Sometimes you don’t need to pay extortionate amounts of cash to get decent performance and the Scythe Mugen 5 is certainly one of those CPU coolers that give you exactly what you pay for. Ok, so some of you may wonder who Scythe actually are, but they are as old school as they come and their Ninja CPU cooler back in the day was one of my favourites to use; great performance, good looks and didn’t cost the earth!
So what makes the Mugen ‘good’, if it’s good at all…Well, first of all, the performance in comparison to the NZXT Kraken X42 AIO CPU cooler is astonishing, to say the least. It could be said that the X42 isn’t the greatest cooler and you would probably be right, but for a simple air cooler such as the Mugen 5 to match it at stock load and overclocked on an Intel Core i7-7700K, that’s impressive regardless of how you look at it. The Kraken X42 costs around £110-120, whereas the Scythe Mugen 5 price is a meager £50-55; depending on your retailer of choice obviously.
The design of the Mugen 5 is pretty simplistic and although it doesn’t feature direct cooling technology (where the heat pipes touch the base), it’s still a relatively nice design and it’s certainly aesthetically pleasing. I’m not sure however on the choice of the fan, as I don’t feel the colour matches the aluminium fins and plated copper pipes. That being said, design and looks are down to each person’s personal preference and this is just my humble and honest opinion.
Overall the Scythe Mugen 5 is a decent option for those looking for an adequate performing tower cooler and at around £50, it’s certainly a decent option for the price. Of course, some will opt for Noctua’s legendary D14/D15 coolers for the most demanding overclocks, but you would be foolish not to at least consider the Mugen 5.
Huge thanks to Scythe for sending a sample of the Mugen 5 CPU Cooler in for review.
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Performance
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Design
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Value
Summary
Pros:
– Relatively good performance across the board
– Nice, simple and clean aesthetic
– Performs the same as an NZXT Kraken X42 AIO CPU Cooler (at double the price)
– Handles an overclocked Intel Core i7-7700K processor no problems
– Not as big as some top end tower coolers
Cons:
– I just personally don’t like the colour choice on the fan (my opinion of course)
You mention that it handles the 7700K but I don’t see any temperature measurements with it.
Because all the results are in the video