Three Down-Draft Heat Sinks: The Last Of A Dying Breed?

By Patrick Afschar
published

There’s an enormous amount of aftermarket coolers available to those wanting more performance or lower temperatures. The market’s currently dominated by tower coolers, and top coolers have fallen out of favor. Rightfully so? We find out.

Scythe SCKC-2100: In The Box And Installation

Scythe's SCKC-2100 or Grand Kama Cross, now in Rev. B, has been around for a long time, and it has an excellent reputation. The cooler’s size is quite imposing, with Scythe’s own 140 mm Slipstream fan enthroned on the top. Including the fan, the cooler is 140 mm tall and 180 mm wide, immediately disqualifying it from use in a HTCP or compact chassis.

The Scythe SCKC-2100 uses the same mounting hardware that we saw in our previous tower-style cooler round-up, which, again was published on Tom's Hardware Germany (fortunately, the data we gleaned in that piece is also available in our CPU Cooler 2011 charts). Installation is easy for AMD platforms. Two retention clips need to be screwed into the cooler’s bottom; all of the other needed hardware is already included with AMD-compatible motherboards. The clips snap into AMD’s standard retention module, which, in turn, sits on the pre-installed backplate. The clips' height can be adjusted with three settings, and the cooler's orientation can be freely chosen.

This process gets a little more complicated on Intel platforms, which require a specifically-designed backplate. Nevertheless, this combination of mounting hardware allows Scythe to support all current AMD and Intel platforms.

Thermal paste is included in a small bag. A syringe would have been more practical.

Patrick Afschar
37 Comments Comment from the forums
  • boulbox
    My h100 is horrible compared to this :(
    Reply
  • JohnnyLucky
    WOW! Sound levels are way above advertised levels.
    Reply
  • killerclick
    Scythe coolers are the best overall, but 1000+ RPM is just too high.
    Reply
  • Darkerson
    I used to have a Thermaltake Dualorb, and it was really nice because both fans would also blow over the ram and and chipset heatsink. I am currently using a 2500k running at 5GHz with a CM Hyper 212+, and my ambient on the cores is around 28-30, and peak is on average about 67-68c. At any rate, interesting article.
    Reply
  • luciferano
    JohnnyLuckyWOW! Sound levels are way above advertised levels.
    Don't forget to account for ambient noise, which is already often higher than the rated loudness of many coolers.
    Reply
  • with the enermax and noctua both @ $68 the scythe is a steal @ $40 on amazon.
    Reply
  • antemon
    coolermaster didn't send in their vortex (which is what i have)
    Reply
  • merikafyeah
    It has been my life-long dream to pair a Cooler Master GeminII S524: bit.ly/PiVHxw
    with the greatest 140mm desktop PC fan in existence, the Sanyo Denki 9LB1412M501: bit.ly/QOHXJA
    Specs: 140x140 51mm 138CFM 2000rpm 39dBA 12V 0.5A
    Essentially the most perfect balance of airflow to noise I have ever seen.

    I can only imagine how well this fan can cool not only the CPU but virtually the entire upper half of the motherboard as well. Alas, my dream will remain a dream since although I know where to buy the fan, the min. order quantity is 10, pushing the total price to at least $500; way out of my reach.

    But speaking of which, Tom's, why not compare motherboard voltage regulator and RAM module temps with these top-down coolers vs tower coolers? Myself and many overclockers will be extremely interested in these temps.
    Reply
  • doive1231
    You could just get an Ivy Bridge CPU and sleep tight.
    Reply
  • rantoc
    Top->Down coolers are my favourite choice for building normal non-oc rigs since they cool so much more than just the cpu, as for overclocking "real water" cooling with extra spot on fan for the voltage regulators + ram is my favourite. Seem some forget that with water/air tower designs the MB don't get much often needed airflow around the upper part of the MB.
    Reply