Scythe Ninja Mini CPU heatsink

FINAL CONCLUSIONS

The Scythe Ninja Mini performed admirably despite its smaller size and smaller 80mm fan. Its size allows it to be mounted in smaller cases where cooling is often a bigger issue than in a large tower case. It's dead easy to install on AMD and socket 478 boards, reasonable to install on Intel 775 socket boards, and its modular mounting system ensures compatibility with almost any current socket motherboard. With its modest price tag, it's a good value compared to some of the larger, more dated heatsinks on the market. We could complain that it took too long for Scythe to come up with the Mini, but that's a throwaway remark. They did more than just reduce the height of the Ninja; we have little doubt that the more even distribution of heatpipes through the fins helps the Mini achieve its high performance.

One minor disappointment was Scythe's choice of fan. At full speed the level of noise was a little too high. We're used to seeing much quieter fans included with Scythe heatsinks, so hopefully this does not become a trend. A 92mm, fluid dynamic bearing, 4-pin PWM fan compatible with most current motherboard fan controllers would have made us swoon.

The Mini is a very good cooler, even without any consideration of size or fan type used. But there are several situations where a Scythe Ninja Mini is an excellent choice:

• You're uncomfortable with the prospect of having a heavy/tall tower heatsink inside your system
• Your case cannot fit the huge high performance CPU heatsinks
• You just want a solid budget CPU cooler
• You want a perfect passive CPU cooler in an Antec Fusion/NSK2400 or similar media PC case

Much thanks to Scythe USA for the Scythe Ninja Mini sample.

Our thanks also to....

Gigabyte for the excellent Geforce 7600GT GV-NX76T256D-RH graphics card, and to...
Antec for the Black Fusion media PC case.

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