Heya whats up guys!

Welcome to my long drivel as I review this Scythe Mugen 5 Rev B CPU cooler mounted on my 12700F system and the 'home improvements' I did with surprising results!

Official product page as follows: https://www.scytheus.com/mugen5

A lil bit of backstory, a few months ago I managed to get this Mugen cooler 2nd hand off the used marketplace at a decently low price and I tested the bearing was running smoothly so I scored a good value buy. I am always keeping an eye for good value deals.


However... being a Rev B model it doesn't come with an LGA1700 mount nor thermal paste, and so off I went to Shopee for more bargains & deals. In fact too much bargain as I originally gotten this Thermalright TF4 & while waiting to install I got another bargain deal for TF7. So why not use the better TP instead LOL!


Altogether the cooler + LGA1700 mounting kit + both thermalpaste cost a bit less than RM 100 as compared to a brand new Mugen 5 for about RM 150 and that without the LGA1700 support.

Anyhow, on with the cooler itself.
Holding it, it still impresses me how big & thicc & heavy this chunky aluminum big boi, weighing at 760g alone. With the single Kaze Flex2 fan its approximately 900g!


I can already sense a lot of cooling potential from this big boi!

This post has been edited by babylon52281: Feb 24 2024, 11:47 PM

Installation is straightforward and basically using the LGA mounting kit following the methodology in Gamers Nexus review of the Fuma2/Ninja5, leaving about 1 turn from bottoming the cross latch due to concern on too much mounting pressure force.



I also used spread method for thermalpasting to ensure full coverage. TF7 however is very tacky and not vicous enough to spread it thinly.


It could just be my sample or my skills are lousy, I dunno.

With this much cooling potential, I can now unleash my Alderlake CPU with PL1=PL2 unlocked to max turbo power of 180W. And what better way to show than a Cinebench R23 multicore comparo:


Impressively, the results not only went higher overall but it was also a wee bit higher than Techspot's reviewed 12700 CPU armed with a Corsair H170i, a 360mm AIO!


More impressively not only did I get better results but I am no more thermal throttling as with the Intel stock cooler, hitting a max of 96oC in an ambient temperature of 29oC.

R23 is no able longer to put the hammer down, time to find another power virus to wring out its max thermal envelope that this cooler can handle. For that I put it thru some load test simulators and measure the max wattage.


OCCT AVX2 test managed the highest stressing the CPU to 175W, slightly below Prime95 remains a very demanding test, hammering out to 173W, and 3rd is Linpack Xtreme hammering to 169W, and various other testers. Altogether so far none of the stress testers were able to hit the 180W power limit nor am I thermal throttling whatsoever.
For context the Intel stock cooler was a poor poor comparison hitting a 128W wall and even that was thermal throttling to 100oC.

The Mugen's temperature (degrees C) per watt performance is so good it showed that it could handle this 12700F easily. Hitting Prime95? No problem.


And while the heatsinking ability is so good, another impressive characteristic is its ability to rapidly dissipate heat loads. Under Prime95, it went from idle of 41oC to a max temperature of 96oC and within 90 secs of stopping, its able to cool down the CPU back to near idle temp of 42oC.

This post has been edited by babylon52281: Nov 26 2023, 03:28 PM

But still... there is room for improvement. So by studying the Mugen 5 radiator tower, it looks to be an open type ol' skool design unlike the newer generation towers with enclosed sides creating a windtunnel effect to push air out more effectively similar to how Cougar markets their Forza 85 that comes with 'Vacuum Tunnel Design'. Enermax calls theirs the 'Vacuum Effect'. Noctua U12A has them walls.




So taking inspiration from these, I made C-shaped buffers for left & right out of 2mm thick cardboard, in this I found that art craft plastic board was too thick (~3mm) but quite a lot of gift boxes were the right thickness of 2mm to slot into the top and bottom most fin gaps.


To test this theory out unfortunately I do not have access to an anemometer, instead I made a simple test bench using a vertical ruler and measure the height of a plastic bag being blown. The idea is that a higher airflow, will cause the red plastic material to fly more horizontally, and this is shown in 3 test conditions; stock without sidewalls (flying at 13cm height), with added sidewalls (flying at 14cm), additionally with a 2nd fan (nearly horizontal at 15cm).


The far right was a final enhancement to fully maximise CPU cooling capacity with the 2nd fan harvested from one of the chassis fans. That is another mod for later.

Anyhow the engineering behind it is sound, but what about the performance?

This test was done prior to changing PL1 to 180W so after hitting turbo boost time limiter the wattage drops to 65W. The test ended after 60 secs and left to cool down for another 30secs.


In all the transition phases, each improvement had markedly lowered CPU temperatures with each one giving a 2oC better average than the previous. So it just works.

As a conclusion, it shows that some ol skool coolers like this Mugen 5 has a lot more to give when it comes with a sound design and ol skool means there is ways to improve its capabilities further as shown above. For a 120mm single tower air cooler it could just about beat the performance of an 360mm AIO which is impressive but there is also an absolute value coming as a much cheaper 2nd hand unit and as air coolers goes it will perform just like a brand new unit.

A final photo of how it looks in my system with all the improvements done. The full memory clearance allows all 4 sticks of my RAMs to be seen. The 2nd fan blowing from behind is close to inline with the rear exhaust fan so it effectively vents the CPU heat out of the case


Lastly I havent done much gaming so game results are not put up but since games dont fully stress the CPU much yet, CPU temperatures are about 50-60oC in an ambient 29oC room. I might put up more if I have the time.

Lastly lastly I am still concerned that with a 2nd fan the whole thing now weighs more than 1 kg, and that heavy hanging off my mobo is worrying. I will be doing another home improvement on that soonish.

If there is something that I missed, do let me know in the comment below and if you read this part, thanks for coming down this rabbit hole with me!

PS If I could get my hands on a cheap Fuma2 I would swap and test that.

This post has been edited by babylon52281: Nov 26 2023, 05:23 PM

Nice. You can also upgrade the fan to Arctic P12 Max for more cooling. Stock Fuma 2 fan is more towards silence.

Will that be a concern? I'm currently running a Fuma 2 with 3 fans attached to it,

Yeah stock Scythe cooler fan is very anemic on their RevB versions maxing out to just 1200RPM, I got some ideas for that but need to wait for my next upgrade first.
For now temps are pretty good actually, riding just under TJMax even at full load. I dont think I will see throttling in games or apps.

Swapping Arctic fans would be an easy fix but thats no challenge!

Well for me it is, I mean excess of 1kg hanging off the mobo PCB which is < 5mm thick. But there are so many even larger massive 140mm air coolers out in the market so I guess there isnt any short term issues but who knows if its inside a system for 7-10 years. Call me paranoid but it will be something I am working on.

PS A caveat, if urs a high end mobo with rear backplate, there is less to worry.

This post has been edited by babylon52281: Nov 27 2023, 07:44 PM

Hey guys,

After 3 months of use I wasnt too happy with the 1kg weight free hanging off the mobo. So with an 'L' bracket, a couple of long screws (10-12cm length), nuts, and automotive grade vinyl tubing, I made a unified CPU cooler and GPU anti-sag holder.



The bracket is made from 3mm thick steel and screw mounted to the base of the PSU shroud so its sturdy enough to stand the cooler weight to prevent it from stressing the mobo.


I also took this opportunity to replace the anemic Scythe Kaze Flex fan that is limited to 1200RPM with an aggressive profile fan design that mimics static pressure type fans ie Gentle Typhoon, MSI Gale, Scythe Wonder Snail. It spins up to 1600 RPM and comes with ARGB



I moved the ori Kaze Flex fan to the rear and by chance the new front fan spins a conventional counterclockwise while Kaze Flex fans goes an atypical clockwise direction.
Pairing the both I inadvertently recreated Scythe's Dual Reverse Jet Flow arrangement that they used for the Fuma 2 & 3.



To maximise further airflow, additionally I installed 90 degrees angled joints for both the ATX power and USB3.0 header connectors. This remove the flow blockage from the wire connections and air can flow unimpeded to the RAMs and towards the CPU cooler fans.





Overall, I believe the faster spinning fan at front should help to push more air thru and supposedly the Dual Reverse Jet flow should help as well.
I also added wire combs to the ATX PSU wires to straighten it as well on the GPU power wires.

This post has been edited by babylon52281: Feb 25 2024, 02:43 AM

I have other improvements & mods too but these are the ones related for the CPU cooler itself. Here is what it looks with RGB turned on

Good MB is design to take heavy fan. Lousy mb will bent but may still working.

Get a full tower casing with usb removal upgrade. Can last 3 century for re-use.

No doubts and good mobos would come with metal backplate. Even so I would err on the side of caution and at least is a peace of mind to brace the cooler.

Dont need so advanced features. New cases are relatively affordable compared to other PC components. By the time USB form factor changes I would have to build a new system anyways so new case with new USB would be just a minor extra cost.