Scythe Mugen 5 Rev. C Review

Introduction

The Scythe Mugen 5 seems to be the ultimate cooler! Dual-tower-like performance in a surprisingly low build height. Added to that comes its 100% ram compatibility! Let's take a closer look and find out if it's really as good as it seems to be!

What's in the Box?

Like any piece of Scythe hardware we have seen before, the Mugen 5 Rev.C comes in the usual Scythe-style box. Inside, we will find the following items:

• Mugen 5 Heatsink
• Kaze Flex II Fan
• Thermal paste
• Installation Hardware AMD
• Installation Hardware Intel
• 2x Fan clips
• Screw Driver

Down below you will also find a short summary of its specs:

Compatibility

Out-of-the-Box, Scythe makes sure to include the mounting hardware for every nowadays relevant socket, as well as some older ones. Down below you will find the full list:

Individual Components

Fan

The fan used on the Mugen 5 Rev.C is the exact same model as the central fan of a Fuma 2 Rev.B. Despite it not being available outside of these two coolers, the Scythe Kaze Flex II seems to be the next generation of the beloved Kaze Flex fan series. Spinning at up to 1500RPM, this new all-black fan is pushing about 67CFM at 1.5mm/H2O.

Although the static pressure does not seem to be the strongest out there, the spacing of the heatsink suggests that it may be sufficient to get the job done.

Heatsink

Being a single tower heatsink cooler, the Mugen 5's heatsink is just a massive block of stacked fins. At the top of this block we will find a grey plate with rather big nobs that are hiding the end of each heatpipe. In its all-aluminum color, the only outstanding esthetical feature seems to be the stamped-out Scythe logo at the top.

Looking from the base, the heatsink is slightly tilted to the left side. The created space is just enough to fit the 25mm (27mm if the rubber is counted) thick fan on the right side without protruding over the ram slots. Thanks to this combination, we are not restricted by any maximum ram height, allowing us to use whatever sticks we want.

Base

From the nickel-plated copper base, which is rather big, there are a total of 6 heat pipes traveling up the massive heatsinks on both ends.

Appearance

Design-wise, the cooler aims to look as raw as possible. Without any additional color or plastic covers, all you can see is raw-aluminum fins with a stamped-out scythe logo and the black fan on the right side. If that is you type of look or not will be up to you, however, thanks to it's massive size, it looks promising to say the least.

Benchmarks

We benchmarked the Scythe Mugen 5 Rev.C using our usual Ryzen 3900x bench table.

Letting the fan spin at it's max 1500RPM, the Mugen 5 managed to keep the CPU at 54°C above ambient. This puts it into the same category as a be quiet! Shadow Rock or Arctic A35. 

On the Noise-to-Performance side, the Mugen 5 managed to show its worth. Being able to outperform things such as a Freezer A35 or Noctua NH-D12L was already pretty impressive. But the biggest shock was that the overall performance from 100% to 25% fan speed was slightly better than the dual-tower Fuma 2 Rev.B.

Conclusion

Overall we were very impressed by the Mugen 5 Rev.C.

Its build quality was exactly where we expected it to be.

But the most important aspect for us was the performance. Although Scythe's Fuma 2 is powered by a 2-tower design and twice the amount of fans, the Mugen 5 Rev. C managed to be ever-so-slightly better on the noise-to-performance chart, making it the better cooler.

Therefore, we can highly recommend the cooler for every mid-range CPU such as a 7700x, 13700k, or below.