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Posted 20 hours ago

Scythe Big Shuriken 3 Rev.B CPU Air Cooler, 120mm Low Profile (67mm Tall), Intel LGA1700, LGA1151, AMD AM5/AM4/Ryzen

£9.9£99Clearance
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About this deal

Today we introduce you to the Scythe Big Shuriken 3 CPU cooler, which strangely is not that big as far as coolers go, but as the namesake, Shuriken, I'm not sure I'd want to be throwing these at trees. The reason we say this cooler is not that big as far as coolers go is that Scythe imposed its restrictions on the latest design. This is no different for their SFF offering for mini-ITX builds – the Noctua NH-L9. This is a very small CPU cooler with a total height of 37mm (fan and heatsink together) that allows you to have 100% compatibility with RAM and PCIe cards on mini-ITX motherboards.

The Big Shuriken 3 is a mid-sized low-profile CPU cooler that measures 122mm in length, 122mm in width and 69mm in height with a weight of 475g. After testing the default push configuration, I tried flipping the fan so that it pulls air through the Big Shuriken 3 and away from the motherboard instead. In my test runs, this did help shave a degree or two, and I believe I know why. Since I’m using a horizontal test bench, the default push setup would push air through the Big Shuriken 3, then that heated air would rise above the heatsink and get recycled by the fan. However, in the pull setup, air wouldn’t get recycled, so ambient temperature ended up being a little lower. After plotting the data, I was honestly surprised by how well it performed compared to the other heatsinks. Temperatures are only slightly hotter or even on par in the 1.13-1.275 V range. However, unlike the other heatsinks, the Big Shuriken 3 cannot handle the voltage increase much past 1.275 V without the CPU hitting the TJ max, which would lead to throttling. So, the Big Shuriken 3 performed well in the low to mid heat range, but can’t keep up with the larger heatsinks during high heat loads.Each Mini-ITX case features a different clearance for the CPU cooler. Some cases can host even regular size coolers while others are limited to the most compact low-profile coolers around. This means that finding a perfect cooler is more than finding one with great cooling performance and relatively low noise. I am doing a build with an XProto case and want to keep the slim lines of the default XProto. My goal is to use a Ryzen 5900X with the build but a slim air cooler would have issues handling that chip, wouldn't it? The next step is to apply thermal paste to the CPU, and Scythe kindly includes a tube of paste for those who may not have any. I use the “dot” method of applying thermal paste by using a blob of paste the size of a small pea or so to the center of the CPU and let the pressure of the heatsink spread the paste across the CPU. Once the paste is applied, we can mount the Big Shuriken 3 by using a screwdriver and alternating between screws on the crossbar every few turns to apply pressure as evenly as possible until the heatsink is securely mounted.

All testing was performed on an open test bench, which minimizes ambient temperature and gives a “worst case” scenario for sound level. Next, I fired up the 3D Mark CPU profile and compared it to my previous run with a 280mm AIO. The worst bench score had the Big Shuriken 3 only 4.7% behind a 280MM AIO and the peak speed was only 25MHz behind the peak speed on the AIO. The fan on this Noctua cooler is an NF-A9x14 92mm that is capable of 1700 RPM. The cooler can be expected to produce about 19,9 dB(A) in terms of noise levels which is extremely quiet by comparison to other offerings. Ambient temperature was measured with a Fluke 52 II at ~1 inch from the intake fan(s). Then, subtracted from the recorded temperatures to get ΔT.The cooler has pretty good noise levels, even under high load. Max noise is about 41 decibels, which is quite low and shouldn’t bother anyone sans those users who can’t bear any sound coming from their PC. The cooler comes with a low noise adapter that decreases noise even further but lowers performance a bit. Long story short, if you use a left handed A4 sandwich style case with Gigabyte board on AM4 platform, this cooler will be a headache to install. Five product drawings are located at the rear of the box and are used to showcase the product specifications.

Why estimate sound level instead of measuring at further distances? It’s because the meter I’m using is most accurate between 40-130 dBA, so I needed to measure really close to the source to make sure my readings were within that range to get the most accurate measurements. Results Cooling Performance Scythe remains a household name in the air cooling segment of PC hardware due to its well-received heatsinks and fans over the years. Today, we have Scythe’s Big Shuriken 3 which is a low profile cooler aimed at small form factor (SFF) builds and touts a “zero interference” claim for motherboard and RAM. Let’s see how well it holds up against a testbed full of tower heatsinks and all-in-one liquid coolers. Specifications & Features The noise of the Big Shuriken 3 paired with the slim Kaze Flex fan wasn’t the best and was basically identical to the Fuma with a standard Kaze Flex fan. The Big Shuriken 3 is a relatively dense heatsink and it’s paired with a higher RPM fan, so more noise is expected. However, these readings were done on an open test bench with the fans at max speed, so this is the worst-case scenario. So, having a typical enclosed PC at an average distance away would result in almost all the heatsinks in the chart below being reasonable, even at max fan speed. Nothing out of the ordinary to cause alarm about the noise levels here. Finally, low-profile coolers have lesser cooling performance compared to regular air and water CPU coolers, which is expected regarding their size. This means your CPU will run hotter than if it were part of a regular-sized PC. This also means that you have to be extra careful if you own a high-end CPU.Varied Vcore (in BIOS) from 1.125 V to 1.375 V in 0.050 V increments to increase heat. Stopped increasing Vcore once a core reached ~100 °C. In heavy threaded workloads the Big Shuriken 3 will reduce performance a bit but still stay easily withing a reasonable temp range at a noise level that is not terrible. At gaming load with headsets, there is no noise worth mentioning and the performance and temps are awfully close to that of the 280mm AIO.

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