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Scythe Co., Ltd. began in Japan in 2002, eventually moving forward and landing in the U.S. in 2004. They set their sights on the Do It Yourself (DIY) crowd and they strived to pump out high performing coolers that are also extremely quiet. As a new dog on the street back then, they introduced the Kamikaze CPU Cooler that earned them respect in the cooling community. They are clearly not one of the new dogs on the street anymore. Since the Kamikaze, they have been produced many quiet coolers that have respectable thermal cooling performance.
A little over a year ago we took a look at the Scythe Mine CPU Cooler. With 3 "U" shaped heat pipes rising from the base and a vertically mounted 100mm fan, it is very similar to the Scythe Katana 2 that we will be checking out today. Is this new Scythe Katana 2 a cooler that you might consider for YOUR next build? Let's find out.
| Model |
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| Compatibility |
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| Heatsink Dimensions |
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| Heatsink Weight |
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| Heatsink Material |
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| Fan |
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With the cooler comes the brackets needed to install on the most recent motherboards, a couple stickers, a small amount of thermal compound in a packet and an installation guide. You will have the bare necessities to get you started.
| Cooler | Weight |
| Cooler Master Gemini II (No fans) | 847g |
| Thermaltake Big Typhoon (One 120mm fan) | 813g |
| Thermalright Ultra 120 (No fan) | 745g |
| Zalman 9700 (one 110mm fan) | 764g |
| Gigabyte Rocket 3D II (one 92mm fan, one 70mm fan) | 640g |
| Thermaltake V1 (one 110mm fan) | 637g |
| Scythe Katana 2 | 535g |
| Zalman CNPS9500 (92mm fan) | 530g |
| Thermaltake MaxOrb (one 120mm fan) | 465g |
The Katana 2 is a light weight in comparison to many other recent coolers that we have reviewed, allowing for the convenient pushpin installation and less stress on the motherboard.
CLOSER LOOK
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From this side we see that the heatpipes sit on top of the base plate and a bracket screwed on over top. The fins are at a noticable downware angle that, if placed right on the motherboard, will direct airflow to other components that might especially need more cooling.
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Scythe included a one-screw clamp on the front for those that might prefer to change out the included 100mm fan. Any 25mm thick fan will do the trick, just realize that placing an 'upgraded' fan on this cooler will likely also 'upgrade' the noise that this HSF will produce.
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The base of the Katana 2 has a glossy finish with a smooth, flat surface. This is just what the doctor ordered so the cooler will have maximum contact with the CPU heatspreader. Then we just leave it to our thermal compound to fill in the miniscule gaps. For those observant readers out there, you may have noticed the warning symbol from the protective liner that remained on the base. Don't worry, it didn't affect anything.
INSTALLATION
We don't really see how installation could have been easier, short of the brackets already being installed on the cooler. We just used four screws to secure the socket 775 installation bracket to the base and snapped the pushpins on the motherboard (after applying our own thermal compound of course). Depending on the motherboard, someone with huge fingers may find the two pushpins under the fan to be hard to twist during removal, but we didn't lose any skin in the process.
TESTING
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Today's HardwareLogic Test Bench consists of the following components.
- INTEL Pentium 4 631 Processor
- ASUS P5WD2-E Premium Motherboard
- 2x512mb OCZ PC2-6400 DDR2-800 RAM
- ATI 2400XT Video Card
- Seasonic M12 Modular 500W PSU
- Seagate 80GB SATA-II HDD
- Vista 32bit Home Premium Operating System
- Custom-made open air test bench
While we have much newer CPUs we could throw on this test bed, we have been throwing our latest CPU coolers on this P4 631 processor. Even though Intel has some other chips that tend to run a little hotter, this 631 doesn't lack in the heat department. We like to refer to it as our little "EZ Bake Oven" as we make good attempts to really cook these new CPU coolers.
Arctic Silver Lumiere was used with all coolers in our tests for a couple of reasons. First, nothing but Arctic Silver touches our components, and second, Luminere is the best testing thermal compound available (zero cure time, non-conductive). All testing was done using the following heat sinks in a 74F testing environment. Idle temps were recorded 30 minutes after a cold boot, load temperatures were recorded after 30 minutes of 100% load using two instances of CPU Burn-In. For consistency in testing, all heat sinks were mounted three times, with Arctic Silver's Arctic Clean used between each installation.
- Idle Settings: 3.0Ghz, 1.30V
- Overclocked Settings: 4.2Ghz, 1.425V
| Cooler | Fan Speed | Stock Idle | Stock Load | OC Idle | OC Load |
| Scythe Katana 2 | n/a | 36 | 49 | 42 | 64 |
| Silverstone NT06 | High | 33 | 46 | 39 | 58 |
Low | 36 | 50 | 42 | 64 | |
| Thermaltake Big Typhoon | n/a | 35 | 47 | 40 | 62 |
| Zalman CNPS9700 LED | High | 33 | 45 | 38 | 57 |
Low | 35 | 49 | 42 | 66 | |
| INTEL Stock Cooler | n/a | 39 | 54 | 46 | 74 |
With the CPU at clock speeds the Katana 2 did outperform the stock cooler but couldn't quite keep up with the other coolers we put on our test bed, except at the low speed settings. This was even more noticable when the CPU was overclocked. The Katana 2 does not come with a speed dial to adjust the fan speed, and there is really no need for it since it already runs at near-silent operation. It is just as quiet, if not more so, than other coolers with their fan speeds dialed down. The good news here is the Katana 2 was neck and neck with the other coolers when they were dialed to sound levels nearly the same as the Katana 2.
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| Category | Score | Comments |
| Thermal Performance | 16/20 |
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| Installation | 19/20 |
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| Acoustics | 20/20 |
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| Overclocking | 15/20 |
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| Warranty & Support | 10/10 |
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| Price/Value | 8/10 |
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Our Recommendation
The Scythe Katana 2 seems to be much of a middle-of-the-road cooler in many areas. It has a unique look yet remains modest enough in appearance so as not to be a big eyesore to some people. It clearly outperforms stock coolers. Yet many other third party coolers that are running at full speed clearly outperform the Katana 2. Anyone looking at a cooler, solely for the purpose keeping the processor temps down, should look beyond the Katana 2. There are many other options out there that will do a better job out of the box.
This does not mean that the Katana 2 does not have it's merits. We greatly appreciate the simplicity of having pushpin installation so that it can be easily installed without having to remove the motherboard. The Katana 2 always runs at a near silent sound level. When compared with some highly touted coolers, with the fan speeds dialed down, the Katana 2 hung in there with all of them.
The Scythe Katana 2 would be great pickup for any enthusiast that plans on running their cooler at near-silent operation at all times. It would simply be a waste of money to pick of another cooler for twice as much and leave the fan speed dialed down all the time.
Other Reviews of Note
It's always nice to have more than one opinion on a component before you spend your hard earned money. For one, we may see something others missed, or vice versa. As with all reviews published at HardwareLogic, we'll not only give you our recommendation, but also point out reviews from some other great sites around the web.
Frosty Tech
R&B