- Date:
- Wednesday, November 27, 2013
- Author:
- Marc Adams
- Editor:
- Kyle Bennett
- Share:

Scythe Mugen 4 CPU Air Cooler Review
Scythe furthers its Mugen line of computer processor heatsink air coolers by redesigning the fan with the new "Glide Stream" unit. It also pays attention to the heatsink design itself but has totally rethought its mounting system and how it works making the Mugen 4 heatsink much easier to install than its predecessors? Bang for the buck too!
Results: Temperatures
For our stock testing our i7 4770k will be kept at 3.50 GHz with a minimal 1.00v. For overclocked CPU testing, we will be running our CPU at 4.4GHz with 1.25v. Idle temperatures will be recorded after a twenty minute period of inactivity. Any fluctuation during the last sixty seconds will reset the timer for an additional five minutes. Load temperatures will be recorded after a thirty minute period of 100% load. To obtain this load we will be using AIDA64 Extreme Edition v3.00.2500. Any fluctuation during the last sixty seconds will reset the timer for an additional five minutes.
Please note we start our charts at 25C which is the ambient temperature at the time of testing. Since we are dealing with water cooling it is physically impossible for the temps to be less than ambient. This is why we start our charts at 25C.
Stock Settings

Right out of the gate the Mugen 4 puts on a strong showing. The Mugen 4 is able to take the third overall spot and the second spot among air coolers. This is a very good start for this cooler and I hope it continues when we turn up the heat.
Overclock Settings

Now this is impressive. Not only is the Mugen 4 able to beat out all other air coolers in the overclock test but it is also able to beat out the included water cooler. It may be a tiny margin of victory but given the competition this is an impressive showing. Now let’s see if our ears have to pay the price for this level of performance.
Sound
To test the sound output of the fan we first start by disabling all other fans in the PC. We place our meter approximately four feet away from the PC by where I sit.

So the Mugen 4 may not use the quietest fan around but take a look at the NZXT’s fan. The Mugen 4 is able to deliver slightly better performance than the NZXT X40 and do so at much quieter levels. That is a win-win.
It seems Scythe is on a roll here with the Mugen 4. With three tests down and one final metric to measure let’s see if Scythe can make a clean sweep.

