Scythe Ninja or Infinity?

boe · Post by **boe** » Mon Sep 04, 2006 10:36 am

Hello,

I could swear I saw a comparison but I just did a search and couldn't find that review. Any suggestion on which is better?

I plan on building a system with a 2.6 GHz conroe core 2
I don't plan on overclocking it.

I'll probably only have one fan in my system in the back.

Vanseb · Post by **Vanseb** » Mon Sep 04, 2006 11:11 am

Hi !

Here you can find some comparison between Infinity and others heatsink, included Ninja.
In Deutsch.

http://www.hartware.de/review_604_7.html

/edit -> don't forget to get in consideration the room temperature

boe · Post by **boe** » Mon Sep 04, 2006 11:39 am

Thanks - I think that is telling me that the Ninja runs cooler but slightly louder - too bad I only speak English dang it!

Felger Carbon · Post by **Felger Carbon** » Mon Sep 04, 2006 2:55 pm

boe wrote:Thanks - I think that is telling me that the Ninja runs cooler but slightly louder - too bad I only speak English dang it!

Try the babelfish translation.

boe · Post by **boe** » Mon Sep 04, 2006 3:12 pm

Thanks - I think this is about on the same level as my attempt to translate - amazingly I've never taken a single class!

Vanseb · Post by **Vanseb** » Mon Sep 04, 2006 9:41 pm

Here a new review, from this day (or last day, depend your hour

)
http://www.rubyworks.net/reviews/casesc ... page1.html

Hartware said Infinity is a perfect cooler, at the end of the review, and seems to forget others cooler from Scythe.
There's no direc comparaison with Ninja, but Infinity seems to be more cooler than Ninja, with "same" noise.
I'm not good in german, but that's I understand

Salameh · Post by **Salameh** » Mon Sep 04, 2006 10:19 pm

Would the Ninja perform better than the Infinity fanless?

Vanseb · Post by **Vanseb** » Mon Sep 04, 2006 10:34 pm

Hi all

Here you can find comparison between Infinity and Ninja, in passiv mode.
http://www.alltests.de/hardware/reviews ... eite_4.php
Results are equal for this test.

Here an other test, but results are different, Nija seems to be better than Infinity.
http://www.teccentral.de/artikel/source ... 28&seite=5

All this reviews are in German, I never see an English review in passiv mode.
I'm not a specialist, but I think Ninja is a litte better, cause of the fines which are more spaced, and natural convection seems to be better. Maybe I'm wrong, don't know

Salameh · Post by **Salameh** » Tue Sep 05, 2006 12:23 am

Hmm interesting, they are both the same price here.
Having trouble deciding between the Ninja/Infinity/NH-U12/Big Typhoon

Vanseb · Post by **Vanseb** » Tue Sep 05, 2006 12:32 am

Maybe you could make your choice depending to to your mobo. Some of heatsink could be incompatible.
You have some references which are ok with some mobo, on the US Scythe website, like for Infinity : http://www.scythe-usa.com/product/cpu/0 ... f1000.html

alleycat · Post by **alleycat** » Tue Sep 05, 2006 12:41 am

I would always choose the Ninja over any other heatink for the following reasons:
1. I don't think heatsinks need attached fans
2. The Ninja has an open fin arrangement
3. The Ninja has a symmetrical layout

The Ninja can take advantage of air movement in any direction. I don't know of any other HS which has this feature. It makes efficient system design a lot easier, especially in cases where there are two or more fans "fighting" for air, or where a fan is not perfectly aligned with the HS.

paapaa · Post by **paapaa** » Tue Sep 05, 2006 1:57 am

Look at these motherboard compatibility pictures (Abit AB9 and Scythe Infinity):

http://www.scythe-usa.com/product/cpu/0 ... b9pic.html

As you can see, the fan is blowing towards PSU, not towards case fan. Is it possible to rotate the HS (not just the fan) so that the fan is blowing towards the case fan?

This should be possible with Ninja as it is symmetrical. Yes, you can mount the fan to the correct side, but then the heat pipes obstruct the air flow.

boe · Post by **boe** » Tue Sep 05, 2006 9:58 am

MY PSU has a fan down at the bottom - I thought that was for venting air outside the unit. I'm not clear on cooling yet - is the back fan better than my PSU fan?

alleycat · Post by **alleycat** » Tue Sep 05, 2006 9:07 pm

boe, this is exactly the situation I was talking about. You can install the Ninja without a fan, and the airflow created by the rear case fan and the bottom PSU fan will provide plenty of airflow through the heatsink without creating unnecessary turbulence.

boe · Post by **boe** » Wed Sep 06, 2006 8:17 am

Thanks alleycat - I may have to put on the fan - only because I'm constantly pulling out hard drives on my system and often run it without a cover. Both look like good coolers so I'm comfortable with either. Having a little harder time selecting a PSU or a GPU cooler but this seems like a slam dunk to me. When I started the search for a CPU cooler there were a few others I was considering but I'm definitely set with either of these.

Felger Carbon · Post by **Felger Carbon** » Wed Sep 06, 2006 9:28 am

boe wrote:I may have to put on the fan - only because I'm constantly pulling out hard drives on my system and often run it without a cover.

If you duct the Ninja and the exhaust fan, you'll have no problems cooling with the side cover off. For duct material, I just use a 3" roll of 3M "micropore" tape - kinda like wide masking tape. No structural strength required.

boe · Post by **boe** » Wed Sep 06, 2006 9:36 am

Felger Carbon wrote: If you duct the Ninja and the exhaust fan, you'll have no problems cooling with the side cover off. For duct material, I just use a 3" roll of 3M "micropore" tape - kinda like wide masking tape. No structural strength required.

Thanks - I've been thinking about that. I already have a Compucase 6A19 - space case - like it a lot but was trying to figure out if I could get a cowl like Dell uses to duct the CPU cooler. I may even start a new post on that in case there is a reasonably cheap plastic one I can get - not sure why but I'd prefer the real deal (probably for asthetics) over the tape.

RDaneel · Post by **RDaneel** » Wed Sep 06, 2006 11:08 am

The SPCR homepage mentioned that a review of the Infinity was coming soon - I'm sure Mike C and the gang will compare the two - I can't wait to see the results. I won't make my buying decision till both are reviewed on SPCR!

Vanseb · Post by **Vanseb** » Wed Sep 06, 2006 12:15 pm

Hi !
Here's a new review, ever in german

http://www.crazy-oc.de/crazy-oc/index.p ... 102&rsid=4
Results are different, it's interesting, but I did'nt understand all the review

alleycat · Post by **alleycat** » Thu Sep 07, 2006 3:11 am

boe wrote:I'm constantly pulling out hard drives on my system and often run it without a cover

I understand your logic, but you'll probably find that this doesn't make a lot of difference. If your case has a restrictive airflow path, then you may find that temperatures drop with the cover removed. The Ninja is able to take advantage of very subtle air movement, so I doubt you will need to resort to attaching a fan or ducting. There is certainly no harm in experimenting, and it will be interesting to see your results.

boe · Post by **boe** » Fri Sep 08, 2006 3:49 pm

I ended up getting the Scythe Infinity - not sure if it makes a real difference and they had one at the place I was ordering a bunch of other stuff from anyways. I'm sure the Ninja plus is quite comparably each having an advantage over the other in some area.

kater · Post by **kater** » Tue Sep 12, 2006 1:40 am

http://zenfist.pl/pelen.php?id=78

here's a comparison test (ninja vs infinity) from a polish site

a couple of nice pictures, too

and you can still read the numbers and figures, right?

NeoNSX · Post by **NeoNSX** » Tue Sep 12, 2006 5:42 am

i wish google/alta-vista translation engines supported polish-to-english. i'd really like to read that review's comparisons and thoughts.

boe: please let us know what you think of the infinity. What really scares me personally is the 960g weight!

qviri · Post by **qviri** » Tue Sep 12, 2006 6:17 am

NeoNSX wrote:i wish google/alta-vista translation engines supported polish-to-english. i'd really like to read that review's comparisons and thoughts.

Basically, it's saying that the Infinity's larger fin surface area paid off and the Ninja was defeated. However, it also notes that in passive mode (only a case fan, I understand), the Ninja might well have still came out on top. They think that Scythe meant to give us a choice between optimal performance for passive and active cooling with Ninja and Infinity respectively.

Everything else is just standard stuff, they ran a browser, anti-virus and an IM program for the idle test, and two "sp2004" (whatever it is, I'm not familiar with that testing program) for the stress test.

Anything else you wanted to know?

kater · Post by **kater** » Tue Sep 12, 2006 8:35 am

>neonsx

first of all - the review was done by a dude who just upgraded from ninja to infinity and did it at home, a freelance - i'm not saying this is bad, but it's not a lab or anything - this might explain the results (you just need the know-how, experience, some procedures)

no point in transalting the whole thing - most of it is just a description of the two scythes, the test rig and procedure - here's what the polish review says, in a nutshell

infinity needs to be used with a fan, while ninja was specifically designed for passive cooling (meaning no fan directly ON it) - which is what one can guess looking at spaces between the fins and the number of fins, and these two might swap places when tested in passive mode

and, as was said before, somewhere around here, two identical heatsinks of the same type from the same factory still might be a little different - it's just production process, there might be a better batch and a worse batch

NeoNSX · Post by **NeoNSX** » Tue Sep 12, 2006 4:07 pm

Thanks guys for the translations. Did the reviewers mention if the infinity/ninja are vista compliant?

j/k

So the ninja still wins for passive. But i'm still left wondering if the infinity would work as well a ninja in a P180 case passively cooled.

Nemioke · Post by **Nemioke** » Tue Sep 12, 2006 4:21 pm

My first post here. These seem to be great forums and I've gained lots of useful knowledge already.

However...

I'm just wondering if I made a mistake while ordering the Infinity as my cooler for E6600. I'm aiming for a low-noise (i.e. sleeping is possible within 2 meters to a computer) system mainly via the parts - I don't have a soundproofed case, so I rely on the silence of the components mostly.

I'll be using an Asus P5B Deluxe as a motherboard. Does anyone know if the Infinity can be mounted "vertically" (i.e. fan blowing towards the case fan instead of the PSU fan) on that board?

I suppose that I'll still have to use some kind of wire to support the weight of the cooler (I just don't trust the push-pin design - I thought that the Infinity would use the same system as the Ninja when I ordered it and was shocked when I saw the mounting system) to be able to trust that I don't have a gigantic freefalling object inside my case in the future.

...or maybe I'm just better off with selling the Infinity without even installing it and finding Ninja or Thermalright Ultra-120 from some local shop?

So, my questions are (so you don't have to pick them from the text):

1: Is it possible to mount an Infinity vertically (long side towards the rear case fan) on an Asus P5B Deluxe?

2: Should I just sell the Infinity away without installing it and get a Ninja or Ultra-120 if I want a really low noise system?

vg30et · Post by **vg30et** » Tue Sep 12, 2006 4:58 pm

NeoNSX wrote: So the ninja still wins for passive. But i'm still left wondering if the infinity would work as well a ninja in a P180 case passively cooled.

My infinity in the p180 has no problems keeping a F2 Orleans 3200+ cool with nexus fans underclocked at 5V. The heatsink is quite close to the P180 top exhaust fan so I wouldn't be surprised if it's able to cool it passively.

The Nexus fans at 5V are pretty much inaudible so I saw no benefit in going passive.

lordy180 · Post by **lordy180** » Tue Sep 12, 2006 5:39 pm

Here is very nice review of Infinity, comprehensive comparison of several top coolers.

http://www.pretaktovanie.sk/modules.php ... 918261&p=5

It's in slovak language, but everything is obvious from graphs and tables. Here is little help to understand:
maximalne otacky = max revs
polovicne otacky = half revs
pasiv = passive

SS fan = SilverStone Everflow R121225BL

Tested in closed case, running two 120mm fans at 5V, one front side intake, one backside exhaust. Plus 140mm PSU fan runnig at very slow revs and 3000rpm chipset cooler.

Test in graphs: 20 min. iddle, 20 min. Prime95, then iddle again. Room temp.: 23-24.

Final thoughts: heatpipe technology brobably matured to its borders and Infinity stands at the top slightly edged Ninja Plus and Noctua NH-U12. Ninja is better passive though.

kater · Post by **kater** » Tue Sep 12, 2006 10:02 pm

Nemioke wrote:
1: Is it possible to mount an Infinity vertically (long side towards the rear case fan) on an Asus P5B Deluxe?

2: Should I just sell the Infinity away without installing it and get a Ninja or Ultra-120 if I want a really low noise system?

1. here's a link to some pics http://forum.zenfist.pl/viewtopic.php?p=822#822 - i've been asking the same question
the guy actually has a p5b deluxe (look at his signature) and his infinity is positioned vertically (long side towards back of the case) it all boils down to what socket position you have, and with the help of some pics (like this slovak site) you can find it out yourself

2. personally i have a ninja because i wanted it passive (only front and back case fans) - and i have it passive; not sure if infinity would work the same w/o fan