No problem. If I use a clear fan I will still be able to see the activity lights on the memory.

With all the fiddly nooks and crannies on that heat sink, I would think it'd be fairly easy to bend up your own wires to mount a fan wherever you wanted.

I'm curious to how motherboard temps, memory temps, and especially northbridge temperatures varied with the use of this cooler in passive mode and versus a cooler that has a fan blowing down onto the motherboard.

If I'm not mistaken, the passive NB HS usually are designed to take the airflow off of the CPU HSF right?

Does the sideways blowing fan of this cooler "skip" over the northbridge? And in passive mode (like set up in the P180) does the airflow over the NB decrease in a drastic amount, or is the airflow adequate enough to cool these hot chipsets?

Thank you.

Immediately after I read the review I impulsively ordered one so I was a little worried at first, but as long as the fan can sit on top of or above the memory, there should be a way to mount it. - FG

I'm also still running a socket A/462 - so no-go here until I bother getting a new machine - at which time I most probably will get this cooler! (if asetek's vapochill micro isn't too good).

Very good question. This is the topic of an article that I am working on right now. The short answer is that as long as there is a small amount of airflow across the motherboard being created by the HS fan, PSU fan and/or the case exhaust fan, all is fine with all the components you mention. There are exceptions when you combine very low airflow and certain very high power CPUs / chipsets -- the efficiency of voltage regulators, in particular, can be dramatically affected by inadequate cooling.

Ok cool I can't wait for that article.

I currently have a very poorly designed case with very little allowable airflow (I have the TJ05, I could cut the case, but I need to return it due to it being broke, so I'm waiting until the P180 gets reviewed before sending this one in).

I have an Asus P5AD2-E Premium board, and an XP-120. All 120mm fans are Antec, with all on high.

Chipset temps as measured by my thermal probe routinely hit 45-50C, and in high-use, such as high disk I/O and CPU usage, it can get as high as 55-60C. Overclocking with these temperatures is a no go: The chipset is just too unstable at these temps.

I am using a 3.4GHz P4 Prescott (I know, I know...) and this by itself puts out a lot of heat.

So, what I'm curious about is how cool the airflow needs to be in order to be "ok". In otherwords, what should the case temp be in conjunction with the airflow?

Mine right now is around 38-45C in idle/load. So, my chipset gets a lot of airflow with the fans, but I am thinking (and common sense tells me) that my case temp is just too high for any "airflow" to have any kind of cooling effect on component temperatures.

Thank you.

with this product, esp in the p180 picture, it is really clear how choosing/designing the cpu heatsink and the case together is a good idea. particularly for low noise/low airflow systems. when you put heat source inside a box, like a cpu inside a case, it doesn't make sense to consider them as two separate systems (the cpu cooling and the case airflow). from the point of view of airflow management, they're coupled so much that they're basically the one system. and when aiming for a configuration with best airflow (i.e. most efficient cooling for low flows) it starts to look suboptimal to have something like xp-120 with a fan sucking or blowing along the width axis of the case.

one fix was intel's duct in the case side over the cpu (chassis air guide intake). the other option is this ninja kind of idea. i suppose it's up to careful measurements and experiment to determine which, if either, is a better design direction.

this does look promising. am also interested to read the article concerning the effects on the mobo's VR etc




i suppose because spcr was sent a ninja and not a ncu-2005?
but seriously, i guess the ninja would be better in the p180 setup because it has the correct axes for airflow with respect to the case fans (see IsaacKuo earlier post). looks like the 2005 thing encourages only one of those airflow directions.

actually with all the previous tower heatsinks i can remember there has always this question of which direction it would do best mounted in - i like the way this design prevents you from worrying about that

I suppose that's true.

However, if I know what most people are going to do if they are silent enthusiasts... they are going to close up that top blowhole and let the rear fan do all the work.

Seems to me, if you can mount the NCU-2005 the correct way, it would be the best to use, according to that graph in the other thread.

Not doubting this review, as I am seriously thinking about getting the Ninja for my P180 case... since I don't think I'm going to be closing up the top blowhole. But we'll see.

just for those who are curious; I went from a NCU-2005 to a Ninja (actually now using my second system with a Ninja). I found much better near-passive cooling wih the Ninja, even when the case airflow was biased in a single axis.

And for those concerned about weight:

-Do not try this at home-

My motherboard is currently sitting on a shelf in the mobo tray of a P160. While it was running I picked it up, turned it on it's side, and shock it quite hard. Considering I am still typing this post, the resuls were favorable.

One of the advantages of the P180 compared to other cases is that the PSU is placed in a separate thermal zone from the CPU. Keeping that in mind, I think you can probably get away with closing off the blowhole. No idea how well it would function in a regular case, though.

If one is interested into a comparism of the Ninja and the Shogun (and NCU-2005), just check this german page: http://www.dirkvader.de/page/Scythe_Towers/index.html.

Conclusion: Ninja is best at 660rpm and 1500rpm, NCU is best at passive. Fan used was the one supplied with the Shogun.

The Dell 8400 I bought with a P4 3.2 was also using this heatsink with a plastic duct around it that goes to the rear case fan.

i've asked about tower designs before it appears that ninja is a good implementation of the idea

I guess some of you haven't seen ddrueding1's experience with a Scythe Ninja and an A64E.
First I thought that he had a very good CPU, but now I realize it's a very good HSF as well!

I'm just waiting to se some serious reviews of Asetek Vapochill Micro and Zalman CNPS 9500, they both look interesting.
MikeC: You didn't happen to get any of them from Taiwan?

http://www.vr-zone.com/?i=2316&s=24

looks like there is a copper one in the works.

And a VGA heatsink.

Insane. Absoutely insane.

wouldn't that weigh more than a truck? and how much better than Al do you think it would perform

IIRC, the copper version is not necessarily planned for release. The Scythe folks told me at Computex that there are many iterations of products that they play with but never actually put into production -- which makes sense for a company that shows as much ingenuity as Scythe. They do show such samples for attention and discussion value at shows. This item, I am sure, is one that will never see a SKU.

Would you give us your impression on the weight and stability of the Ninja MikeC?

I know you said that most of the weight is in the base, but it just looks scary to me. For example, would you be afraid to pick up your PC and driving it to a lanparty without taking the Ninja off first?

popupsquad -- I don't have much experience transporting my PCs around, but I think if it could be set down in the car so that the MB was horizontal, it would be no problem.

I have the Thermalright 900U which is 587g without a fan, plus an Evercool aluminum 92mm fan that weighs over 272g. 859g total, the Ninja is a measly 687g in comparison (without a fan). I've moved my case and placed it horizontally in the car driving 200 miles at a time and have had no problems.

Thanks MikeC and Shadowknight, that helps. I was planning to get an XP-120 before I saw this review and that was my only worry about switching.

The Ninja seems like it'll be much better just from an airflow perspective--with a 120mm on the right side of the Ninja pushing air into it and the 120mm exhaust fan two inches away pulling air out of it. Not to mention what looks like an easier installation.

Just following up on the Ninja vs. NCU-2005 discussion.

I emailed Scythe Co., Ltd. (Japan) regarding this subject a couple of months ago. Below are the questions I asked and the answers I received:

<me> I would like to know how the "SCNJ-1000 Ninja Fanless Heatpipe CPU Cooler" cooler compares to the NCU-2005. Is is better, worse, etc?

<scythe> As for the SCNJ-1000 Ninja fanless heatsink, it would be rated lower than the NCU-2005 as NCU-2005 is the high-end fanless heatsink with heatlane technology (heatlane technology can transfer the heat much faster and efficient than the normal heatpipe system). This also reflects to the price between NCU-2005 and SCNJ-1000.

<me> So is the NCU-2005 the very best fanless CPU cooler you provide, or is there something even better available?

<scythe> At this moment, NCU-2005 is the very best fanless heatsink we provide. SCNJ-1000 Ninja fanless heatsink is the 2nd best which we wanted to introduce a more affordable fanless cooler into the market.

So based on that advice I was planning to go with the NCU-2005. But after reading this thread the general consensus appears to be that the Ninja is the better of the two.

All in all, im confused

sipitai --

Just choose one or the other. You'd probably be happy with either.

I just had a thought:

Is the SCNJ-1000 Ninja REALLY orientation independent?

It looks like there are 3 heatpipes in one orientation next to the CPU in one layer, and then 3 more heatpipes in the perpendicular orientation in a second layer.

Logically, you'd think that the first layer of heatpipes will cool the CPU more effectively than the second layer of heatpipes. Right?

Thus, depending on how the heatsink is installed, it might be slightly more effective with airflow toward the rear, or with airflow toward the top of the case.

Am I making sense, here?

Maybe, maybe not, but my guess is no. The connection between all the heatpipes and the base looks very good, it's hard to imagine there'd be much difference, if any. And even if there was, the fins themselves spread the heat out anyway, so...

You know I was wondering about a variation of this question. Generally, my question applies to some of the vertical tower designs. One of them is the Thermaltake Sonic Tower, of which I was wondering, if you have a fan running on it (either on the side or sandwiched) the downwind pipes are going to be fed warm air from the upwind side. Would this translate into tempeature gradient at the cpu surface, and thus a constant stress in the silicon? Does anything like that, if it exists at all, matter in the sceme of things , perhaps in relation to processor lifespan?

ON another note, beside the weight issue, I think the passive northbridge temperature is the most critical issue of not having stray downdraft air. I base this on a test that someone did online of a tower design a while back. If I find it I will post the link of that showed the temperatures.

PS. What is the designated maximum heatsink weight from AMD, and also from Intel. Will my board warp over time with this thing on. By the way, I appreciate the assurance that most all the weight is in the base.

The maximum weights from Intel and AMD are for shipping, not stationary mounting. Unless you're moving the thing really roughly, it shouldn't damage your motherboard in any way... but I wouldn't take bets on how safe the Sonic Tower is, though. There;s a picture on the forum showing the centre of gravity to be about 1/3 of the length of the heatsink.

I am building a new computer from scratch and this heatsink looks tempting. I'll be getting a Athlon 64 3500+ and *probably* a Gigabyte K8N Ultra-9 motherboard. It will be going in an Antec SLK3000-B case.

My question is, will this heatsink fit without blocking anything? And as I'm not overclocking anything, could I operate in fanless mode or should I just get a Nexus fan @ 5V?

EDIT: ddrueding1 apparently has the same CPU and motherboard as I, but his signature gives no clue as to his case.