Scythe Ninja - Compatible with AM2 Motherboard?

[gharkins]

Hi, is the Scythe Ninja compatible with the AM2 Socket motherboards? I have the ASUS M2N-SLi Deluxe and would like to purchase the Scythe Ninja for my AMD Athlon X2 4400+ AM2.

Thanks, all replies are greatly appreciated

[SD-Plissken]

Scythe makes new Ninja to fit AM2 processors!

[gharkins]

Thanks. 3 to 5 months is a very long time, and I was looking to get hold of an AM2 heatsink in the next few weeks. Are there any suggestions for a good AM2 CPU cooler? I have seen good reviews on the Thermaltake Big Typhoon, is it compatible with AM2?

[whoatethepies]

I'm in the same boat as you and have decided to use the stock cooler until the revised ninja is out. It should suffice for the time being, and the latest ones aren't actually that bad. Maybe swap the fan if its too loud but that'd only cost a few quid.

[gharkins]

I agree that maybe the stock coolers are OK for the moment. Would you recomend the Scythe Miné? Is it AM2 compatible? The Ninja seems to be the best cooler out at the moment, does the Miné lose much on the Ninja for cooling?

[whoatethepies]

As far as I know the Mine is compatible, though I'm not certain. It's smaller than the Ninja, but has a fan.. Depends what your after really. Ninja will be quieter but without good case ventialtion will cause your CPU to overheat.

[Chris Chan]

The Mine is compatible with AM2. It's designed more with fan cooling in mind, because of the closely spaced fins. It's not a good passive cooler because of that.

[Zorander]

Hi all,

I currently own a Ninja, mated to a s939 A64 chip. I'm thinking of upgrading to an AM2-based system later this year and wondering if I can bring the Ninja along to the new system, i.e. will it fit on an AM2 board?

Cheers!

[thejamppa]

if you have Rev B with retention bracket. If not, then I am not sure if Scythe has AM2 mounting system availeble separately or do you have to buy Rev B...

[Zorander]

I purchased my Ninja in late 2005, so I don't believe it is a rev. B (and the AM2 system was not around yet at that time). Is the retention system of AM2 boards the same as socket 940 ones (for which the Ninja is compatible with)?

Cheers!

[thejamppa]

retention system is different. In new system Ninja is attached retention bracket and not with screws. And AM2 has 4 screws in all four corners while K8 has two screws middle so its hard to fit. I think you could mod LGA-775 attachment somehow fitting for AM2 but I am not sure.

Too bad you don't live in FInland. I could exchange my rev B. into your original for free then.

[Erssa]

I purchased my Ninja in late 2005, so I don't believe it is a rev. B (and the AM2 system was not around yet at that time). Is the retention system of AM2 boards the same as socket 940 ones (for which the Ninja is compatible with)?

Cheers!

No, it's not the same. I don't think there's an easy way to mount the original ninja to AM2 boards. Buying rev.b retention wouldn't do any good either because the rev.b retension is screwed to the bottom of the heatsink and rev.a doesn't have screw holes for that purpose.

Why would you upgrade AM2? S939 should still be pretty fast, you would get practically no improvement by swithing to AM2. And if it's performance what you want C2D is still better then the current AMD offerings. Rev.A ninja also is superior to Rev.B, when it comes to S775.

[Zorander]

Why would you upgrade AM2? S939 should still be pretty fast, you would get practically no improvement by swithing to AM2. And if it's performance what you want C2D is still better then the current AMD offerings. Rev.A ninja also is superior to Rev.B, when it comes to S775.

I've been trying to figure out my upgrade path for the system listed in my sig. I originally thought of simply upgrading to the s939 X2 CPUs, like the X2 4400+ or 4600+, but they are apparently rare and prohibitively expensive. I figured for that price I might as well upgrade the mobo and get a similarly-rated (and yet cheaper) CPU. Of course, I realise I will have to get DDR2 RAM modules, on the cons side. Do you have recommendations on what will make a good upgrade from where I am (and considering I still want to be able to use the Ninja, passively, like I do now).

Also, what is C2D?

Cheers!

[Erssa]

I've been trying to figure out my upgrade path for the system listed in my sig. I originally thought of simply upgrading to the s939 X2 CPUs, like the X2 4400+ or 4600+, but they are apparently rare and prohibitively expensive. I figured for that price I might as well upgrade the mobo and get a similarly-rated (and yet cheaper) CPU.

I assume you don't play much games, because your graphics is already a bit outdated, so why do you need the extra cpu power for? I have x2 3800+ and I know it's plenty fast for normal usage and adequate for gaming as well.

Of course, I realise I will have to get DDR2 RAM modules, on the cons side. Do you have recommendations on what will make a good upgrade from where I am (and considering I still want to be able to use the Ninja, passively, like I do now).

I'd still question the need for an upgrade. In december I felt my computer felt a bit sluggish while heavily multitasking, so I upgraded to 2gbs of memory and it did wonders for overall performance. No hickups anymore. DDR memory is also dirt cheap atm.

Have you considered slight overclocking without raising voltage? It shouldn't increase your power consumption at idle and it would give you a bit of extra performance for free. Switching to AM2 wouldn't give you a significant performance boost, especially when compared to the costs of upgrading.

Also, what is C2D?

Core 2 Duo, it's the latest Intel processor, way faster then current AMDs.

[Zorander]

I assume you don't play much games, because your graphics is already a bit outdated, so why do you need the extra cpu power for? I have x2 3800+ and I know it's plenty fast for normal usage and adequate for gaming as well.

While not a hardcore gamer, I do play the occasional games, such as Oblivion and HoMM V. With the former, my system (& GPU) is barely enough to pull off a reasonable performance. I had to make do with a resolution of 1024x768 and, even with that, things can still get sluggish especially when there is a lot going on. I plan to play the expansion once it's out (is it out? I haven't checked), and I'm hoping to have a system to 'better deliver the experience'.

Also, the X2 3800+ tends to be inadequate for playing Hi-def (1280x720 resolution) H264-encoded video files. Under Windows XP 32-bit anyway (it works well under x64; I can't find an explanation). I figure a little extra speed might help there.

I'd still question the need for an upgrade. In december I felt my computer felt a bit sluggish while heavily multitasking, so I upgraded to 2gbs of memory and it did wonders for overall performance. No hickups anymore. DDR memory is also dirt cheap atm.

I forgot to mention I had since upgraded my memory to 2GB as well. It does make any thoughts of upgrading to DDR2 modules a bit hard to swallow at this stage.

Have you considered slight overclocking without raising voltage? It shouldn't increase your power consumption at idle and it would give you a bit of extra performance for free. Switching to AM2 wouldn't give you a significant performance boost, especially when compared to the costs of upgrading.

I don't know much about overclocking and I prefer to have guaranteed stability rather than any little bit of performance boost afforded by o/c. I might look into it anyway.

Core 2 Duo, it's the latest Intel processor, way faster then current AMDs.

Really? I suppose I will still need DDR2 modules with C2D CPUs right? Is the performance difference large enough to make the additional investment worth it? How are the temperatures of C2D?


Cheers!

[Erssa]

While not a hardcore gamer, I do play the occasional games, such as Oblivion and HoMM V. With the former, my system (& GPU) is barely enough to pull off a reasonable performance. I had to make do with a resolution of 1024x768 and, even with that, things can still get sluggish especially when there is a lot going on. I plan to play the expansion once it's out (is it out? I haven't checked), and I'm hoping to have a system to 'better deliver the experience'.

Also, the X2 3800+ tends to be inadequate for playing Hi-def (1280x720 resolution) H264-encoded video files. Under Windows XP 32-bit anyway (it works well under x64; I can't find an explanation). I figure a little extra speed might help there.

Better graphics card would go a long way, both for gaming and encoding. Even a cheap graphics card would go a long way, but something like x1950pro can be bought for around 150 euros pci-e and around 200 euros for AGP (I suspect you have AGP?). This would drop your cpu load to low levels in encoding and also completely change your gaming experience. Check this xbit article for more information for hardware (graphics) accelerated media encoding.

Have you considered slight overclocking without raising voltage? It shouldn't increase your power consumption at idle and it would give you a bit of extra performance for free. Switching to AM2 wouldn't give you a significant performance boost, especially when compared to the costs of upgrading.

I don't know much about overclocking and I prefer to have guaranteed stability rather than any little bit of performance boost afforded by o/c. I might look into it anyway.

It's not hard, at least if you only do only a small 10-20% overclock.

Core 2 Duo, it's the latest Intel processor, way faster then current AMDs.

Really? I suppose I will still need DDR2 modules with C2D CPUs right? Is the performance difference large enough to make the additional investment worth it? How are the temperatures of C2D?

If you decide to upgrade, you'd need ddr2 for Intel aswell. Is the performance difference worth the extra price? By upgrading to AMD it would be hard to justify the price, but for Intel... maybe. Here's a link to Anandtech review of lastest AMD x2 6000+ processor running at 3000Mhz. You can see, that for example 2.13Ghz Intel E6400 is as fast in Oblivion as 2.6Ghz AMD x2 5000+. In finland E6400 is priced around 210 euros, that's about the same as AMD x2 5000+. Other then Olivion E6400 is faster in just about every benchmark (just check the encoding benchmarks) and also in power consumption under load.

You know considering everything I think you'd be suprised how much you'd benefit for a mere upgrade on graphics. I wouldn't recommend upgrading anything else.

[Zorander]

You know considering everything I think you'd be suprised how much you'd benefit for a mere upgrade on graphics. I wouldn't recommend upgrading anything else.

This is the very line I've been wanting to hear! It simplifies a lot of things for me.

With respect to upgrading the video card, I am considering the x1950Pro AGP, but I may also consider the older x850XT if only because it comes with the analog/D-sub output (I don't know if using a DVI-to-VGA converter is a good idea for image quality) and also because I can get an original ATI model (the x1950Pro cards I can find here are all 3rd-party builds). What do you think of this?

Cheers!

[Greg F.]

for intruding, but since the title of the thread is Scythe and AM2, may I ask how difficult it is to attach the Scythe Revision B to an AM2 board? Specifically the Abit Kn9. I once tried to attach a Katana to a Socket A and I cussed Scythe so much that I didn't think I would ever buy one of their products again. But I do need a heatsink for this motherboard. So, can the somewhat inept attach this heatsink? Have Scythe figured out how to write an instruction manual?
Thank you in advance for any responses.
Greg

[MikeC]

for intruding, but since the title of the thread is Scythe and AM2, may I ask how difficult it is to attach the Scythe Revision B to an AM2 board? Specifically the Abit Kn9. I once tried to attach a Katana to a Socket A and I cussed Scythe so much that I didn't think I would ever buy one of their products again. But I do need a heatsink for this motherboard. So, can the somewhat inept attach this heatsink? Have Scythe figured out how to write an instruction manual?
Thank you in advance for any responses.
Greg

imo, the Scythe "manuals" are fine.... but then you id yourself as somewhat inept... imo, the clip for AMD processors is easy to use. The illustrations in the manual show this clearly. http://www.scythe-usa.com/product/cpu/0 ... njaAM2.pdf

[Greg F.]

the link leads to a nice buncha pictures pertaining to 775. I am speaking of AM2.

[MikeC]

So it does... corrected.

[Greg F.]

that looks so easy a caveman could do it. I will order one today. thanks again.

[Greg F.]

Just to let you know, even the somewhat inept can mount this heatsink on an AM2 blindfolded. Seriously, I did it blindfolded.

[EV10]

With respect to upgrading the video card, I am considering the x1950Pro AGP, but I may also consider the older x850XT if only because it comes with the analog/D-sub output (I don't know if using a DVI-to-VGA converter is a good idea for image quality) and also because I can get an original ATI model (the x1950Pro cards I can find here are all 3rd-party builds). What do you think of this?

I'd rather consider 8600 very closely. Or, at least, 7900 series - they have low consumption and heat, which is important here.

I haven't noticed any effect with the DVI-I adapter. Is your monitor 21-24", running at 1600x1200, and is it connected via BNC inputs? If not, it will decidedly have no noticeable effect, and probably even if yes. That's not a real converter, DVI-I already contains all the VGA pins, so that little thing has no electronics, simply changes pin layout.