The unusual suspects caught in our round-up.

Starting with the Zipang and Shuriken, Scythe appears to have heard the former group (however silent they may be) and their latest cooling contraption is no exception to the low/ no-noise heatsink rule. The Scythe Orochi tips the scales at the other end from the diminutive Shuriken coming in at 1.15KG sans fan. Occupying the size of 6 drink cans, one could be forgiven for thinking that it's a block of metal sitting atop the CPU when looking at it from certain angles. With such large fins and packing in 10 heatpipes, the Orochi is paired up with an incredibly sluggish 500RPM (and similarly silent) fan measuring 140mm. This, according to the manual, is an optional component when it comes to cooling most CPUs so long as you maintain good ventilation in your computer.

Designed to fade into the background and not be heard, the Orochi is understandably photo-shy.

For those who must have some form of lighting coming from every fan in their computer, the superior cooling performance of the top-dogs is no excuse for their dull-look. The new kid on the block from ThermalTake may just do the trick for this group of users. Banking on the design that made them famous during the Socket-A days, ThermalTake has taken the ORB to a whole new level. Their latest cooler, the DUORB features not one but TWO orbs suspended above the base via 6 heatpipes. Of course, the bling factor has similarly been increased from their previously offerings. If you've seen the BlueOrb and RubyOrb heatsinks, you'll note the the respective Blue and Red LED fans on them. With two orbs (and fans) on the DUORB, ThermalTake has taken the opportunity to place both colours on one heatsink. If you subscribe to the "One LED good, two LEDs better" ideology, this cooler might just be the what you have been looking for.

Made to wow, Thermaltake's DUORB poses confidently for the picture.

If you've not found your calling in the cooling world, a quick tour of the heatsinks in this round-up might just help you make up your mind. If you belong to any of the groups above, then you're in the right place.

ThermalTake has designed quite a number of interesting heatpipe heatsinks of late but the DUORB surely takes the cake with it's twin-orb design. The design is not just used in the CPU cooler as we see but has also been made available for some time as a GPU cooler and has proven to be fairly popular in our forums - something we would attribute to its good cooling performance and the tested and proven: Bling Factor. If the CPU cooler proves to be as good as it's GPU counterpart, ThermalTake might have a winner in its hands.

The DUORB features a total of 6 heatpipes - 3 for each of the orbs.

The base of the DUORB has a mirror finish and the heatpipes are soldered to the fins. Both of which are good signs.

The DUORB uses a pair of 80mm frameless fans rated at 0.20A each.

The DUORB comes with mounting mechanisms for both AM2 and LGA-775.
A sticker (Key 3) is also included for those who enjoy decorating their casings.

Let's take a look at the basic specifications of the DUORB before we move on.

Coming in at 1.15KG without the fan, Scythe's Orochi sounds like it could kill a motherboard or two just sitting on them. Taking that in mind, Scythe engineers have swapped out plastic push-pins in favour of a clip-based retention mechanism coupled with a stainless steel backplate for greater reliability.

The provided steel backplate is fairly thick and screws are meant to be threaded through from the bottom.
4 plastic washers are used to insulate the retention mechanism from the board.

Unlike previous coolers, Scythe used a retention clip system instead of push-pins. Plastic push-pins would have failed here.

At 598g, the ThermalTake DUORB is no where near the Orochi's weight. As such, ThermalTake could rely on their traditional method of using a strut to clamp the base down onto the CPU.

The LGA-775 brackets will look familiar to those who have used their coolers in the past.
One thing that has changed is that the screws thread in from the top and nuts are used on the bottom.

 
A spring-loaded screw-nut is used to provide mounting pressure on the strut.

The setup comprised of an Intel QX6850 Kentsfield processor mounted on an ASRock 4Core1600P35 motherboard. The setup was run in an open-case concept and laid horizontally on the table. Temperatures were monitored with the provided monitoring utility from ASRock.  Load temperature testing procedure involves running two instances of Orthos Small-FTT-test (4 threads in total) at least 15 minutes or more if necessary to obtain a stable temperature. For Idle temperature measurements, we waited for the CPU and system temperatures to stabilize after loading the Windows Desktop with no applications running in the background.

Test Setup

• Intel Core 2 Quad QX6850 operating at 3GHz (9 x 333MHz; 1.3v set in BIOS)
• ASRock 4Core1600P35-WiFi+ Motherboard
• 2 x 1GB Infineon DDR3-10600 Ram
• NVIDIA Geforce 8400GS
• Scythe ZIPANG Cooler
• Scythe OROCHI Cooler
• ThermalTake DUORB CPU Cooler
• 2 x 80GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 HDD
• Pioneer DVR-215BK SATA DVD-RW
• FSP Everest 80Plus 600W PSU
• Windows Vista Ultimate x86

Unless otherwise stated, the operating voltages and frequencies are as follows:

Scythe OROCHI Setup

ThermalTake DUORB in Action

Bling Blings for those who like it!

The Intel Q6600 is an extremely affordable CPU and with the G0 revision, has proven to be very popular with end-users and enthusiasts alike. Even those new to it often find it hard to resist the urge to put the chip through some overclocking given the glowing results obtained by others. As such, we opt to perform a moderate overclock of the Kentsfield CPU to 3.5GHz, 1.5v vcore as part of the overclocking test to determine if the DUORB is up to the mark for these users. 

The OROCHI is spared this overclocking test since it's primary role is to provide silent/ low-noise cooling. Instead, we decided to see if the OROCHI could handle the QX6850 without a fan! Note that this is an Extreme Edition Quad Core that's clocked faster than the Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600. Also, another nagging question would be whether the OROCHI could perform better with a faster spinning fan. To test this, we settled for a SCYTHE S-FLEX "F" 120mm fan. Spinning at 1,600RPM, the S-FLEX is audible from a close distance but it isn't noisy by any regards. From experience, it would be inaudible from 2 feet away with the side panel closed on the casing.
The settings used for the DUORB overclocking test is as follows.

A modest overclock to 3.5GHz and a Vcore of 1.5v (1.489v after droop) was used in the O/C test.

DUORB Test Results

At stock settings for the QX6850 (9 x 333MHz, 1.3v), we see the Zipang take a small lead over the DUORB for both CPU and system temperture. However, once the heat is turned up, the DUORB goes on to lead the Zipang by 13'C on the CPU and 1'C on system temperatures. Of course, this performance advantage comes at a price. Unlike the Zipang, the DUORB is not silent and the fan noise at 2000RPM is definitely noticeable.

When the processor was pushed to 3.5GHz, the Zipang failed the stress test with errors being generated by Orthos as soon as the temperatures rose above 80'C.  Meanwhile, the DUORB performed admirably with a CPU temperature of 76'C.  This is certainly not comfort zone for many and we cannot recommend operating your CPU at such temperatures for extended periods of time.  However, it is still good to know that the DUORB is still capable (just) of handling the heatload of an overclocked Quad Core.

SCYTHE OROCHI Test Results

The OROCHI's stock fan spins so slowly that the monitoring software won't register its speed.

With the provided fan, the OROCHI is dead silent to us.  In fact, the speed shown in BIOS was about 380RPM rather than the 500RPM it's rated for in free air.  During testing in the labs, the silence was eerie as we were accustomed to the noise emitted by the high performance fans we normally use on the test rigs to keep the heat at bay.  Even the harddisk whine was loud in comparison to the fan.  When operated with the included fan, the OROCHI turns out a result that's slightly worse off than the Zipang albeit with a fan that spins 2.5 times slower. Whilst the figures do not look impressive, the whole point of the OROCHI is to cool the CPU silently - a job that it does well.

For those who may somehow have super-sensitive hearing, we took to testing SCYTHE's claims that the cooler can be operated passively with Quad Cores. When we took the fan off, the cooler managed to keep the Quad Core fairly cool (by passive cooler standards) at 70'C. So for those who think that fans are truly evil, the Orochi may be the right cooler for you.

The S-Flex mounted on our Zipang

If you don't feel that fans are evil, the one question that might be egging you would be whether the OROCHI could perform significantly better with a faster fan. We chose the SCYTHE S-FLEX "F" because of its performance and noise-level - it falls in-line with the quiet cooling stance that Scythe adopted for the OROCHI.

With the S-FLEX "F" mounted on the OROCHI, we were not expecting much as the fin density is fairly low and should not need additional air-pressure. You could imagine our surprise as the use of the S-FLEX allowed for a further 12'C drop in CPU temperatures at load and maintained a healthy system temperature of 35'C. As it is evident from the difference in load temperatures between passive mode and the stock fan, the fin density does not require high static pressure from the fan. The OROCHI simply benefits from having more airflow through the finsand those who are adventurous enough might want to try using a larger, low speed fan that moves more air through the heatsink for better cooling.

That said, we do not expect the Orochi to perform exponentially better with fans with significantly higher airflow or pressure, and brute force cooling might be limited due to its inital design for passive and low cfm cooling.

Orb or Block for you sir?

Conclusion

This round up proved to be extremely interesting for us at the labs we had a chance to compare two vastly different coolers in the two extremes of the spectrum. From the dead silent Scythe OROCHI to the visually loud ThermalTake DUORB, one thing can be agreed on - both coolers have held up to their ends of the bargain.

With the ThermalTake DUORB, the bling factor was evident even before we turned the lights off. If you want bling, you would be hard pressed to find a cooler that delivers better than the DUORB. Furthermore, its cooling powress also impressed as it went on to keep the motherboard components cooler than the compeition even as we fully loaded the 3GHz Kentsfield. This, despite occupying less space than the other two coolers in the round up.

Whilst the temperatures during the load testing were not exactly low, the DUORB proved that it could take on the massive heatload put out by the QX6850 clocked to 3.5GHz. With so much going for it, would the DUORB encroach on the territory of the Scythe coolers? No. Unfortunately, with both fans spinning at 2,100RPM, the DUORB is not silent cooler by any means. It's audible and might be barely so when placed in a casing but at no point would it be irritating. Our only gripe with the DUORB was in the fact that when mounted, it blocked access to the 8-pin EPS connector on the motherboard. The connector is found at a similar location on many boards out there and so would be users should take note of this fact. It's therefore a good idea to connect the 4/ 8-pin 12v cable before mounting the DUORB onto the brackets. This is especially so for those with removable motherboard trays. In short, you might be extremely excited with acquiring a unit but do remember to mount the cooler last. For upping the ante on interior lighting and still delivering good cooling performance, the ThermalTake DUORB earns itself a healthy 80 VR-Marks.

ThermalTake DUORB CPU Cooler

At the other end, we have the Scythe OROCHI which did not fail to impress with its ability to deliver sufficient cooling for the Extreme Edition Quad Core even as we took the fan off the cooler. During the load testing (passive cooling), the fans and all ten heatpipes started to turn blistering hot. We were unable to touch them for more than 2 seconds. Even though I initially felt skeptical about Scythe's choice of stacking heatpipes on top of one another, their engineering effort has proven me wrong. I am almost tempted to call it an engineering marvel were it not for the fact that overclocking the QX6850 was not possible. With its sheer size and weight, one could say they're getting their monies worth just considering the amount of metal used. Keep the OROCHI away from your missus or you could find it being used as a meat tenderizer one not-so-fine-day. Although the fan included in the package spins ever so slowly, the load temperatures were dropped on the CPU by 7'C. I dare say that most silent-freaks would not be able to hear it over the sound of their harddisk drives. Hence, there is no real need to omit the fan from its metal companion.

Not all is rosy for the OROCHI though. The sheer size of the cooler also means that clearance in a chassis is a very real issue and one should check if the OROCHI would fit in their casings before making a purchase. It is good that Scythe acknowledges this issue and places a prominent warning on their website about it.

If you're unsure as to whether the OROCHI would fit in your case, take a 6-pack of Coke or booze and hang it 5.5 cm above your CPU socket to check the component clearance on the sides. The side panel of the chassis should be at least 6.1 inch above the CPU socket and more if you wish to mount a fan blowing towards the motherboard. Based on the findings however, I would highly recommend using it to push air up and towards the PSU area instead.

Although Scythe is a fairly new company as far as CPU coolers are concerned, the OROCHI is certainly a testament to their ability to produce quality heatsinks for various market segments along with their Infinity (Mugen) and Ninja coolers. In light of this, I feel that the Scythe OROCHI deserves as many VRMarks as the DUORB. Both are equally good coolers in their own rights and you would not go wrong with either of them.

Scythe OROCHI Cooler

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