Closer  look

Scythe has been giving us some really powerful coolers to review as of late. Most of the coolers have been on the heavy side. Take a look at the Zipang and the Ninja Copper, both of which were well over 815 grams of pure weight. Both are great coolers and ones I would not hestitate to recommend. While it might be tempting to stick with the big bang coolers Scythe is aware that not everyone is an overclocker. Some of us just want a very good cooler that provides good performance without breaking the bank or our motherboards. And this is what they are hoping for with the Shuriken.

The Shuriken is a scaled down version of the Zipang that we reviewed here about a month ago. Except for the 460 gram difference in weight. The cooler is held together by three copper heat pipes that passes underneath the upper fins.

The upper set of fins are made of aluminum obviously. The fins are packed very tightly, possibly the densest I have seen from any cooler before. On top of these fins is the thinnest fan I have ever seen on a cooler before which measures 100x100x12. Before testing I didn’t think this fan was going to be able to move any air at all. Surprise, surprise, Scythe know what they are doing with fans, why did I doubt them. This baby moves 31CFM thru thirteen thin long blades, spinning between 650 and 2200RPM depending on how the PWM is being read. Like many Scythe fans the noise level is very moderate never hitting 32dBA. The fan is held on by two wire mounts which makes it easy to clean or switch out.

I have learned over the years running Pro-Clockers that the shininess of the base of a cooler isn’t a terribly good  indicator of how well the cooler will perform. In the case of Scythe all their coolers have a brillant base with a very shiney surface and they all have performed well. Same goes for the Shuriken as well when it comes to shine. We will have to get to the testing to see about the performance part.