Scythe Mugen 3 Rev.B CPU Cooler Review

The Scythe Mugen 3 is the first Scythe CPU cooler we have ever tested. After putting it through its paces we can safely say we are hugely impressed with it. Before we go into what we like about it though, lets discuss a few of the negatives.

Firstly, we didn’t like the fact the thickness of the fan means you have RAM compatibility issues in the first two RAM slots with high profile RAM. Secondly, the mounting can be tricky and we’ve found that two pairs of hands speed things up greatly so get someone else to help you if you can. Finally, we thought the aluminium fins are a bit on the flimsy side, if you push down too hard on parts of the cooler during installation you can actually bend some of the aluminium fins into each other. Now this doesn’t affect cooling performance at all, but it can make your CPU cooler look a bit “worn” if you don’t take precautions when handling and installing it.

Currently, the Scythe Mugen 3 retails at just £39 – making it solid value for money. It outperforms cheaper solutions and similarly priced solutions by a nice margin whilst still managing to keep noise levels in check. The cooler is attractive and has an extra space to mount a second fan should you find you want more performance out of it in future. It will fit in and on the vast majority of cases, systems and motherboards without any issues. We already mentioned that the mounting kit is tricky, but its also worth mentioning that it gives extremely good contact and applies a lot of pressure to the processor – this is probably part of the reason it performed so much better than some of the other CPU coolers we tested.

With a wallet-friendly price, an attractive design, impressive performance and good acoustics the Scythe Mugen 3 is an awesome CPU cooler for any system owner. It particularly shines for those who have high TDP processors and want to do some overclocking without taking an ear bashing. With all that said, we’d like to award the Scythe Mugen 3 the eTeknix Bang For Buck award.