The Japan-headquartered Scythe keeps on turning out new CPU coolers. Designed for overclockers, the newest Ninja 3 is the third edition of the Ninja CPU cooler and comes along with a revised high-performance design. The huge cooler has eight u-shaped heat pipes constructed and the optimized fin structure named as M.A.P.S. (Multiple Airflow Pass-Through Structure). The airflow generated by the Scythe Slip Stream 120 PWM Adjustable fan can cool the heatsink. You can choose the fully automatic PWM feature fan speed control or alternatively adjust the PWM band range for tuning purposes.

- Features

M.A.P.S. (Multiple Airflow Pass-through Structure)
The developed M.A.P.S. (Multiple Airflow pass-through structure) is a completely new fin structure, where the airflow generated by the Scythe Slip Stream 120 PWM Adjustable fan. Ninja 3 fanless performance could be improved up to 7% compare to the former model by using the M.A.P.S. in combination with eight heatpipe high-performance design.

F.M.S.B.2 (Flip Mount Super Back-Plate 2)
Improved version of F.M.S.B (Flip Mount Super Back-Plate), the compatibility has been maximized as well as achieving the solid mounting of the cooler onto the motherboard. Scythe Ninja 3 provides broad socket compatibilities for AMD & Intel platform.

Slip Stream 120 mm PWM Adjustable
Equipped with Scythe original Slip Stream PWM 120mm PWM Adjustable fan, it allows a user to choose the fully automatic PWM feature fan speed control or alternatively adjust the PWM band range to fulfill demands from silent to high performance users.

- Specifications

Compatibility
Intel®LGA1366 Professor Intel® Xeon® 3500 Series Intel®Core™ i7Processor Extreme Edition Series Intel®Core™ i7Processor 9xx Series
Intel®LGA1156 Professor Intel® Xeon® 3400 Series Intel®Core™ i7Processor Series Intel®Core™ i5Processor Series Intel®Core™ i3Processor Series Intel®LGA775 Professor Quad-Core Intel® Xeon® Processor 3200 Series Dual-Core Intel® Xeon® Processor 3000 Series Intel®Core™ 2 Extreme Processor Intel®Core™ 2 Quad Processor Intel®Core™ 2 Duo Processor Intel®Core™ Duo Processor Intel®Premium® Processor Extreme Edition Intel®Premium® D Processor Intel®Premium® Processor Intel®Premium® 4 Processor Extreme Edition Supporting Hyper- Threading Technology Intel®Premium® 4 Processor Supporting Hyper-threading Technology Intel®Celeron® D Processor
AMD Socket AM3 Processor AMD Phenom™ II X4 Processor AMD Phenom™ II X3 Processor AMD Phenom™ II X2 Processor AMD Athlon™ II X4 Processor AMD Athlon™ II X3 Processor AMD Athlon™ II X2 Processor AMD Sempron™ Processor AMD Socket AM2+ Processor AMD Phenom™ II X4 Processor AMD Phenom™ X4 Processor AMD Phenom™ X3 Processor AMD Athlon™ X2 Processor AMD Socket AM2 Processor AMD Athlon™ X2 Processor AMD Athlon™ FX Processor AMD Athlon™ Processor AMD Sempron™ Processor
AMD Socket940 Processor AMD Phenom™ X3 Processor AMD Athlon™ FX Processor AMD Socket939 Processor AMD Athlon™ X2 Processor AMD Athlon™ FX Processor AMD Athlon™ Processor AMD Socket754 Processor AMD Athlon™ Processor AMD Sempron™ Processor

- Retail package

Everything is packaged and bundled safely in styrofoam and carton.

Below you see he accessories that come with the cooler: fans and brackets, back plates that support a wide variety of Intel 775, 1156, 1366 and AMD AM2, AM2+, AM3 processors. Also a little thermal paste is included. The fan is not pre installed as you see below and it comes with a fan controller. You can regulate the fan RPM manually from 1900 RPM downward:

The Ninja 3 heatsink is a massive 4-section tower measuring 120x120x160 millimeters at 890 grams of weight (without the fan). The four separate aluminum fin arrays are creating a lot of space and thus make room for airflow to blow away that residual heat.

The Ninja 3 absorbs the heat in the copper base and gets transferred into the first set of four, 6mm heat pipes. The heat that is taken away by the eight pipes is delivered into thirty-nine uniquely shaped aluminum fins. Scythe finishes it off with the chromed caps we see on other coolers from their lineup:

The minimum thickness of the base below the pipes in the bottom tier is 1.8 millimeters. The 38x38mm nickel-plated copper base is perfectly flat and ideally finished:

- Installation

The new Ninja is universal and every modern platform. It is fastened by means of the included Flip Mount Super Back-Plate 2. The Ninja 3 installs on the CPU in the same way as the new-revision Mugen 2 does. The installation is not very easy; first you you need to attach two clips on the base of the cooler. You will need to install four nuts on those clips according to the socket used by your CPU. Then you should install the backplate, which is very solid in order to hold the weight of the cooler. To install the cooler align the two mounting brackets and secure them with four nuts. It's not the most comfortable job to do as accessing these nuts with your fingers can be a problem if say the motherboard's heat sink is close and in the way.

You may also install more than one fans on the cooler, either in a push-pull configuration or in two adjacent sides of the heatsink.