More cooling products from Scythe, Ashura’s little brother – The Kotetsu.
A very welcomed surprise !
First about Scythe:
Scythe Co., LTD originated in the Akihabara Electric Town of Tokyo Japan in 2002 and has since started to offer services all over the world in places like Germany, Taiwan, China and even the United States.
Started off as a distributor and manufacturer of passive and low-noise PC components.
Since then they have opened up R&D facilities in Taiwan and China to monitor production and quality control while their offices in Los Angeles, USA and Hamburg, Germany are for customer care and sales support.
Scythe now offer a nice range of products including CPU coolers, fans, PC Accessories, input devices, HDD enclosures and even some audio accessories.
Price when reviewed: £ 35.31 – via Amazon.co.uk
Scythe Kotetsu SCKTT-1000 – processor cooler
Presentation
Features
M.A.P.S
The new Kotetsu also draws on the highly proven M.A.P.S. already having shown excellent results with the Mugen 3. Thanks to the optimized arrangement of the fins, pass-through airflow inside the heatsink is ramped up, leading to even better cooling performance.
Newly Developed Mounting System
Another new feature can be seen is the Kotetsu’s new mounting system. Based on the over-the-years experience of CPU cooler mounting sytems and Scythe expertise, the kotetsu mounting was designed with the keywords “simplicity” and “reliability” in mind.
GlideStream 120 PWM
The supplied new Glide Stream 120 PWM fan with its’ unique blade design is automatically controlled by the motherboard’s PWM function, the temperature adjusts to the CPU.
Specification (courtesy of their well detailed site)
» Model Name – Kotetsu CPU Cooler
» Model Number – SCKTT-1000
» Intel® Compatibility
Socket LGA 775 , Socket LGA 1150 , Socket LGA 1155 , Socket LGA 1156 , Socket LGA 1366 , Socket LGA 2011 (Square ILM)
» AMD® Compatibility
Socket AM2 , Socket AM2+ , Socket AM3 , Socket AM3+ , Socket FM1 , Socket FM2 , Socket FM2+ (NOTE: Please note that for mounting on motherboards with the AMD-Socket, the original back plate of the motherboard will be necessary. Please check prior to your purchase.
» Overall Dimensions – 130 x 58 x 160 mm / 5.12 x 2.28 x 6.3 in (WxDXH)
» Weight – 480 g / 16.93 oz (Heatsink only)
» Baseplate Material – Nickel-plated copper
» Fan Model Name – GlideStream 120 PWM
» Fan Model Number – SY1225HB12SM-P
» Fan Size – 120 x 120 x 25 mm / 4.72 x 4.72 x 0.98 mm
» Noise Level – 5.3 ~ 28.0 dBA
» Air Flow – 20.7 ~ 79 CFM
» Fan Speed – 400 rpm (±200) ~ 1400 rpm (±10%) (PWM-regulated)
» Static Pressure – 1,18 ~ 15.3 Pa / 0,12 ~ 1.56 mmH²O
» Bearing Type – Sleeve Bearing
Packaging and content
Comes in a nice box with everything explained and detailed on almost every side.
Inside, the first thing we see is the black top plate of the cooler.
The everything out and we have the following:
The 120 PWM GlideStream fan.
The instruction manual.
Then box of accessories which contains:
– Mounting plate x2 (Intel)
– Mounting plate x2 (AMD)
– Mounting bar x1
– Screws for clips x4
– Mainboard screws x8
– Mounting screws x2
– Back plate spacer (Socket 775) x1,
– Washers x4
– Wrench x1
– Fan clips x2
– Thermal grease
– Backplate
– Installation manual
Visual examination
The Kotetsu has a traditional composition for a budget tower cooler.
Its 56 aluminum fins are friction-fit to 4 x 6 mm thick copper heatpipes, which in-turn, are soldered to a nickel-plated copper base.
The 4 heatpipes for a closer look.
Again the finish is very good including the nickel-plated all-copper base.
And not least the top brush metal black finish plate that gives its distinctive look.
Installation
We used a mATX motherboard, (Foxconn G31 LGA 775) where, due to space constrictions everything is more packed together like memory modules placement so we can see if there are any clearance issues.
First step is to secure the backplate via thumb crews with washers.
No clearance problems so far.
Then you chose between Intel and AMD specific side plate/brackets which are secured also with screws.
Don’t forget the thermal paste, choose your cooler orientation and secure it via this middle plate with 2 screws.
Scythe include this very handy angled wrench.
And the installed heatsink.
No problems at all.
We also mounted it in the other orientation to check everything.
Testing methodology
The CPU will be tested in 2 main scenarios: at stock settings and then overclocked both with a Prime 95 test run.
We used Prime95 as the ‘torture test’ with the option “In place large FFT” so it will use 100 % of the CPU power including the hyper threading feature.
Let it ran for 30 minutes and the let the CPU 10 minutes to cool , after which we measured the idle temperature.
To control the fans we used the auto feature of MSI’s own control center program.
To read the temperatures we used the AIDA 64 and Core Temp.
For the noise we used our Pyle PSPL01 placed 30 cm away from the setup.
Our PSU has a semifanless option then we removed the video card and used the iGPU from the processor so more heat and to further eliminate any extra noise.
Thermal paste used was the supplied Scythe one in the content of the Kotetsu.
We compared the results with other tower cooler and even a low profile one.
All of these we used the same fan the Noiseblocker eLOPP 120 MM PWM B-12P with CFM up to 78 at 2000 max RPM.
Any results over 80° C in any condition are considered a fail.
Let’s proceed.
Hardware used:
CPU: Intel i7 2700k TDP 95 W / then OC to 4.5 Ghz
Motherboard: Asus P8Z77-V Z77
Memory Modules: 2x 4 GB DDR3 Crucial Ballistix Tactical Tracers 1600 Mhz
PSU: SilverStone SX-600G
Storage: HGST 1 TB 7K1000 2.5″ HDD
Video card: MSI GTX 780 Ti 3 GB OC
Software:
Windows 7 Ultimate X64 SP1
Prime 95 v27.9
MSI Control Center v2.5.06
AIDA 64 Extreme Ed. V1.70
Core Temp v1.0 R6
Results
Analysis
Very very good results from this ‘modest’ champion !
Also regarding noise, it did a very good job – to bad we couldn’t test a dual setup as well – no extra clips included.
But we are surprised by this value cooler that it does everything right.
Conclusion
The good:
– Excellent build quality
– Surprising performance considering its lightweight construction
– Easy installation
– Zero clearance issues with the majority of motherboards.
– Very good noise levels
– Very good value
The bad:
– Nothing much besides not having the extra fan clips to do a dual setup as well but that’s something minor.
Really impressed with this product overall and thus it gets our:
Glob3trotters “Best Value/Performance Award” – 4.5 out of 5
Many thanks for Scythe for supplying us this test sample !
