Quiet SFF Cooling for Ryzen 7700X : Scythe Big Shruiken 3 Rev B SFF Air Cooler Review

Pros:

• Solid Construction
• Quiet Operation
• Full RAM Compatibility

About Scythe

Does Scythe even need an introduction? If you’re not familiar with Scythe they have over 20 years of experience, founded year 2002 in Tokyo, Japan. They’re well known amongst PC cooling enthusiasts for coolers which prioritize quiet operation – their FUMA 2 is one of the most popular desktop air coolers on the market!

Introducing Scythe’s Big Shuriken 3 Rev B, a SFF air cooler

RAM Clearance	Unlimited (depending on rotation of cooler)
Coldplate	Nickel-plated Copper
Heatpipes	5 x 6mm
Dimensions	122 x 122 x 67 (including fan)
Compatible Socket	Intel Socket LGA 1700, 1200, 115x, 2066 & 2011(V3) Square ILM AMD Socket AM5, AM4, AM3(+), AM2(+), FM2, FM1
Weight w/ fans	490g

Low Profile SFF Cooling

The Big Shuriken 3 features a low profile design at only 67mm tall. The cooler should fit into even the most cramped and space constrained of cases, making it a viable option for any SFF or Mini-ITX build.

Additional 25mm mounting screws

While Scythe includes a strong Kaze Flex II PWM Slim fan, they recognize that some enthusiasts might prefer to pair a louder fan. They’ve included 4x 25mm mounting screws for those who would prefer to upgrade the included fan.

5 Copper Heatpipes

1x 120mm Kaze Flex II PWM Slim fan

There’s more to a cooler than just it’s heat sink, the fans paired with a cooler have a huge impact both total cooling potential and noise levels. Scythe includes a slim Kaze Flex II 120mm PWM fan.

Scythe advertises the following with this fan:

• Anti Vibration Rubber
  • Equipped with Anti-Vibration rubber allows Kaze Flex II slim fan to contribute nearly silent operation by absorbing possible vibration transmission.
• High Precision FDB
  • With proprietary Fluid Dynamic Bearing, Kaze Flex 120 Slim fan provides quiet cooling as well as long lifespan up to 120,000 hours. The bearing and pressure shaft are made of high-quality compressed metal, it is to guarantee minimum tolerance and excellent stability.

Size	120 x 120 x 15 mm
Speed	300-1800 RPM +-10%
Blades	9
Airflow	Up to 48 CFM
Static Pressure	Up to 1.36 mm H20
Rated Noise Level	27.8 dBA
Bearing	High Precision FDB
Connector	4-pin PWM

Packaging and included contents

The Big Shuriken comes in a small box, as it’s only a SFF sized cooler. Upon opening the box you’ll see the top inner box which holds the accessories for installing the cooler. Below the accessories box is the SFF heatsink and fan.

Included with the package are

• SFF Heatsink
• 1x Slim 120mm Kaze Flex II PWM fan
• Mounting for modern Intel & AMD platforms
• Thermal paste
• Manual

AM4 & AM5 Cooler Installation with H.P.M.S IV Mounting System

Scythe made the Big Shuriken’s installation very simple and it only takes a few steps.

1. Remove the default AM5 retention socket

2. Place the rubber standoffs against the motherboard

3. Place the mounting bars against the rubber standoffs, and secure them with screws

4. Place the cooler against the mounting bars, and use a screwdriver to secure it. You’ll need to aim the screwdriver through the fan atop the heatsink to reach the screws.

Foreword

Over the past few months I’ve been exploring different levels of cooling with AMD’s Ryzen 7 7700X CPU. When I tested EKWB’s AIO Elite 280, it surprised me by able to keeping the CPU under TJmax in intensive workloads – I had been under the impression that it was “impossible” to keep Ryzen 7000 CPUs under TJMax in intense workloads. On the opposite end, I tested BeQuiet’s Pure Rock LP SFF cooler – which was only able to cool 66W.

In the past I’ve mentioned how my past testing of coolers had focused on Intel CPUs because they were the most challenging to cool and also consumed the most power. When Alder Lake was released, I noticed that the thermal difficulty of cooling the 12900K was more difficult compared to prior generation products – only a few coolers were able to keep it under TJMax.

Intel’s i9-13900K and AMD’s Ryzen 7 7700X CPUs can be even more difficult to cool in heat intensive workloads – and this trend is likely to continue with future generations of CPUs. As CPUs continue to shrink in size, thermal density rises, increasing the difficulty of cooling. Indeed, it is no longer worrying to run a desktop CPU at it’s peak temperature – it is to be expected in intense workloads without power restrictions or undervolting.

I have been interested to see how different levels of cooling performance effect both AMD and Intel platforms for some time. Thanks to our partner ASRock this is now possible – they sent a sample of their B650E Taichi for testing purposes. I will be taking a closer look at this motherboard in the future – but in the meantime check out reviews of this pristine motherboard on Funkykit & Tom’s Hardware.

Test Platform Configuration

Test Configuration
CPU	AMD Ryzen 7 7700X
Motherboard	ASRock B650E Taichi (sampled by ASRock)
Computer Case	DeepCool CK560WH (sampled by DeepCool)
PSU	DeepCool PQ1000M (sampled by DeepCool)
Storage	1TB Kingston Fury Renegade
GPU	Intel ARC A770 LE (sampled by Intel)
RAM	32GB (16gb x2) Crucial DDR5-4800 (Sampled by Micron)
Coolers Tested (click links for previous reviews)	BeQuiet! Pure Rock LP BeQuiet! Shadow Rock 3 Cougar Forza 135 DeepCool AG500 DeepCool LT720 WH EK AIO Elite 280 D-RGB Fractal Celsius+ S28 Iceberg Thermal IceFLOE T95 Iceberg Thermal IceSLEET G4 Silent Iceberg Thermal IceSLEET X7 Dual Scythe Kotetsu Mark Three Scythe Big Shuriken Rev B Silverstone Hydrogon D120W ARGB Thermalright Peerless Assassin SE 120 ARGB

For thermal results, I’ve tested the CPU in three configurations

• At the default power limits
• Noise normalized to 36.4 dBA for silent operation
• With a 95W PPT enforced
• With a 75W PPT enforced.

Maximum Noise Levels

With a total system noise level of 42.9 dBA, Scythe’s Big Shuriken 3 Rev B. runs with a quiet hum and it isn’t loud in any sense of the word. It maintains this noise level in all of our tests when tied to the default fan curve of ASRock’s b650E Taichi.

Some of y’all might notice that the graph starts at 35 instead of zero – this is because my sound meter cannot measure noise levels lower than 35 dBA. Since that is the noise floor of this meter’s recording capabilities, 35 dBA is the “zero” for our testing purposes. For those concerned that this might distort results – there’s no worry. If anything, the graphs above will minimize the differences in noise levels because dBA measurements are logarithmic.

For a more detailed explanation of how decibel levels correspond to perceived noise levels, please check out the video below from BeQuiet! which makes it easy to visualize and understand the true impact of of increasing dBA levels.

Noise Normalized Results

My data here for noise normalized operation with SFF coolers is limited, but when you consider that DeepCool’s full size AG500 air cooler only performs 18% better when noise normalized – Scythe’s bite sized SFF cooling performance looks pretty darned good.

75W Power Limit

Lowering the power limit to 75W reduces cooling difficulty considerably, with Scythe’s Big Shuriken Three maintaining temperatures of 55C over a 23C ambient temperature. This is 11C better than the BeQuiet and Iceberg Thermal SFF coolers tested here, which is a fairly impressive lead.

It’s important to remember that if you prefer fully silent operation, the noise normalized results shown earlier demonstrate that you won’t lose any performance in these power limited scenarios if you set fan speeds to run silently.

95W Power Limit

Imposing even a minor power consumption limit on AMD’s Ryzen 7700X reduces cooling difficulty dramatically resulting in the ability to easily to cool the CPU under TJMax (95c), as such in these situations the total noise levels are more important. It’s also important to test in these TDP restricted situations, because most “real life” workloads will not push the CPU to it’s limits.

At first glance you might think the results here are bad, because Scythe’s cooler is at the bottom of the chart – having reached 69C over ambient temp during testing.

But the fact that it’s even on this chart is a good sign – both BeQuiet’s Pure Rock LP and Iceberg Thermal’s IceFLOE T95 failed this test.

Default Power Limits

At the default power limits, the most intensive loads can be difficult to cool and result in the CPU running at TJMax. As such, we’ll be looking at the total watts cooled in this scenario.

Cooling an average of 98.1W, Scythe’s cooler does better than other SFF offerings – only a small bit aways from reaching the cooling performance of normal sized air coolers.

Conclusion

Scythe’s Big Shuriken Three Rev B is a nice SFF cooler that pairs well with Ryzen 7 7700X cooling loads of up to 100W in long term, sustained workloads. It’s low profile makes it a good fit for even the most space constrained of spaces, and will pair well with any SFF case on the market.