The fourth Ninja was a pleasant surprise (mainly because of its unattractive predecessor). Scythe used improved version of the first two designs, and shortly after created popular Fuma series based on Ninja 4. Fuma rev. A was the best deal for the money, although the current second version is a bit different story. Now there’s the new Ninja 5 that looks very promising. The core remains unchanged, but the cooler is bigger and stronger than before.
Conclusion
There are two very important things: revolutions per minute and the price. The more intense airflow, the less attractive this cooler becomes. The best setting for Ninja 5 would be 600 rpm and less. Scythe knows well why they sell this cooler with low-speed fans. With proper settings it‘s better than SPC Fera 3 v2, and a bit less efficient than Noctua NH-D15, but also accordingly cheaper. It all depends on the deal you can get.
The price range is quite wide, 70 € is too much (Reeven Okeanos and Raijintek Nemesis would be a better choice for the money), but if you get a chance to buy it for less than 60 €, go for it. The efficiency/weight ratio is nothing extraordinary, but we decided to give it award “Go for it!“ for the results in low RPM modes and high-quality fans that are not very common in this price category.
This is not the end of Ninja 5 tests on HWCooling. We are working on a passive mode and in-depth testing with reference fans.
| Scythe Ninja 5 |
| + high cooling performance |
| + the performance doesn't significantly decrease even after reducing RPM |
| + excellent performance/noise ratio with less intense airflow |
| + a good deal if you want to use the cooler with RPM lower than 650 |
| + very quiet PWM regulation |
| + extraordinary quality of fans: fluid bearings, extremely low speed operation is possible |
| + comfortable installation |
| + good compatibility, everything from the old Intel LGA 775 to AMD AM4 |
| + solid and rich installation kit (screwdriver included) |
| + low height, ie. great compatibility with majority of cases |
| + 100% compatibility with RAM modules lower than 4 cm |
| - modules in the second slot that are higher than 4 cm collide with the heatsink |
| - cooling performance with more than 650 rpm is average |
| - not very impressive cooling performance/weight ratio |
| - it is not possible to put fans on all four sides, although the design would allow it |
| - you can turn the heatsink only in one direction when using AMD CPU (vertically) |
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Hi !
Thank you for the test. I like your methodology of testing.
Can you use the therlmaright le grand macho rt ? Which is probrably the best cpu cooler
The noctua scythe fan graph is interesting I’d like to see temperatures and db comparing the included scythe fan vs a noctua.
i bet if you got better fans this thing would kick ass!
A passive or semi-passive setup for comparison with the Fuma or Zalman Passive Cooler would be great.