A Quiet And Effective Budget CPU Cooler : Scythe Kotetsu Mark Three Review

Introducing Scythe, Co.

Today we'll be looking a budget CPU cooler from Scythe, one of the most popular manufacturers in the PC cooling space. If you're not familiar with Scythe they have over 20 years of experience, founded year 2002 in Tokyo, Japan. They're best known for their high performance, low noise level CPU coolers like the FUMA 2 - but they also make PC fans ranging from 92mm-140mm in size.

Introducing the Kotetsu Mark Three CPU Air Cooler

The cooler we'll be examining with today's review is the Kotetsu Mark Three air cooler, an entry level product which can be found for $29.99 USD. It features a single tower with 4 heatpipes, paired with a 120mm Kaze Flex fan for quiet operation.

What comes in the box

The Kotetsu Mark Three arrives in a simple, small box with cardboard and foam to protect the inner contents during shipping.

Included with the Kotetsu Mark Three are

Features of the Scythe Kotetsu Mark Three Air Cooler

The Kotetsu Mark Three provides a great value with a budget price of $29.99, and is currently available from retailers like NewEgg. You won't find many coolers for available at a cheaper price.

The Kotetsu Mark Three was designed in a way that the cooler doesn't overhang RAM at all, meaning that it's compatible no matter how tall your DDR4 or DDR5 is!

The fans included with a cooler can be just as important as the heatsink, and have a direct impact on performance and noise levels. Scythe includes the latest Kaze Flex II PWM fan, which features improved anti-vibration rubber pads (vs previous products) for reduced noise and vibration

Scythe's cooler features a nickel-plated copper heatsink and four heatpipes to assist with heat dissipation.

AM4/AM5 Installation

The first thing you'll need to do is to remove the default AM5 retention brackets. Once complete, take the grey standoffs included with the package and place them around the CPU. Take the AMD mounting bar by placing it on top of the grey standoffs, then secure it using a screwdriver.

Once you've installed the mounting bars, apply the included thermal paste. Take the tower radiator and place it against the mounting bars and then secure it with a screwdriver.

The last step is to attach the fans to the radiator tower using the included clips, and connect the PWM cable to your motherboard.

Test Platform Configuration and Testing Methodology

BeQuiet! Pure Rock LP

BeQuiet! Shadow Rock 3

Cooler Master Hyper 622 Halo

Cougar Forza 135

DeepCool AG500

DeepCool LT720 WH

EK AIO Elite 280 D-RGB

Fractal Celsius+ S28

Iceberg Thermal IceSLEET G4 Silent

Iceberg Thermal IceSLEET X7 Dual

Scythe Kotetsu Mark Three

Silverstone Hydrogon D120W ARGB

Thermalright Peerless Assassin SE 120 ARGB

I've tested Scythe's Kotetsu Mark Three paired with AMD's Ryzen 7 7700X CPU and ASRock's B650E Taichi motherboard, installed in DeepCool's CK560WH computer case. To test cooling capacity, I run Cinebench R23's multi-core benchmark in four system configurations.

Observant readers may notice that the noise graphs start at 35 instead of zero. This is because my sound meter cannot measure sound levels lower than 35 dBA. This makes it the "zero" for 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  detailed explanation of how decibel measurements 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

Performance scales by an extremely limited amount with stronger coolers on AMD's Ryzen 7 7700X, which means there isn't much of a benefit to running fans at full speed. It's useful to see how coolers perform when noise normalized for quiet operation.

Cooling an average of 111.2W during the course of Cinebench testing, Scythe's Kotetsu Mark Three isn't the strongest contender shown here. However, the competing coolers shown in this graph are typically more expensive than Scythe's offering - which is available for only $29.99 USD.

Maximum Cooling Performance at Default Power Limits

With the stock power limits of AMD's Ryzen 7 7700X, any air cooler no matter how strong will cause the CPU to reach it's TJMax of 95C. In this configuration, we'll be evaluating the cooler by how many watts are dissipated by the cooler and the noise levels it produces at full speed.

With a maximum noise level of 42.9 dBA, Scythe's Kotetsu Mark Three runs softly even at full fan speeds. Those who prefer silent operation will enjoy the Kotesu Mark Three, as it runs quieter than most coolers on the market today.

Looking at the total cooling performance, the Kotetsu Mark Three was able to cool 116.5W on average when paired with AMD's Ryzen 7 7700X. This is about 15W shy of the best results I've seen with an air cooler, and won't result in any significant impact to performance.

95W Thermals and Acoustics

It's important to test a cooler under a variety of power limits, because most workloads won't push the CPU to use it's full power budget. Cooling difficulty decreases dramatically with lower power workloads and how loud the cooler operates in these situations is more important.

Most air coolers keep the CPU near 80C in this scenario, although the best air coolers can keep it closer to 75C. With an average of 58C over a 23C ambient temperature (81C), the Kotetsu Mark Three's thermal performance is adequate but not impressive.

With noise levels of 42.9 dBA, the Kotetsu Mark Three's noise levels are amongst the quieter results I've seen when tested with AMD's Ryzen 7 7700X.

Observant readers may notice that the noise levels are the same as the earlier, full power results. This is because the default fan curve of the ASRock b650E Taichi cause the fans to run at full speed when the CPU reaches above 80C.

It's important to note that the noise normalized results shown earlier demonstrate that this cooler is more than capable of handling a 95W load when configured for silent operation.

75W Thermals and Acoustics

Workloads like gaming tend to use around 75 watts, so this test will represent the sort of noise levels and temperatures you'll encounter while gaming on Ryzen 7 7700X. This is a fairly easy thermal test, and even the weakest of coolers should handle it without problem.

While I show thermal results here in the graph above, they're not very important. Acoustics and noise levels are much more important. Really, all of the results above are good enough and even the worst result isn't any cause for concern.

The acoustics of the Kotetsu Mark Three when tied to the default fan curve of ASRock's b650E Taichi are superb. At only 38.2 dBA, the noise levels are just barely audible and won't be noticeable unless your environment is fully silent.

Conclusion

If you're looking for a decent budget cooler that doesn't run loudly, Scythe's Kotetsu Mark Three is a great value for CPUs like AMD's Ryzen 7 7700X. It's currently available from NewEgg for only $29.99 USD.

Quiet and effective cooling with a budget price tag of only $29.99 USD

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