Nexus LOW-7000 versus Scythe Big Shuriken

Posted by: Wicked Akuba Date: 2009-08-01 19:21:31
Category: Cooling

Home Theatre Personal Computers (HTPCs) is a fairly new, but because of their functionality, a fast growing field. The list of such computers definitely does not end with small nettops. Powerful and power hungry systems are being packed in HTPC cases and are often used not only for multimedia, but also for gaming. Because the cases for this type of computers are usually quite small and the components tend to heat pretty much the same like in standard ATX cases, the CPU needs a low-height, but powerful cooler. Manufacturers fully understand that and make products like the Nexus LOW-7000 and Scythe Big Shuriken coolers, which we will be looking at in this review.

CONTENTS

>About Nexus and Scythe
>Packages
>Specifications
>Heatsinks and Fans
>Installation
>Testing Methodology
>Results
>Conclusion

>About Nexus and Scythe

Nexus

Founded in the year 2000, the company in Netherlands specializes in various kinds of coolers (CPU, HDD, system) as well as power supplies and cases. Nexus is spending a lot of their time designing components that make the computer run more silent. That's why you can find a number of HDD and fan mounting tools, that reduce their vibration and noise, along with other products, that ease the casual work with your computer.

Scythe

Scythe Co., Ltd. started their work in the famous Akihabara Electric Town in Tokyo, Japan, where the visitors can find anything from the newest computer components to the most modern electronic devices. The company was founded in 2002 and worked as a distributor and passive/low-noise computer components manufacturer.

>Packages

Nexus

At first glance it looks that the package of the LOW-7000 is not designed for the retail market. However, after a few seconds this idea leaves your head. It is really just a simple carton box, coloured in red and white, with a window, which allows you to see the cooler. On the top you can see the logo of the manufacturer and on the sides - the features and the information about the product. Opening the box reveals, that all the contents are hidden beneath another layer of cardboard.

Like with all its coolers, Nexus supplies all the components for the mounting of the LOW-7000 in a separate box. Next to it we find the heatsink with the fan already attached. To protect the heastsink's base, Nexus uses a paper sticker, which must be peeled off before use. In the package of the LOW-7000 you will find the user manual, mounting brackets for the LGA775 and LGA1366 sockets, four screws and washers, a backplate, thermal compound and a spatula for spreading it, four stickers for the screws and an extension of the 4 pin CPU power cable. The last item is a valuable addition, considering the low height of the cooler.

Scythe

The package of the Big Shuriken is almost two times smaller than of the competitor, which is an advantage. But the downside of it is the lack of protective layer. Because of that, the product might get some damage when shipping. All Scythe packages are painted very colourfully and this cooler's box is no exception. It shimmers with pictures, logos, specifications of the cooler and instructions, how to install it. It's nice to see, that the information is provided in various languages.

In the box you'll find all the necessary tools for installing the cooler. The bundle, though, is not as rich as the competitor’s. The cardboard box includes two mounting elements for the Intel LGA775/LGA1366, 478 and all the recent AMD sockets. And that, apart from a small bag of thermal compound, is all. Under these accessories there is the Big Shuriken itself, which already has the cooling fan attached.





>Specifications





>Heatsinks and Fans

Nexus

The name says everything - the LOW-7000 is the lowest height (~ 7 cm) cooler Nexus has currently available. Like the FLC-3000 and XiR-3500, we've looked at earlier, this product has a SkiveTek heatsink, made by the CoolJag engineers, which sits right on the base and helps to dissipate the heat. The SkiveTek, like all the 50 plates of the radiator, is made of aluminum. The base of the cooler is made of copper and is almost ideally flat - you can see a mirror reflection of the coins. The four heatpipes transfer the heat from the base to the radiator.

The overall dimensions of this cooler are greater than the ones of the Big Shuriken - its higher, longer and wider. The 5 mm higher fan should be able to produce a higher air flow than the Scythe Flex fan, which is 15 mm in height. It is mounted in a quite usual way by attaching a part of the frame to the heatpipes and fixing the small screws. The fan can spin a t speed of 500 to 2000 RPM and is PWM controlled.

Scythe

The Big Shuriken is the lowest CPU coolers we have ever tested - it is only 58 mm in height, and this of course is essential for the owners of small and cramped cases. The younger brother of the old Shuriken has four unusually shaped heatpipes, which overflow each other and contact even a greater surface area of the radiator. It is worth mentioning, that the heatpipes only contact the radiator by their top parts and because of that, some efficiency is being lost.

The base is nickel-plated and ideally flat. The fan, bundled with this heatsink is from the new Flex series. It has 15 blades, which is an impressive number. According to Scythe, the fan, rotating at 650 - 1600 RPMs should generate an air flow of 16 - 38 CFM. You can see, that that Scythe chose metal wires to fasten the fan. We got to the conclusion, that this is a good method, which enables to use even bigger fans for those, who want better performance.

>Installation

Nexus

Alongside the LOW-7000 cooler we find the same installing tools like with the FLC-3000. This includes brackets for two sockets (LGA775 and LGA1366). In order to make them fit the LGA775 socket, which we used in testing, we needed to loosen and push the screw holders towards the center. After sticking the backplate to the motherboard we added the washers and applied the thermal interface material on the CPU. The last step is to mount the heatsink by securing it to the backplate. It's important to screw the bolts diagonally in pairs.

Scythe

For our next contender the manufacturer created a completely screwless installation mechanism. All the user has to do is to push two mounting elements to the appropriate bays and fasten the heatsink. But there is one "but". The push-pin mechanism requires some force to attach it to the motherboard and when the motherboard is already in the case, because of the low height and large area of the Big Shuriken, it becomes nearly impossible to do that. So for installing this cooler without a hassle, we recommend to take the motherboard out of the case first. It is important not to forget to connect the CPU power cable beforehand and to apply the thermal compound.

>Testing Methodology

The usual system (you can see the full configuration in the table below) was used for today's testing. As always, there was no outside impact to the results. For both coolers we used the Noctua NT-H1 TIM, which was changed after every test. The ambient temperature during the tests was about 23 degree Celsius. During the tests the case was closed. The noise level was measured at 50 cm distance from the case. The CPU was loaded 100% and the fans were spinning at maximum RPMs.





We used Prime 95v 25.3 to load the CPU and RealTemp 3.00 to monitor its temperatures. In order to generate more heat, we overclocked the Core 2 Duo E6550 to 3,15 GHz and raised the voltage to 1.5V. In Idle temperature testing the CPU idled for 10 minutes and was stressed for the same time to obtain load results.

>Results





The testing results show us, that Nexus LOW-7000 performs better than the Big Shurinken by one degree and when we stressed the CPU, the gap increased to almost 5 degrees. This can easily be explained by a higher speed of the Nexus' fan and its height. These factors help the fan to create a higher air flow.





The cooling fan from Nexus, spinning at 400 more RPMs is a bit louder than the Scythe Flex, but the difference is almost intangible. Besides, the 44,5 dBA threshold is almost generated by the other system components and the CPU cooler had little influence.

>Conclusion

It‘s obvious that both of the coolers offer not only compatibility with the small HTPC cases but also a decent cooling efficiency for an overclocked mid-end CPU. Nexus LOW-7000 cools down your processor better than the rival because of a bigger and higher RPM fan, but it’s still pretty quiet. Even the mounting of this cooler seems to be awkward, this kind of solution is clever for such a low heatsink, which doesn’t give much space to reach the mounting holes. Another great Nexus solution is an extension cable for the CPU’s power connector. The rice is big - 42 Euros, however the quality of the cooler justifies it.

Even though the Scythe Big Shuriken lags behind its rival by a couple of degrees, this could be changed by adding an ordinary 120x120x25mm fan. This would make Scythe’s product perform almost as high as the LOW-7000 and help to offer the same, if not better cooling efficiency. It’s great that the Flex fan, bundled with the Shuriken series cooler, is very quiet, but at the same time the 15 blades make a decent airflow. The biggest problem of the Scythe Big Shuriken is a problematic mounting system. Because of the low height of the cooler, the push-pin mechanism is very hard to put in the mounting holes. On the other hand, every downside of the cooler is outweighed by the great price, which, at this moment, is just 23 Euros. That’s why we give Big Shuriken our “Best Price/Performance” award.