Scythe Mugen 5 TUF Gaming Alliance Cooler Review

A Closer Look

Out of the box, the Scythe Mugen 5 TGA is set with the fan attached. As such, you have a nice strong presentation. The cooler itself is notably smaller than most ‘high-performance’ designs, but it still has a reassuring weighty feel about it. In addition, that white trim to the top and yellow edging to the fans really stand out boldly.

Removing the fan to get a better look at the radiator, the design looks solid with a high number of well-spaced gaps between the vents. The RGB plastic trim, which sits on the top (and which we’ll look into more detail later) appeares to be securely fastened and fits well with the overall design.

As this is an air cooler, the placement of the fan is important and Scythe seems to have taken this into consideration with their design. The fan provides excellent coverage of the entire cooler and ever overlaps a little at the bottom. They possibly could have gotten away with a 120mm fan for this design, but larger is generally better for RPM/speed reasons.

Fans

The fans themselves are of a Scythe design and the Kaze Flex we have reviewed on a prior occasion. You can check out our review of those fans via the link here! – In brief, however, we found them to be excellent performers and we must again highlight how great those yellow corners to the design look. It’s a small touch, but one that really makes this design stand out.

Contact Plate

With the fan removed, one of the key points you’ll note is the high-level of stainless steel used in the design. Overlooking the white plastic top (which acts as the RGB lighting system), it looks very bold and impressive.

The main point to highlight, however, is the contact plate. This carries the stainless steel look and gives a fantastically polished look. In addition to this, you also have a massive 7 pipes coming out of each side. This providing the radiator with over 14 points of heat dissipation. This is much more than you usually see. Even a number of notable high-performance brands stop at 6 a side. This should, therefore, hopefully, transfer into some good performance figures or at least easily compensate for the relatively small size of the radiator.

Overall Design

In terms of the overall design, while the packaging may not have sold it, out of the box it looks fantastic. There’s just a lot of really minor design points that although on the surface are unnecessary, really add to the overall presentation of the product. Even the slightly raised rear of the radiator (to provide better RAM compatibility) is a sensible choice that has been applied subtly.

Air coolers may not be the most attractive thing in a PC system build, but this one, even with the lights off, is certainly making a good effort!

What branding there is, is subtle and well placed. The Scythe branding is only found in two places. To the centre of the fan and to the top of the radiator. Overall, in terms of design, this is ticking all of the right boxes. It’s an aircooler than on the surface provides excellent performance, looks good while doing it, but most importantly is all within a relatively compact design. At least, in comparison to other air coolers.

In Action

The Scythe Mugen 5 TGA comes with RGB lighting to the fan and top of the radiator. Running this requires a sync capable port on your motherboard or RGB hub. In other words, there is no manual controller or SATA power source. If you want the RGB, you have to have the sync port. When the lights are on though, the effects are quite nice. There is something of a contrast as the fans are significantly more vivid than the top of the cooler, but on the whole, the colour range is nice, varied and bright. Everything you want from RGB.