at 2,000 RPM and EK Predator 280 at400 RPM the 2500 rpm EVGA CLC 120 is unbearably loud with its 53.9 DBA output just like its neighboring 50 plus DBA coolers like again the EVGA 280 at 2200 RPM EVGA CLC 280 makes a lot of sense in terms of the price and performance positioning of that cooler which is again cheaper than nxt's options it's about $130 and a bit more than corsair's competing option but has some more LED functionality but the CLC 120 is a much tougher sale and it's for a few reasons one of them it's $90 and it's performing really not that great it's about where a good air cooler would be and those will generally be cheaper depends on what you're picking up but the price compared to 140 mm options from Corsair and NZXT cool coolers although pretty competitive and cheaper in some ways especially versus NZXT it's just not a great position you'd be better off picking up either a good 140 cooler or maybe something that make more sense if you could fit it would be a 240 mm cooler because if we look to the Corsair h100 iv2 which has been a strong competitor throughout the last year or so even against the Kraken line and Cheaper by the way the Corsair h100 iv2 is priced at around $100 it's $10 more than this and it performs better and it's got a better price better noise to Performance profile all that stuff uh for 10 bucks more so if you can fit the 240 that would be the way I would go rather than one of these in a 120 variant unless you really like the look of that pump plate and you also can't afford or can't fit the 280 mm alternative of this that EVGA makes so you put themselves in an interesting position you really should either go with a 140 mm or larger cooler with the better performance the noise profile or you go with an air cooler if it can fit in the case which The Only Exception is going to be small form factor and if the looks are what you want so that's really all this one comes down to not nearly as exciting as the EVGA CLC 280 performance isn't fantastic uh but it's still overall a pretty good entrance to a new market for EVGA the 280 is absolutely the one that they should uh push as their Flagship and just kind of push that one off into a corner somewhere because the 280 makes them look damn confident it's their first Venture into aios and it's very competitive with the x52 the x62 and the Corsair h100 iv2 and H sorry h15 iv2 as well it's competitive with all of those and it's price competitive uh so let's just forget about this one if you are interested in the others I'll have links in the description below for the 280 if you want to watch that review and learn more about it subscribe as always for more patreon Link in the postal video to help us out directly patreon.com Gamers Nexus or Gamers nexus.net to read the full coverage I'll see you all next time\n"