Top positive review
5.0 out of 5 starsBest 120mm ITX Cooler I've Found
Reviewed in the United States on May 6, 2019
As many of us ITX lovers know, finding just the right air cooler for your build can be tough. We need good thermals, good acoustics, and the right physical compatibility.
Personally I'm still too paranoid to make the jump to water cooling...and popping in an air cooler seems easier to me in a small build. Plus I had recently started taking interest in slim cases like the Silverstone FTZ01E and the Nouvolo Steck.
My previous build included a Cryorig C1 on an ATX motherboard in a mid tower case. And I was hoping I'd be able to use this big 140mm ITX cooler in a new ITX build. However after some research and testing...the heatsink was just too large for the cases I was looking at. Either Ram clearance became an issue on the ITX boards, or the heatsink would press up against the sides of cases.
I looked at other options for large 140 and 120mm low profile coolers with decent sized heatsinks, but was finding there would be compatibility issues...or lackluster cooling. I checked at a ton of builds on PCpartpicker, Youtube, and different tech forums. I looked over the offerings from Raijintek, Be Quiet, Thermalright, Noctua, you name it.
Then I saw that Scythe came out with the Big Shuriken 3 and it supported AM4 sockets...and I was intrigued. Their claims of total ram compatibility, low cooler height, and good cooling performance had me excited. So I looked at a few reviews on Youtube, read an article or two, then I ordered it.
Tested this baby out on an ASUS B450 ITX motherboard with Gskill TridentZ ram inside a Silverstone FTZ01E case. Absolutely zero issues fitting. The cooler was made in a way, that when oriented with the heatpipe bends pointing up, the cooler overhangs your rear I/O. So tall ram like the TridentZ are 100% compatible.
Cooling was pretty dang good...keeping my 2700X CPU at around 45c idle, 79c at full load in the second floor of a rather warm home. Thats a few degrees cooler than the beefier Cryorig that I previously used. Mind you the Cryorig was a 140mm cooler that was a tad heavier than the Scythe, and also had an extra heatpipe. Yet somehow the Scythe beat it.
And the Scythe fan noise isnt too bad...but I prefer Noctua...so I swapped in a 120mm slim fan from them (cooling performance was the same). All in all, the Big Shuriken 3 is a well performing, highly compatible CPU cooler thats worth a look at. I could really see this thing becoming a popular choice in the ITX & SFF community. Ill try to share some pics at a later date.
PS - Scythe customer service is also great. I had a small issue with the plastic spacers for the mounting bracket being too tight...and they sent me replacements free of charge. Definitely made installation and removal much easier.
