Scythe Zipang

Scythe Zipang

Manufacturer: Scythe
UK Price (as reviewed): £38.99 (inc. VAT)
US Price (as reviewed) $49.00 (ex. Tax)

Weight (with fan): 815g
Size (with fan): 137mm(H) x 145mm(W) x 148mm(H) D
Fan Size: 139mm
Fan Speed: 1000RPM
Airflow: 51.82 CFM
Noise Level: 21 dBa
Warranty: Two year warranty via retailer
Supported Motherboards: Intel LGA 775, Intel 478, AMD 754,939, 940, AM2

Scythe has certainly made a name for itself for making some of the biggest, most insane heatsinks on the market, and has never been afraid to go to town by throwing tons of heatpipes and cooling fins at the problem of keeping your processor cool. The Scythe Zipang we’re looking at today is no exception, packing six enormous copper heatpipes and a colossal cooling fin array that would put a car radiator to shame.

However, the brute force technique of cooling a CPU doesn’t always pay off, and the last offering from Scythe we looked at, the Ninja Copper, was resoundingly disappointing and even now still props up the bottom of our performance charts like some sort of copper door stop. Lots of heatpipes don’t necessarily make a high performance cooler, and we’re hoping that Scythe has improved the thermal transfer ability of the heat pipes and the cooler as a whole.


Unlike the ageing Ninja copper though, the Zipang is a brand new design from the Japanese cooling manufacturer, who claims that the cooler is well suited for any hardware demands, ranging from genuinely silent operation to hardcore overclocking. We’ll certainly be putting those claims to the test to see if the Zipang can return honour to Scythe after the let down that was the Ninja Copper.

What’s in the Box?

As with most coolers, the Zipang comes with a fairly sparse package, although Scythe has included chromed mount brackets for AM2, LGA 775 and Intel 478 mounting brackets along with the cooler, mount screws and a sachet of thermal paste. It’s also good to see the cooler itself coming pre-assembled, with the cooling fan pre-attached - fitting this yourself can be a tricky little task, as it’s mounted using fiddly wire mounts.


The packaging of the Scythe Zipang is pretty disappointing, with just a basic cardboard box used to keep your cooler safe in transit. There's no moulded plastic shell or foam padding to protect the cooling fins and all the included parts are loose inside with just a cardboard divider between them and the cooler. For a premium cooler costing well in excess of £30, we expect better product presentation.

While everything you need to mount the Zipang is here, we’re going to continue bemoaning the lack of any extras included with CPU coolers. Things like spare mounting screws and simple fan controllers or voltage step down cables are always welcome, although perhaps not so necessary here as the Zipang’s meaty 139mm cooling fan should never become too audible as it’s rated at a very quiet 21 dBA.