scythe is german ? I thought they were japanese or something.

^ same

From https://www.scytheus.com/about-us Scythe Co., Ltd., (Registered and incorporated in Tokyo Japan) originally started its business operation in Japan’s famous “Akihabara Electric Town” located in the metropolitan Tokyo, where visitors can find a variety of products from the latest computer parts to the world’s most advanced high-tech electric devices. Scythe Co., Ltd., began its operation and business since November 2002 as a distributor and the manufacturer of passive and low-noise PC parts including CPU cooler, case fan, and accessory. Since then, the company has established the R&D facility in Taiwan & China for production and quality control, and the USA office & European office for customer care and sales support. At Scythe, we believe that the best ideas for the product come simply from knowing customers’ needs and their expectations. Based on this philosophy, the PC enthusiasts working at Scythe know what to develop because that is exactly what we would like to have for ourselves too! We offer products with 100% quality assurance and total pride, and if the product has the Scythe name on it, you can rest assure that its quality will be up to the “Zero Tolerance” standards!

No RGB? Oh dear. Nevermind, I'll write Schyte in my book as a firm with backbone and unaltered image.

cucaulay malkin:

scythe is german ? I thought they were japanese or something.

Exactly. "German Manufacturer"??? I love Scythe and all Japanese products. It's a international company originating from Japan.

I like this cooler. Thank you Hilbert for posting this review.

tty8k:

I have the Mugen max version which is pretty similar except I use a custom high pressure 140mm fan. Very close to noctua DH 15 at lower price and doesn't affect the ram slots.

but comes with only one fan, and no clips for additional fan

@tty8k ah ok... so does the 5 (120mm though) DH 15 can be a bit of pain its ok if you have 1 monster, but having a monster CPU cooler + monster GPU + monster RAM can spell trouble I couldn't fit Accelero IV in the 1st PCI-e slot.

cucaulay malkin:

scythe is german ? I thought they were japanese or something

Corrected, my mistake. The EU HQ is in Germany.

Seems solid. Temps look good and pretty close to my NH-D15. Tested on the 3700x though. I'm guessing the gap would widen using this on a 5800x for example. Still, for the price, not bad. Fairly compact too. I've just been thinking out loud, but is there even a way to improve on air cooling past the NH-D15? How would that go?

metagamer:

I've just been thinking out loud, but is there even a way to improve on air cooling past the NH-D15? How would that go?

case+case fan setup+thermal compound

Noisiv:

@tty8k ah ok... so does the 5 (120mm though) DH 15 can be a bit of pain its ok if you have 1 monster, but having a monster CPU cooler + monster GPU + monster RAM can spell trouble I couldn't fit Accelero IV in the 1st PCI-e slot.

d15s ftw

cucaulay malkin:

case+case fan setup+thermal compound

I mean you can mess with thermal compound but I was more on about changing the fin stack and fans. Maybe they could squeeze in a couple more heatpipes and tweak the fin stack. But that would probably make it too big. I don't know.

metagamer:

I mean you can mess with thermal compound but I was more on about changing the fin stack and fans. Maybe they could squeeze in a couple more heatpipes and tweak the fin stack. But that would probably make it too big. I don't know.

or too heavy create too much air obstruction imo the limit for air cooling performance/noise has been reached

cucaulay malkin:

or too heavy create too much air obstruction imo the limit for air cooling performance/noise has been reached

Yeah, that's what I think, because no matter how I look at the NH-D15, I just can't quite see how it could be improved. The beauty of the NH-D15 and other good air coolers in fact is that those fans sit right over the RAM sticks blowing air over them, plus the VRMs. I'm sure Noctua and others employ top people so I'm not even sure why I'm brainstorming on how to improve it.

metagamer:

I just can't quite see how it could be improved.

Most important part of any cooler is bottom base. If it has a weird pattern, rough surface finish and cheap material it's gonna suck. Can that be improved? Yes, always. But maybe not to point where it's profitable to sell. With current costs of materials and traditional machining applications, yes, "it's most likely close to best performance" Mugen seems to do it very good. Smooth base.

I would assume that the Mugen-5 will fit my "Alder Lake Intel CPU" upgrade in a few months time including a new Z690 MB. With Scythe introducing a new air-cooler this late in the year and with major tech-changes on the short horizon, it should have been prominently mentioned that Scythe will in fact be standing behind any of their new cooler products being purchased and keeping their customers whole. I would further hope that ANY cooler manufacturers out there will do the same and or offer free CPU mount adaptors or new AIO pump heads in making a transition to a new Gen CPU (socket) a snap for their valued customers and those who purchased over the past 12-months. Since I have not heard otherwise, I personally will not be purchasing any type of new coolers this year and waiting out the market. Hello Corsair! Buying a new cooler of any type right now and it essentially being outdated in less than 90-days to me is like throwing $$$ out of the window. I would further (soon) like to see official Intel communication certifying exact Alder Lake CPU cooling requirements and minimum cooler die-sizings to becoming better informed and especially by comparing this information to third party cooler hardware or paid tech-channel testing being proffered. The Alder Lake generation exercise will probably increase the cost for all yet to be introduced and 100% compatible new cooling products this October by a cool 25%-30% and in line with the costs slated for the new Z690 MB's.

Tom Sunday:

I would assume that the Mugen-5 will fit my "Alder Lake Intel CPU" upgrade in a few months time including a new Z690 MB. With Scythe introducing a new air-cooler this late in the year and with major tech-changes on the short horizon, it should have been prominently mentioned that Scythe will in fact be standing behind any of their new cooler products being purchased and keeping their customers whole. I would further hope that ANY cooler manufacturers out there will do the same and or offer free CPU mount adaptors or new AIO pump heads in making a transition to a new Gen CPU (socket) a snap for their valued customers and those who purchased over the past 12-months. Since I have not heard otherwise, I personally will not be purchasing any type of new coolers this year and waiting out the market. Hello Corsair! Buying a new cooler of any type right now and it essentially being outdated in less than 90-days to me is like throwing $$$ out of the window. I would further (soon) like to see official Intel communication certifying exact Alder Lake CPU cooling requirements and minimum cooler die-sizings to becoming better informed and especially by comparing this information to third party cooler hardware or paid tech-channel testing being proffered. The Alder Lake generation exercise will probably increase the cost for all yet to be introduced and 100% compatible new cooling products this October by a cool 25%-30% and in line with the costs slated for the new Z690 MB's.

Noctua offer free mounting kits for sockets that came out after you bought the cooler.

that name i have not heard in while?, I use to use there case fans in my pc, I think we starting to see that air cooler pushing there limits for these 6c/12 or even 8c/16t cpu. To me anything above 65c full load it to high, i wonder how much farther they can push air coolers to keep those temps under full load. anything over 70c is no no for me on cpu and if it hiting 90c kick my paranoia in. the full load temp of current cpu are bit to high for taste.

tsunami231:

that name i have not heard in while?, I use to use there case fans in my pc, I think we starting to see that air cooler pushing there limits for these 6c/12 or even 8c/16t cpu. To me anything above 65c full load it to high, i wonder how much farther they can push air coolers to keep those temps under full load. anything over 70c is no no for me on cpu and if it hiting 90c kick my paranoia in. the full load temp of current cpu are bit to high for taste.

You say that because you're running a 6700k, they run cool. I've learnt that with a 5800x if I leave everything on default, on full load it'll shoot to over 80C as soon as you put the load on the CPU. Sure there's things you can do to negate that behaviour but yeah, some of these modern chips do run hot.

I'm using a Scythe Fuma2 to cool my Ryzen 7 3800X and under load it gets up to 72-74 degrees at stock settings (depending on how hot it is in the room, with the current summer weather my computer room can get toasty). I've considered upgrading to a 5800X, but I heard that that chip runs hotter than my 3800X, so I'm not sure that the Fuma2 could handle that.