Test Results

For reference the results from the stock aluminum Athlon 64 heatsink and heat pipe version (which comes with higher end X2 models) were included in the charts below.



The ?Plus? fan is far from bad, but its performance/noise ratio is slightly worse than that of the Papst fan. 39dBA at full speed is noticeable. At half the speed the fan becomes totally silent and can not be heard over ambient at all. Performance numbers at 2.2Ghz are impressive, but what if we up the heat?



At full fan speed the CPU temperature remains quite low (considering the heat output), yet the PWM area really takes a beating here, at lower fan speeds the temperature raises radically and almost reaches 80?C.



Passive CPU cooling can be quite a challenge with recent high end CPUs, while water cooling systems with large radiators can pull it off with ease, to do the same with a large heatsink is a bit more difficult. It?s important to know that having a high end PC system and keeping it dead silent, won?t be possible, for now, you can?t have your cake and eat it too. You need air flow inside your case to keep the components running below critical temperatures. In our case a single 120mm at 5v proved to be enough for the Ninja when we installed two small cardboard ducts to help guide the air. We don?t have a high end VGA card in this case, so please keep this mind, as recent video cards are known to generate as much (and more!) heat as a CPU.



Temperatures are high, even at 2.2Ghz, but they are still well within safe regions. Increasing the rear fan?s rotation speed does improve cooling significantly, the extra noise defeats the purpose of silent computing. The two cardboard pieces really prove to be useful, dropping temperatures ~10?C.

Conclusion

When Scythe first introduced their Ninja to the hardware enthusiast crowd not everyone was immediately convinced of its superior performance, yet in the months that followed this heatsink kept slicing through the competition and won over the hearts of many.

The Scythe Ninja Plus can be had for ~?30 in Europe and ~$35 in USA. A new revision B of the Scythe Ninja Plus will be released soon which will add AMD AM2 compatibility.

Today the Ninja still stands strong and we don?t hesitate to recommend it to our readers if they want to build a silent system; however we have quite a few new products in our test labs which aim to outwit the Ninja and beat it at its own game. Will they succeed? Time will tell, so stay tuned!

We thank Bacata and Scythe for their help in making this review possible.

Questions/Comments: forum thread