Scythe Choten TUF Gaming Alliance CPU Cooler Review

Installation

The accessories you are provided with make the installation of the Scythe Choten TUF very straight forward. Having a lot of experience in fitting CPUs I found nothing within this that provided me with any difficulty. This was perhaps a little surprising based on the rather unusual design of the rest of the cooler, but there is nothing here that would be beyond the remit of a beginner.

You are (unusually again – which seems to be a bit of a theme) provided with some thermal paste. It is, however, contained in a sachet. Although we didn’t use this (as to not affect the methodology of our testing) I would have admittedly preferred to have seen a small tube. Getting this neatly onto your CPU wouldn’t be impossible, but it’s certainly not as easy as it could be either.

The manual itself isn’t terrible, but the way the information is presented isn’t entirely straight forward either. Although the diagrams are fairly easy to read, there is very little written information which may require you to give it a little more scrutiny that you might in a clearer presentation.

It took me roughly 10-15 minutes to get this fitted and once it is, you truly begin to appreciate the strange nature of the design. As you can see, there is practically a clear inch of space between the processor and the radiator and even then, the slim profile means that this still stands much shorter than your normal radiator design.

The distance provided gives an excellent space for the fan to vent the warm air towards. Admittedly, it’s not exactly ideal to be venting this directly towards the processor, but unlike many ‘low-profile’ designs, this does allow for decent passive air flow.

If there is a problem with the design, it lies within the width. In the manner in which I installed it, there was very minimal clearance to our passive GPU. Turning it the other way would’ve given more clearance, but not by a significant amount. This is, therefore, definitely a factor worth considering.

On the whole, I’m really impressed with how this looks on our test bench. Yes, the design is a little quirky, but I’ve seen more than enough to suggest that this is going to be surprisingly good in terms of our testing. In terms of installation though, while it isn’t perfect, the Scythe Choten TUF presents no problems at all!