Scythe Andy Samurai Master CPU heatsink/fan

TOP FLOW ADVANTAGE?

This refers to the claim made in the Andy's marketing blurb, about how the straight down fan airflow helps to cool the motherboard components (like voltage regulators and chips) better than parallel-to-the-motherboard type tower designs. Unless a test is designed specifically for it, this claim is difficult to deny or verify.

What we do know is that if the voltage regulators get too hot, their efficiency drops, and the system ends up drawing more power. We usually monitor the AC power draw of the test system as a matter of routine. We also pay attention to the DC power drawn by the AUX12V (2x12V) socket that powers the motherboard voltage regulators and the CPU. If the power draw under our CPU stress testing varies, usually that's a sign that we should pay attention to whatever is causing this.

The DC power draw with the CPU under high stress measured 78W when we examined it while setting up the test platform. That included tests runs with three tower style heatsinks, the Ninja, Zalman 9500 and Thermalright Ultra 120. The measurement remained at 78W with the Andy, too, so at least for our test setup and conditions, there was no apparent top flow advantage. This doesn't mean there will never be any advantage; overclock the CPU and put it in a case with dual 8800s... and you'd probably see an advantage over the tower heatsinks, especially with a high airflow fan.

NOISE RECORDINGS IN MP3 FORMAT

Scythe Andy Samurai Master (DFS122512L): 5V-7V-9V-12V, 5s Ambient between levels: One Meter, One Foot

Comparatives:

Arctic Cooling Alpine 64: 5V-7V-9V-12V, 5s Ambient between levels: One Meter, One Foot

Scythe Mine w/ stock fan: 5V-7V-9V-12V, 5s Ambient between levels: One Meter, One Foot

Nexus 120mm fan: 5V-7V-9V-12V, 5s Ambient between levels: One Meter, One Foot

FINAL CONCLUSIONS

The Andy Samurai Master joins the long roster of Scythe heatsinks that reached SPCR's top ranks of quiet, high performance coolers. While it sets no new records, the ASM's cooling ability is good enough for consideration by any performance-oriented computer enthusiast. It doesn't need to set any new records; for the first time since the invention of the PC, current CPUs are actually running cooler today than the ones from a year ago. The fact that this heatsink comes with a very quiet fan that's among the best we've heard is icing on the cake.

The interleaved fin design is a bit different from the tower style Infinity, resulting in tighter spacing. The Infinity clearly performed better with low airflow. The tighter spacing in the fins of the Andy is the obvious cause for this difference.

We wonder why Scythe continues its trend of tighter spacing between fins. It's possible that with a very high speed fan (say 100 CFM) and a very hot CPU, the Andy could edge just about everything else on the market for cooling performance. However, such performance is not really called for. In for forseeable future, even with quad core, the thermal characteristic of desktop CPUs are not going to exceed the worst excesses of the Intel P4 Prescott era — and Scythe's earlier coolers can already handle such monsters without super high airflow.

For most potential buyers, the question is whether the straight down airflow design of the ASM suits overall component and case cooling better than the parallel-to-motherboard airflow design of the tower heatsinks which now dominate high end coolers. Among straight down airflow designs, we can think of no other cooler that does better than the Andy Samurai Master today.

Much thanks to Scythe USA for the Andy Samurai Master sample.

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