[section_title title=”Conclusion”]Conclusion
Here we are again. Another cooler has been put through hell and it is time to see how it handled the heat.
Taking a look at the design first and it is very generic and while this may not always be a bad thing, the CPU cooler is going to be one of the main things on display in most PC cases, so we want it to look nice. The heatsink itself has an overall chrome look to it, features aluminium fins and has a nickel-plated copper baseplate which is nice, but nothing to get overly excited about. While I do like the look of the heatsink and understand there is not a whole lot to be done I just was not overly amazed when looking at it. Included is a 140mm GlideStream fan which has rounded edges and offers a bit more appeal to the overall appearance of the Scythe Mugen Max.
On the thermal performance front it was an average offering. It passed all the tests keeping my 4770K at 4.5GHz /1.3v to a respectable 63.25. This is around average performance for this type of cooler so may make it a viable option depending what deals you can find at the time. On to the acoustic performance and the Scythe Mugen Max did quite well here. On idle it was only beaten out by the recent be quiet! coolers I had reviewed and when on full load it still was quieter than 70% of the fans on other coolers we here at Play3r have tested. This is always good to see and more than welcome but unfortunately in this case I do not feel it out weighs the performance issues.
Considering the price which is just shy of £40 and that it is only available from one major in the UK retailer at the time of review that I could find, I feel it’s performance is on point for the price. We have tested coolers previously that were around the same price and offered similar performance. Personally I would love to see this just a little but cheaper to make it a much more viable option, though it still does its job.
I would like to thank Scythe for sending the Mugen Max in for review and look forward to seeing more from them in the future.
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Performance
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Design
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Value
Summary
The Scythe Mugen Max is a mediocre cooler in terms of performance, design and value. It doesn’t offer anything special and the fact you can get better performing coolers for less from other manufacturers really is not helping its case. At the end of the day it can tame a 4770k @ 1.3v so may be worthy of a purchase if you find it on sale somewhere, other than that you may want to pass over this one unfortunately.
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