Scythe Ninja Copper CPU Cooler Review

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Scythe Ninja Copper CPU Cooler Review​

Manufacturer Product Page: Scythe "NINJA COPPER" All copper 6HeatPipes CPU Cooler
Model Number: SCNJ-CU1000
Availability: Now
Price: Compare Prices for Scythe Copper Ninja
Warranty Length: 2 years



It’s hard to believe that Scythe has only been around for 5 years. Yes, the company that has done so much for the computer cooling industry only started out in 2003. In those five short years Scythe has brought us such cooling goodies as their S-Flex 120mm Fluid Dynamic Bearing Fans, ultra quiet Kama bay coolers and of course an assortment of high quality coolers like the Mine, Infinity and the perennial favorites: the Ninja and mini-Ninja. They have made, and then remade time and time again what we consider a "CPU cooler" to be. Whether you like their products or not, everyone has to agree that the people over at Scythe are true trailblazers and one of the leaders of the cooling industry.

Traditionally, wood is the proper gift to give for 5 year anniversaries...yeah plain old wood. To me this does help explain why North American divorce rates are so high. If I wrapped a hunk of wood in an gift box, even it was an expensive fancy antique “black forest” clock, and gave it as my 5 year anniversary gift….umm I probably would A) be hit in the head with it and then B)wake up in the dog house. Luckily for us Scythe loves breaking traditions and has gone a different route to celebrate its 5 year anniversary. No wood for these guys, nothing but solid COPPER is good enough for their 5 year celebration.

Today we will be looking at Scthe’s 5 year Anniversary Edition Ninja Copper and putting it through its paces. It has a lot of hype to live up to, since Scythe's fans have been pushing for this one ever since the original Ninja came out (and let us not forget the teaser than never went anywhere, the copper modded Ninja that Scythe had on display @ Computex back in 2005). Even though the aluminum versions of the Ninja have been surpassed by others, a die hard cadre of Scythe Ninja fanatics have been hyping up the nirvana-inducing potential of the Ninja….if only they would make it out of copper. Heck I have lost count of the number of threads that go “the Ninja is a real winner….but if they made it out of copper it would be awesome…” So with curiosity & expectation levels as big as the Ninja Copper itself let’s see how good a cooler it really is....now that they have finally produced it.

 

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Specifications

Specifications

 

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Packaging and Accessories

Packaging and Accessories

When you first look at the box, you instinctively know this not a domestic North American made cooler. Maybe it is the ninja’s on the cover or the copious amounts of kanji plastered over all four sides of the box. What ever it is, you just instantly know this is an import and a fancy one at that. The copper colour scheme and the exotic looking font make this box look like a 3D poster advertising a Japanese Manga or even a block buster anime movie. What ever you call it, this scheme certainly grabs a consumer's attention and forces you to take a closer look.

When you take a closer look at the box the very first thing that jumps out is the sheer number of pictures of the Ninja Copper this box has plastered all over it. The front alone has a huge scale model of it in fanless mode and the sides contain not only pictures of the various mounting options included, but even a picture of the fan that comes with it. This easy to understand picture montage makes it clear that this unit is a full meal deal and regardless of what socket style one has it more than likely supported out of the box by this cooler. Also equally eye catching is the number of non sticker, stickers plastered all over it, loudly proclaiming the virtues of the cooler. When I say “non sticker sticker” what I mean is that there are small colourful text boxes printed all over the box that look a lot like old fashioned sticker except for the fact that they can not be peeled off as they are part of the box.

When you actually open the box you are greeted to a very simple and moderately effective packaging scheme. Instead of having foam or even plastic protection container the Ninja Cooler is loosely sandwiched in between the fan and the accessory box, with the accessory box on the bottom of the tall case. There is a small cardboard separator between the fan and the cooler to help protect each from the other. While this does make removing the Scythe Ninja Copper a snap it does leave the protective abilities of this packaging scheme wanting.

The cooler is literally just placed in the box and it does bounce around inside quite a bit and while this cooler is very sturdy, this is a not an overly effective nor robust packaging scheme. When one considers the price of the Ninja Copper, a secondary box (preferably filled with Styrofoam chips) is not only recommended but should be considered mandatory for long distance shipping.

The accessories that accompany this cooler are study in contrasts. On the one hand you get all the possible mounting options you will ever need. These mounting brackets make it compatible for both Intel 775 and 478 and AM 754/939/AM2 and are all of high quality construction. The same can be said of the fan that is included; it is an ultra quiet Scythe Kaze Jyuni 120mm fan. The included instruction pamphlet is concise and is a fairly decent.

However, the fan brackets and included TIM look to be a bit out of place and are in stark contrast to the high quality cooler. While one can understand why ultra thin fan mounting brackets are used (as they are the same that are used on the original Ninja), there is no excuse for not including enough TIM for multiple reapplications. Instead of a tube of thermal compound, you get a small clear plastic packet which looks like a see through version of a fast food ketchup packet. While technically Scythe does include enough for a few applications of TIM, in reality this is a use once and dispose of the rest setup. Have you ever seen a child use half a ketchup packet and then roll up the rest for later (or heck done this yourself when you were a little hellion)? Yeah the ensuing mess is as about as nasty and unlike ketchup, TIM does not taste great. Unless you plan on installing this cooler, doing a few tests and then swapping out the CPU for another one (say….a e4600 for q6600 for example) the best thing you can do with any left over TIM is throw it away. This was very disappointing and honestly at this price range would a 1/2 gram tube of Shin-Etsu, AS5 or Ceramique been too much to ask for?

 

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First Impressions

First Impressions

On first glance you could easily mistake this cooler for an object d’art, maybe even a post modernist rendition of a skyscraper done in copper. One thing is for certain, with its heatpipes coming out of it from all 4 sides, a big hole in the center and deep groves in each corner; it doesn’t look like a normal tower heatsink. Or for that matter, any other heatsink we have ever seen (except for its predecessor the Scythe Ninja). This of course is to be expected as Scythe was never one to play follow the leader and when the original Ninja came out its odd yet strikingly good looks charmed many a reviewer and silenced numerous critics. This A.E. copper model is at heart a Scythe Ninja just with all the cheaper (and lighter) aluminum replaced with heavier, more expensive (high “bling”) copper.

While it is a called the Scythe Ninja and it does take its overall general appearance from the Ninja cooler, Scythe’s technical engineers did take this opportunity to improve upon the original Ninja design. One change they made was to nickel plate the copper base. As many Ninja enthusiasts quickly found out copper tarnishes way too easy and this way the Scythe Ninja Copper will stay bright and shiny for years to come. The next thing that has been changed is that unlike even the Rev. B of the Ninja, that had its heatpipes grouped together in the center of each side of the cooler, this copper one has its heatpipes spread out evenly across the full width of each side. This redesign allows for not only better heat distribution but also decreases the air turbulence making air movement through the fins easier.

One change that while is not as obvious as the relocation of the heatpipes is the fan that is included with the Ninja Copper. Unlike the updated Ninja Plus Rev. B that ships with a 1200rpm 7 bladed fan this model uses a slower 9 bladed 800 rpm fan. Apparently moving those heatpipes, and swapping out the aluminum for copper must really lower the need for active cooling. We sill see later in the review exactly how much cooling this unit really needs.

One thing worth mentioning before we continue is the fact that Scythe places a warning label on the bottom of the base of the Copper Ninja to help protect it from being scratched in transit. Usually this is where I would mention a common pet peeve of mine about companies putting stickers on the base of their coolers and how you now have to spend extra time to thoroughly clean off all the gunk before you can use it; however, Scythe got it right. This warning label is not a sticker, rather it is very similar to those little plastic reminders that your car dealer puts in the top corner of your window to tell you when you next servicing is due. The amazing part of this is that the plastic film stays in place just by static cling and does not require any glue to do its job. This means you just have to peel off the warning / protective label and use it with no time consuming cleaning is required. It is great attention to detail that help distinguish Scythe from its competition. Hopefully, other companies will follow suit and get rid of the glue!

Also on the positive side, the base of this cooler is not only perfectly flat but has been polished to a mirror-like finish. This level of quality was well above average and was easily one of the best we have had the pleasure of seeing. High price tag or not, good quality and attention to details like this really highlight how much time, money and expertise was used in the creation of this CPU cooling solution.

Overall, it is very nice to see that there were multiple changes made to the new Scythe Ninja Copper and that they didn’t simply replace the aluminum fins with copper but actually took the time to tweak the basic design into a more modern revision of the original.

 

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Heatsink Construction & Design

Heatsink Construction & Design

For anyone not familiar with the original Ninja cooler, this cooler is a fairly unique looking double 6 heatpipe tower design CPU cooler that looks a lot like a ninja Shuriken or throwing star when viewed from above. The easiest way to describe it to someone who has never seen one is that it looks like some giant took two regular tower coolers aligned them perpendicular to each other and then smashed them together into one big unit.

As already mentioned, the Ninja Copper is a fairly unique “double 6” heatpipe tower design cooler that can have multiple 120mm fans mounted to it. Some people would call this a 12 heatpipe system but in reality it is really only 6 large “U” shaped heatpipes that start at the top right side of the heatsink, go down and through the copper & aluminum base and then terminate at the top left side of the heatsink, If one was to cut this base in half what you would see is a thick copper base with 3 heatpipes running in a North/South orientation and 3 heatpipes stacked on top of it in an East/West orientation, all topped by an small heatsink.

Speaking of copper, even though this unit is very heavy, the copper fins are surprisingly thin and can even cut you if you are not careful. While the fins themselves are thin and do bend easily they are actually fairly durable. This is of course because they are made entirely out of copper which is very soft and malleable. What this adds up to is a surprisingly durable fin assembly that you can easily bend back into shape with a pair of pliers if a fin does become bent. In total there are 23 of these .3mm fins which give the Ninja Copper heatsink more square centimeters of cooling surface area than just about any other cooler on the market today.

One interesting thing about the construction of the Ninja Copper is how Scythe attaches the fins to the heatpipes. Unlike many coolers that either solder the fins together or use a topping method to hold them all in place Scythe uses a very unique friction mounting technique. Each copper fin has holes punched in it to allow the heatpipes to go through them, but these holes are not clean edge holes; rather the hole itself is a little undersized and instead of punching a circular hole in the metal, the metal is bent up into a bottle cap looking arrangement. This extra surface contact makes this mounting arrangement very efficient in transferring heat from the heatpipes to the copper fins.

What was also nice to see was that the heatpipe ends were not just pinched off as on some units but actual capped as well. These caps help to increase the rigidity of the fin assembly and as an added benefit it makes the Ninja Copper a very sturdy heatsink that displays very little flexing considering its size.

The only down side to the Ninja being made of out heavy, expensive yet very effective copper is the unit's overall weight. This cooler weighs in at over 1.13 kilograms when the fan is attached. To put this in perspective, this is over double the Intel recommended max weight for Socket 775 CPU coolers and its even 230 grams more than even Intel’s BTX max specifications. Backplate or no, that is a lot of weight and stress to be putting on a motherboard and I would be very careful and slow in moving my computer around when it is installed. Please don’t get me wrong this coolers weight is not dangerous to use, it is just that it does have a lot of momentum and if you bang around your case (as happens at most LAN parties) it will put undue stress on your motherboard.

Overall this unit is constructed like a big, heavy copper brick and is the very definition of brute force cooling. There is nothing wrong with this approach; after all, main battle tanks don’t put much emphasis on finesse either and look how effective they are at their jobs! Where this is an Anniversary Edition, no expense was spared in its creation and no shortcuts were taken since this is Scythe’s flagship model and they did not skimp out on its construction. Overall this cooler is all business where form follows function. The fact that it looks and feels like it could be a very expensive, very exotic morning star / mace (sans handle) I’m sure is quite…..accidental.

 

[AkG]

Fan Design

FAN DESIGN

The Scythe Slip Stream “Twelve Winds” 800 rpm fan, AKA Scythe Slip Stream Kaze Jyuni model SY1225SL12L is a Sleeve Bearing, 9 bladed 120mm fan that rotates at a nominal 800RPM. At this extremely slow speed it generates an impressive 40.17CFM airflow, and best of all does it while making nothing more than a low tonal hum.

The fan exhibited very little shaft “slop” or forwards and backwards motion to the fan blade assembly and felt very tight. More importantly, the fan displayed no angular slop when pushed/tapped on only one side of the fan. This combination makes for a fan that is very tight and even as it’s sleeved bearing ages, will still be useful for a long time to come.

One thing that is not immediately obvious is the fact this fan has an extremely small diameter engine hub or rotor housing. This decreased hub means that it has a much smaller dead zone where no air is being moved. This is a very desirable feature to have in a CPU heatsink cooling fan as the smaller the area that is not properly cooled the higher the thermal efficiency of the unit. Another interesting thing about this fan is the fact that it uses the older style 3 pin fan header. It is understandable why this was done since this fan is designed to run at one speed only and unless you are a silent PC fanatic, reducing its noise levels via fan speed control is not needed.

The Kaze was very quiet and didn’t create many vibrations; of course I would have been very surprised if it did as this fan is only spinning at a claimed 800rpms. When installed in a CoolerMaster CM 690 case the Kaze fan was not audible over any of the Scythe E’s which were previously installed into the case. This is a laudable accomplishment that few CPU coolers we have tested in the past can claim and is a testament to the Ninja design since that it shows a slow fan is more than adequate to cool it.

Rather that rely on MTBF numbers, an easier and better way to get a “feel” for what the manufacturer thinks is the real length of time a product should last is too simply look at the length of warranty provided. The length of warranty has been calculated to be long enough so that customers feel secure in purchasing it BUT still short enough that it will be “out of warranty” when most fail. Taken for what its worth, the Copper Ninja comes with a 2 year warranty.

Overall the Kaze fan is a classic example of Scythe’s high quality products. This fan is very quiet and while this near-silence is done at the cost of RPMs, it is designed as a slow moving fan and its blade design has been optimized to move as much air as possible at such low RPMs. This makes the Jyuni the perfect fan for this cooler since the Copper Ninja has been designed so that it does not require much air movement to be an efficient cooling solution. By having relatively far apart fins combined with a huge surface area any fan movement at all is enough to cool this unit. In fact this cooler is so thermally efficient that you technically don’t even need a fan (as long as you use a very cool running chip and don’t stress it much as we will see later in this review).

The only real faults that one can find with this fan are the fact that it is not sleeved and its wires are fairly short. With the price that this CPU cooling solution commands would it have been too much to ask for a long sleeved fan cable? As it stands it does look out of place on such a beautiful work of art and does cheapen it in an almost intangible way. The fact that the wires are also fairly short did not improve the situation and just help reinforce the impression that a fan (even a high quality one like this one) was more of an afterthought to the unit.

 

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Installation

Installation

The Scythe engineers really took the time to make installing the Ninja as user friendly and as painless as possible especially when one considers the massive size of this cooler. As with other heavyweight coolers, the Copper Ninja requires a backplate to be installed to help support its weight. This does mean that you have to remove the motherboard from your case and this is actually the most time consuming part of the installation process.

When one has the motherboard removed, you simply remove the paper covering from the backplate, insert the four screws into it and line up where the backplate should go. Then with a simple push you set the backplate into position, and since one side is completely covered in glue it stays in position and you do not need to waste time holding it there. This little tweak on the standard procedure is what makes this installation so enjoyable. Instead of having to worry about keeping the backplate lined up, it stays where you stick it, allowing you to concentrate on screwing in the two main retaining brackets. This of course is very easy and one simply has to screw through both the backplate and motherboard and into the threaded retaining holes in the retaining brackets.

When this stage is completed all one has left to do is apply a thin layer of TIM to the top of the CPU then clip in one side of the Copper Ninja by angling it into place. At this point you can let the Copper Ninja rest in place as two of its four retaining clips should be secured. Then by slightly bending the retaining arm on the opposite side with your thumb you can easily clip the third one in and then do the same thing for the final clip. The best procedure is to use your left hand’s thumb to bend the arm furthest away from you and use your right hand to fasten the clip. For the fourth one it is much easier if you rotate the motherboard 180 degrees so that the last clip is now furthest away from you and makes repeating the step much easier.

The final stage of installation involves the mounting of the included fan to the Copper Ninja. It was really disappointing that Scythe only included enough fans clips for mounting one fan since this unit can easily accommodate a second fan. The mounting of the fan is accomplished via the thin wire brackets that run the length of each side of the heatsink in their own little slot. Due to the fact that both the wire and slots are very small it can be very frustrating getting the second wire completely into its slot. Even worse was the fact that these thin wire clips are so thin that they have a tendency to bend all out of shape if you even look at them wrong, making a difficult situation that much worse. Quite honestly, this lack of quality really does stand out especially since this model is Scythe's Anniversary Edition. It is too bad Scythe did not go with a thicker, stiffer (i.e. more expensive) wire for their mounting system as it does mar an otherwise impressive design execution.

As mentioned before the mounting orientation of this cooler is not important since all 4 sides of the base have heatpipes coming from it and all 4 sides of the fin assembly have been designed to accept fan mounting. This does make mounting considerations both easier and more difficult than a more “normal” tower design. It is easier in that as long as the two mounting brackets that hold the cpu cooler to the motherboard can be installed you can have the fans blowing in any direction that you want…assuming the fan does not block or touch a surrounding part.

Which leads us to the biggest negative of this design: its size. The very fact that this unit is so big is usually the limiting factor when it comes to fan mounting orientation options. This cooler (unlike most towers which are wide but narrow) is tall, wide and deep; it has a tendency to overhang surrounding parts like motherboard heatsinks, RAM slots and nearly even the top edge of the motherboard. Unfortunately this width is made even worse when you add on another 25mm depth for the fan. In most cases, if you have the fan in a standard mounting direction of blowing from the front of the case to the back it may block your first set of RAM slots. Luckily Scythe took this into consideration and made the fin assembly high enough so as to not block or touch surrounding parts of most motherboard and you can mount the fan up even higher to get necessary clearance for most normal ram and heatsinks. However if you use higher than normal RAM like Corsair Dominator or OCZ Reaper sticks you may be limited to only two ram slots.

Overall it is a fairly intensive installation process that can be considered easy, depending on your motherboard and RAM choice. Total installation time, including removal of old heatsink TIM was about 8 minutes.

 

[AkG]

E4600 / Q6600 Temperature Testing

Testing Methodology:

All comparison testing was done on an open bench with a constant ambient temperature of 20°C.

Recorded temps were as reported via CoreTemp's "Temp Log". Average load temps were taken after 15 minutes of running Prime95 v25.4 “small fft” and are taken directly from CoreTemps temperature text file. Excel was used to average the results of all cores.

Idle temps were taken 15 minutes after Load testing ceased. Motherboard temperatures were recorded using SpeedFan. All CPU throttling technology was disabled in the BIOS, and due to the fact that the Scythe Kaze fan is not a variable speed fan all CPU fan speed control was also disabled in BIOS.

Arctic Cooling MX-2 thermal paste was used for all coolers during these tests unless otherwise noted. Application of all thermal paste was according to the manufacturer’s instructions and while not necessary it was allowed to cure for 48 hours under moderate to high loads (with periods of low loads) prior to testing. All tests were run 4 times and only best results are represented.

Please note: Because the Ultima 90 does not come with its own fan, it was paired with a single Scythe F 120mm fan for the results listed in this review.

Notes about Overclocking:

For q6600’s that use 1.31volts I consider 1.45 volts to be the most that I would seriously consider for a moderate-to-long term overclock. Yes you can go much higher but the longevity of the CPU is then called into question. Just as importantly the CPU should max out at LESS than 65c as this is also what I consider the safest, maximum long term overclocking temp. For the purposes of these tests I was willing to overlook temperatures as long as they averaged below 70c and did not peak over 75c. If 75c was displayed for more than 10 seconds in CoreTemp all testing was stopped and that test run was considered a fail.

With these two general guidelines I overclocked both systems until either one (or both) of these "rules" was needed to be broken to continue.

Overclocking was accomplished by increasing FSB speed and then Vcore (only if necessary).

Before testing for idle and max temperatures Orthos was run for 1 hour to make sure that it was stable at a given overclock and voltage. If both finished with no errors SuperPi set to 32m was run twice. After the stability testing was accomplished the given system was allowed to sit idle for 30minutes before starting the official tests. IF both of the above stated guidelines were not broken then testing continued with an increased overclock. These steps were then repeated until 1 or both of the general guidelines were broken.

As they have no bearing on these tests the RAM’s voltage and timings are not recorded, the RAM was set to run at or as close to as possible PC-6400 speeds by running various cpu : memory dividers. Please do not consider this a full “how to” review on overclocking or “safe guidelines” for overclocking nor even an indicator on how well a given CPU will overclock. IF you are interested in OC’ing your system, and use these guidelines we at HWC take no responsibility for the results. Bad Things can happen if you are not careful.

Complete Test System:

Processor: Q6600 & E4600
Motherboard: Gigabyte p35 DS4
Memory: 4GB G.Skill PC2-6400
Graphics card: XFX 7200gt 128mb
Hard Drives: 1x Western Digital Se16 500GB
Power Supply: Seasonic S12 600W



E4600 Temperature Results


Idle Temperatures

With a cool running chip like the e4600 the Copper Ninja shows some amazingly low idle numbers. Even when overclocked to 3.5GHz it is 3°C cooler than an Ultima 90 and 7 degrees less than the Silentator which is down-right impressive.


Average Load Temperatures

As you can see the idle results are not due to the fact that the Scythe’s fan is a constant RPM model and thus was moving more air at idle than any of the other CPU cooling solutions; rather, this cooler is just that damn good at cooling dual core CPUs. In fact not only did it keep it lead on the Ultima 90 and Silentator it widened it out to double digits! Very, very impressive.


Q6600 Temperature Testing


Idle Temperature Results

While these numbers are not as low as the e4600, this is to be expected as the even the G0 stepping of the Q6600 are hot running little beasties. As we can see roles have been reversed at it is the Copper Ninja that is 2°C hotter than the Ultima at stock at this widens to 4°C when the CPU is overclocked to 3.4GHz. These are still some impressive results and it is only the Ultima 90 (with a higher RPM fan) that can claim to be better than the Ninja.


Average Load Temperatures

Once again the Copper Ninja displays some really good numbers, but once again the Ultima 90 is a slightly better cooler. Of course to get this advantage the Ultima 90 is using a relatively louder fan, and probably could not boast such good numbers if it had an 800 rpm fan.


Fanless Mode

Before giving the results that we got when using the Copper Ninja without any active cooling one must realize that even though Scythe states it can be done it is only to be done under light loads and is not intended for heavy loads. Since Scythe also states that sufficient case cooling is required this test was carried out inside a CM 690 case with 5 Scythe E 120mm fans running. After the testing phase the side door was removed so that we could touch the Copper Ninja to see just how hot it got.

When we paired this now fanless cooler with the e4600 it idled at 28°C, while under load it average about 51°C.

To put these numbers in perspective one simply has to look at the results of Intel’s Stock cooler and realize that Copper Ninja is almost as good as this stock cooler without any active cooling! These are amazing results and something I would not feel comfortable doing with many other coolers out there.
Unfortunately OC’ing is a different story all together and this cooler failed at anything besides very minor overclocks.

The Q6600 was not as forgiving as the e4600 and it idled at 33°C and barely passed under full load. During testing the copper fins got hot enough that just touching the top one was uncomfortable and would have burned us if we had left our fingers on it longer that a quick touch. Just as with the e4600, overclocking resulted in much higer idles (low 40s) and load testing was a failure due to sustained peaks above 75°C. At this point all testing was stopped.

In all honesty I do not see the need for running this CPP cooler in fanless mode as it requires a lot of air movement inside the case and in most cases (par the pun) the fans creating this air movement will be a lot louder than the Twelve Winds 800 rpm fan that comes with this unit. Like the old saying goes “If ain’t broken…DON’T fix it!”.

 

[AkG]

Value

Value

The term “Value” is such an amorphous term that it truly has different meanings for different people. For some a CPU cooler is only as good as it overclocking potential, for others its is how quiet it does its job; for others still its how effective it is for its cost. We here at HWC try to provide as many answers as possible for the term “Value”. Hopefully by this point in the review people looking at OC potential or noise levels will have a fairly good idea of what this cooler's Value is.

For the “best bang for the buck” crowd we have included a chart below showing how much each 1°C less costs when compared to Intel’s FREE stock cooler. No consideration has been made for noise levels, “looks” or any other extraneous factors; this is just raw performance vs. monetary cost. For any cooler that performs worse than the Intel stock cooler a rating of “FAIL” will be given. For any cooler that has a “Value” of more than $10 per 1°C a rating of “FAIL” will be used in the graph but the chart will list its actual “value”.

All prices are based on either their MSRP (if no e-tailer prices were available at review time) or the online price they sold for at the time of their review. If a CPU cooler does not include a fan the price of a Scythe F has been included ($12).

To make it as easy as possible for you to modify this ratio we have also included the various coolers' temperature difference so that if you do come across one of them on sale you can easily modify its “Value” rating. We here at HWC are in no way saying that this is the definitive answer to “Value”, rather it should be considered another tool to help you make your final decision. After all something is only as “valuable” as what you consider it to be.


E4600 Cooling Value

Please note: This chart has be calculated based upon the differences between Intel stock cooler’s average load at its highest OC on a e4600 @3.2GHz versus that of the various after market coolers average load temperatures (in their stock configuration with MX-2 TIM) also on a e4600 @ 3.2GHz.

Wow, who would have thought that a $70 CPU cooler can also could be considered a great value? This cooler is hands down a great cooler for dual core cooling and its numbers reflect that. To bad that its quad core results are not as good.


Q6600 Cooling Value

Please note: This chart has be calculated based upon the differences between Intel stock cooler’s average load at its highest OC on a q6600 @3.0GHz versus that of the various after market coolers average load temperatures (in their stock configuration with stock TIM) also on a Q6600 @ 3.0GHz.

Even though this is a great cooler, its high MSRP of nearly $70 does take it out of the realm of best bang for your buck when it comes to Quads. Lets face it no one is going to but a Anniversary / Limited Edition of anything because it is a great deal. You buy it because either you value reduced noise or OC’ability or maybe even just bragability. Heck, some people will probably buy it as a conversation piece!

However, there have been several sales at various retailers which have somewhat slashed the price of the Ninja copper. So, if you see it on sale use the formula we have given you to recalculate its cooling "value".

 

[AkG]

Conclusion

Conclusion

While it may be the Year Of The Rat to the Chinese but to computer enthusiasts, its going to be the year of the Ninja Copper. Its performance is really quite impressive and while passive mode is a bit of a dog’s breakfast, the included fan is so quiet that it really is foolish not to use this cooler without active cooling. With its slick good looks, its ability to allow you to achieve extreme air cooling overclocks and above all its silence really make this a great choice for just about anyone. It is also great to see a cooler of the Ninja's size having such an intuitive installation process which should be easy for both novices and seasoned veterans alike.

The only potential negative one could find with this cooler is its price. With an online price that ranges from $50 to $75 dollars, the Ninja Copper is not a cheap investment. If you cannot justify its steep price (especially when the Ninja Rev. B goes for $35-$40) you can hope that some of its design updates will make it into future revisions of the aluminum Ninja. It would be interesting to see a Rev. C with equally spaced heatpipes, great mirror like base paired with that amazing fan.

In the end, if you want a cooler that is not only quiet, but looks great while offering great cooling performance, and you can afford the high price tag, the Scythe Ninja Copper should be at the top of your list. This cooler really is a legend in the making, and it was a real pleasure to put it through its paces. You may want to hurry as this unit is not meant to be massed produced and once they are gone….they are gone forever.


Pros:

- Good cooling performance
- Quiet fan
- Solid Copper
- Multiple Mounting Orientation Options
- High Quality Construction


Cons:

- Heavy
- Price
- Potential Clearance Issues with some types of RAM
- Thin Fan brackets

Thanks to Scythe for providing us with this sample​

http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/air-cooling/5135-scythe-ninja-copper-review-comment-thread.html​