Design and Installation
Design
As mentioned on the previous page, the Ninja 4's square heatsink design (effectively a composite of four smaller towers connected in the center) allows the fan to be attached on any side, which makes it easy to direct airflow even after installation.
While a similar overall size to Noctua's NH-D14 cooler (a dual-tower design), the Ninja 4 offers a lot of fin surface area to help keep your processor cool. Just how well a single fan (and a low-RPM fan at that) can cope with thermals remains to be seen, but the heatsink certainly looks like it can do the job.
The heatsink features six nickel-plated copper heatpipes
The all-important base looks precisely milled and is very flat, allowing for a reliable connection to the CPU.
And now a look at the finished product with fan attached:
The fan's speed controller is located on one side side of the frame
Installation
The Ninja 4 is equipped with Scythe's HPMS (Hyper Precision Mounting System), and with this the installation process begins with the fitting of the retention bracket. For my Intel processor this begins with a metal backplate which sits over the LGA socket's bottom plate.
After lining up the holes retention screws are affixed to the top side around the socket.
A pair of brackets are connected on the top side with four screws, and now the Ninja 4 is ready to be attached. As large as this cooler is, the long screwdriver included is greatly appreciated, and this step was easy.
A secure connection with the screws in place on both sides
There is enough clearance to make installation simple, and standard memory modules will pose no issue. Those with very tall memory heatsinks will have to use the outer DIMM slots, and some modules may not work at all.
With the Ninja 4 making secure contact with the test system's Core i5 processor, it was time to test out the temps and noise.
Thanks so much for the
Thanks so much for the review. Glad Maury is not the only one there who appreciates large air coolers and does not feel the need to ridicule the multitude of enthusiasts that have used them for years without broken boards from the weight.
I am shocked that a 0.3 decibel level difference between the high and low fan setting, negligible, results in a 10 degree improvement in “stress” temps. Hard to believe that is possible, but there it is. Why would one ever bother to run it at less than high with that kind of gain for almost nothing?
The results were a little
The results were a little skewed based on noise floor. I haven't had anything quiet enough to make my 33.4 dB ambient the limiting factor before this, and the low was somewhere below this. In reality there was more than a 0.3 decibel difference, but noise was really minimal at the highest setting.
Inside any reasonably quiet case you just aren't going to hear this, even on high, so I'm with you there.
I’ve had low speed fans
I’ve had low speed fans increase noise drastically by inducing resonance into the case.
Having said that, it’s probably rare and these noise figures make me think maybe a SINGLE SPEED fan would be worth considering because aren’t they possible to make cheaper, or at least last longer?
I wonder how it compares to AMD’s new single-speed fan as that thing baffles me. It has one speed but it’s audible.
On my NH-D14 I took off the 12cm fan and attached it to the rear of my PC. It didn’t add much to the cooling versus being off but replacing my cheaper case fan made a huge noise difference.
I have another recent Scythe
I have another recent Scythe heatsink with basically the same fan (the Scythe Kotetsu, with a 120 mm Glidestream PWM fan with the same rpm range, just without the switch), and let me tell you, there is a big difference in noise between ~800 rpm and ~1500 rpm for the fan, even closed in a case. Also a very noticeable one between ~800 rpm and ~1150 rpm. Even the ~800 rpm speed would be audible in my build at idle when things are quiet around the house; fortunately, the PWM control can keep it around 500 rpm then.
I will be installing this
I will be installing this cooler in my system soon. To be ready for the summer, I have an air conditioner but will not be on all the time during the summer. We will see how the Ninja 4 performs.