Review Scythe Mugen 5 rev. B.

A high-end cooler at an entry level price: The new Scythe Mugen 5 rev.B is being tested

Fans know the Scythe brand well by now and we hope so thanks to our enthusiastic review of Scythe Fuma, one of the best two-tower coolers on the market, offered at an incredibly affordable price.  

In the upper part of the Japanese manufacturer's range, however, its best known and most awarded heatsink is certainly it Scythe Mugen which today, with the Scythe Mugen 5 rev.B is updated by introducing full compatibility with the platform AMD AM4 and some features that make it even more interesting also and above all for an extremely competitive price in relation to performance.  

Unboxing and Design.  

The packaging of the Scythe Mugen 5 rev.B is, as always, full of information on the heatsink in question. In addition to the different logos, including that of the product - a Mongolian knight on horseback with bow and arrows - and the one that indicates compatibility with the AM4 platform, on the right side of the box you can find some technical information that we summarize in the table below.   

The contents of the package are, as always, very generous. In the box, arranged to the millimeter, there is space in addition to the heatsink itself, wrapped in a thin layer of polyurethane foam and the excellent fan Kaze Flex, whose excellent qualities we will talk about later, a further thinner white box contains all the accessories supplied, namely: accessories for mounting with Intel and AMD sockets (including the AM4 version; in case of sending a product coming from previous stocks, Scythe endeavors to send you the right mounting kit for free), the fan KazeFlex 120 PWM, 4 fan mounting clips, Scythe thermal paste (enough for about 3-4 installations), the installation leaflet and a handy screwdriver for mounting.

Design and mounting system 

The Mugen5 rev. B is a single tower heatsink with 6 heatpipes; its dimensions for the type of heatsink in question are rather compact: with a width of 130 mm, 154,5 mm in height and a thickness of 110 mm with the fan installed, the Mugen5 can easily be installed in most of the mid tower cases in circulation, including the case In Win 101 (used for the thermal tests of this review) and it Corsair's SpecAlpha. On the other hand, the weight is considerable at 890 grams which requires some extra care when handling the card and the case. The material for the tower, made up of 39 thin fins, and for the precooler, is aluminum. The 6 heatpipes (including the 12 caps at the top of the tower) and the base in contact with the processor, on the other hand, are in nickel-plated copper which also allows the use of liquid metal thermal pastes, such as Thermal Grizzly's Conductonaut.  

The tower has an asymmetrical design, that is, it is slightly shifted to the left, and this allows greater compatibility with high-profile memories, or with those motherboards that have DIMM slots too close to the processor socket. 

The mounting system, already very simple for all the products of the Japanese company, has been further improved: Scythe calls it Hyper Precision Mounting System II. In our case a 2066 socket, the installation took just five minutes. Once the 4 female screws and the two supports were fixed (those of the 2011v3 socket are compatible) it took 5 minutes to fix everything.

The base of the Mugen 5 Rev. B is equipped with two large screws with spring included. This system allows not only a simpler installation, as the screw is already fixed to the heatsink and it does not require various contortions to position it correctly once the heatsink is on the processor, but also to avoid excessive pressure being applied during assembly. . Furthermore, in the upper part of the heatsink, there are two holes (among which the company logo is clearly evident) in which to slide the long screwdriver supplied: another element that helps to make the installation of the heatsink even easier .   

With the Mugen 5 Rev.B, a new fan also debuts, the Scythe Kaze Flex 120PWM (SU1225FD12M-CHP), a fan with a thickness of 27 mm and fair technical skills, slightly lower than the best the Japanese manufacturer is able to offer, with the Slipstream, or the Glidestream, only from the point of view of efficiency.

The KazeFlex is a fan with dynamic fluid bearings and a rotation range between 300 and 1200 RPM, the latter speed which allows it to offer a CFM of 51,17 and a pressure of 1.05 mm / H20. The nominal noise declared at the maximum possible speed is about 24.9 dB, a value not very far from that actually measured in our tests. It is a decidedly silent fan, especially at lower rotation levels, which becomes barely audible above 1000 RPM, although its performance is not comparable to the more well-known Glidestream and Slipstream from the same manufacturer, which move 73.39 CFM respectively. and 74,25 CFM with only slightly higher noise. The Kaze Flex 120mm however, are well built and are also equipped with rubber pads that avoid annoying and noisy vibrations. The average life of the fan is around 120.000 hours of operation.  

In the package, as we have said, two additional clips are included for mounting a second fan in the front.  

Machine and mode of test.  

For our tests we used our new platform-based machine X299 and Intel 7820x processor. It is a very demanding processor from the thermal point of view, which generates a lot of heat and for which an adequate dissipation system is absolutely necessary. The tests were carried out in a room with a controlled and stable temperature around 23 degrees.  

Unlike the other tests in which we had used a Core P3, an excellent and beautiful "open" case by ThermalTake that, if necessary, can also be transformed into a test bench, this time we preferred to test the qualities of this Mugen 5 Rev.B, in a closed case in order to have better results. lifelike in daily use, the gorgeous In Win 101. We then repeated our previous tests in this new case for some of the coolers we still have.

Data for both stock rate and maximum overclock rate was collected with AIDA 64 engineer edition and its stress test of CPU, FPU, cache and system memory, updated to the latest version available, both with the stress test of Intel Extreme Tuning Utility the free utility made available by Intel.

Thermal test results.  

Noise test results  

Final comment.  

The Scythe Mugen Rev.B is another big hit for Scythe. The heatsink has thermal performance that can certainly be compared to that of larger and more expensive heatsinks. The build quality is of a good standard as well as the supply of accessories, among which there is also a handy screwdriver. The simplified installation of Scythe is certainly an important surplus, as well as the good noise characteristics, among the best available for an air cooler and in this sense we wonder what the heatsink could have done with the award-winning SlipStream fans equipped on the Fuma. . However, all doubts disappear when you look at the price: for 50 euros Mugen 5 rev.B is probably one of the best heatsinks you can buy at this price.