Scythe Big Shuriken 3 CPU-Kühler for AMD and Intel CPU´s

Product Information

Scythe has, at least, played it sensible by putting a nice large image of the cooler front and centre with a particular highlight make of its low profile design.

With the next two pictures, we can see the offset design and notched areas of the fin stack to allow for the best possible compatibility among motherboards and RAM. This time over Scythe has placed a black shroud/cover around the cooler which has their logo at the front.Due to the height of the plastic on the rear I/O cover of the motherboard, we did have a clearance issue, which made us have to rotate the cooler 180-degrees, which did lead to some other problems, but we were able to rectify things to suit our needs for testing. One of the latest members to join the Shuriken line of CPU coolers is the Big Shuriken 3 and today we're checking it out. Also in confined spaces, airflow is a premium, and not just in how the chassis provides the influx of ambient airflow, but what in the system can be actively cooled. We would like to thank Scythe for providing us with a review sample of their Big Shuriken 3 heatsink.

Kaze Flex 120 Slim PWM inherits also the rubber decouplers for reduction of vibration transfer as well as the PWM fan control ability. Scythe released two variants of the new low-profile Big Shuriken 3 model, one with a "non-RGB" Kaze Flex Slim fan and one with an RGB fan which we'll probably be testing out later on. All in all, if you have a case that can fit a 70mm tall heatsink, the Scythe Big Shuriken 3 should absolutely be on your shortlist.Along with the Big Shuriken 3 you will also receive a tube with thermal conductive material, double-sided 3M tape, backplate, installation guide and all the bits and pieces required to mount the cooler onto Intel LGA775/1150/1151/1155/1156/1366/2011/2011-3/2066 and AMD AM2/AM2+/AM3/AM3+/AM4/FM1/FM2/FM2+ mainboards. As always our first concern is ambient temperatures so once again we keep the room temperature to around 21-23 degrees (not really hard but unfortunately not 100% accurate as in our lab) and as always to successfully record the load temperatures we use the latest OCCT application (for around 6-10 minutes) to push the processor to its limits so we can record its temperatures. The cooler uses a newly developed Kaze Flex slim RGB fan that delivers a great airflow and an attractive colorful appearance. Overall, we would have liked to have a seen a wee bit bigger box, but there is something to be said for truth in advertising – as once you see this box you will instantly grasp how compact the Big Shuriken 3 really is.

However, in the pull setup, air wouldn’t get recycled, so ambient temperature ended up being a little lower. The top of the cooler is covered with the 17mm Kaze fan with gray rubber corners, which is screwed to the black bracket with the Scythe logo.The wide-space heatsink jointed with 5 sintered heatpipes can transfer and ventilate the heat effectively, and offset design for better compatibility to memory and components on motherboard. Users have the option to replace the pre-installed fan by using a supplied dedicated screw-set with a regular aftermarket fan of 25 mm height, if needed. Some of this is because it was only 12mm thick and all 12mm thick fans are mediocre as cooling fans, but a good chunk was because it was sleeve bearing.