Tuniq Tower or Scythe Ninja?

Whytey · 17 Dec 2006 at 23:23

I don't know which cooler i should order as i have had people telling me to get the Tuniq Tower and other people telling me to get the Scythe Ninja i can see there isnt a huge price difference between them both but which one will be best

-Regards
Whytey

Joe42 · 18 Dec 2006 at 00:12

Just you make your decision a little harder, the Ultra 120 is a little better than the Ninja.

(i've no idea where it comes in relation to the Tuniq, just below it i would think)

If it was me i'd get the Ultra 120 as i might want to use a thicker than normal fan, but if you are happy with the stock fan or replacing it with another 25mm thick fan then go for the Tuniq.

Northwind · 18 Dec 2006 at 00:38

I just ordered a Vanessa-L, since in the only head-to-head review I could find it outperformed the TT in every meaningful way, plus it's cheaper and lighter. IMO the main reason the TT has such great word of mouth is because more people have it- it's the current "hero product". Very few people have ever run them head to head with the competition, but they've read it's the best, and it's the biggest and heaviest so it must be, no? And when you'v just spent the money for a new cooler, you don't want to think it might not have been the best buy. Whereas relatively few people have the Vanessas, mainly because everyone tells you you've got to be nuts not to buy a TT

If anyone wants to send me a TT, an Ultra and a Scythe I'll A/B/C/D them

IceShock · 18 Dec 2006 at 00:51

id say ninja. but thats my oppinion

Bananadude · 18 Dec 2006 at 01:13

Northwind said:
I just ordered a Vanessa-L, since in the only head-to-head review I could find it outperformed the TT in every meaningful way, plus it's cheaper and lighter. IMO the main reason the TT has such great word of mouth is because more people have it- it's the current "hero product". Very few people have ever run them head to head with the competition, but they've read it's the best, and it's the biggest and heaviest so it must be, no? And when you'v just spent the money for a new cooler, you don't want to think it might not have been the best buy. Whereas relatively few people have the Vanessas, mainly because everyone tells you you've got to be nuts not to buy a TT

There may be something in that. I've not seen a bad word about the Vanessa. Where did you see that review? Link? Lots of people jump on the TT bandwagon - not that the hype is not justified, as it's no doubt a great cooler, but it's been around for a while now, and I find it hard to believe nothing can better it.

VeNT · 18 Dec 2006 at 12:00

two ninjas here, so I'd say them
but I've no way of comparing them to any of those other coolers.

Orison · 18 Dec 2006 at 12:31

The Ninja is a broad-finned heatsink designed for low-airflow (and thus quiet) cooling. The Tuniq has tightly-packed fins and works best at mid-to-high airflow. The Tuniq's fan is mounted in its middle, so depending on which way round you mount it on the CPU, you only get airflow in one of two directions. It's pretty easy to mount a fan to any one of the Ninja's vertical faces, giving you four options for airflow direction.

The Ninja is a moderate-weight heatsink, about 600g without fan, and most of the weight is near the base, reducing the lever effect it exerts on an upright motherboard. The Tuniq is a big beast, nearly 800g without fan and nearly 1kg with (increased by the metal fan mounting-plate too) and it's a bit top-heavier. This has some repercussions for relative ease of installation; and certainly with a Tuniq at least, people tend to be wary about knocking their systems around too much (i.e. it won't make your pc the easiest to transport for a LAN party). Both have very solid mounting systems however, once they're in place.

When set on its lowest fanspeed (i.e. 1000rpm) the Tuniq performs about as well as the Ninja (with a typical low-airflow fan) and about as quietly.

However the tighter fins and higher surface area for heat exchange means the Tuniq gets considerably more benefit from an increase in fanspeed and airflow than the Ninja does. When the Tuniq is set to 1600rpm, it performs a good 5-7oC cooler under load than the Ninja with a 1600rpm fan attached.

The Tuniq can go as high as 2000rpm but most people at that point find the noise too intrusive. By the same logic you could mount a Delta (noisy bugger, but very high airflow) to a Ninja and get good cooling performance; but nobody wants a machine that sounds like a wind tunnel.

People tend to pick a favourite according to their own criteria. The Tuniq is a heavy, brute-force solution, but offers you scaleability and excellent cooling; while the Ninja is a quieter, lighter solution with more flexibility in airflow direction and fan choice.

And the bottom line is, both will be excellent coolers for a Core 2 Duo chip for overclocking, as C2D chips run cool at stock anyway

Hope any of that helps. I chose a Tuniq in the end, but it was a very near thing. It depends what your priorities and tastes are. Both are excellent.

Bananadude · 18 Dec 2006 at 12:57

Is the Vanessa-L closer in design and function to the Ninja or the Tuniq?

Joe42 · 18 Dec 2006 at 14:13

Closer to the tuniq, although its not really similar to either as it has one central heatpipe.

Bit of a strange beast, tbh for something that looks like it was designed only to look good with a strange heatpipe and funny fin shapes the performance is surprising.

Northwind · 18 Dec 2006 at 16:15

Bananadude said:
There may be something in that. I've not seen a bad word about the Vanessa. Where did you see that review? Link? Lots of people jump on the TT bandwagon - not that the hype is not justified, as it's no doubt a great cooler, but it's been around for a while now, and I find it hard to believe nothing can better it.

Tom's Hardware review

No Ninja in it unfortunately, would have been great if it had. Another thing to add is that there's been a lot of reports that if you remove the big stupid sticker from the top that can take a couple more degrees off, seems entirely plausible to me.

Bananadude · 18 Dec 2006 at 17:17

I wonder if there is anything stopping you from putting your own 120mm fan on the Vanessa-L? Anyone know of any reason why you couldn't do this? Adding a quieter fan on there would surely be a good thing, especially if it pushed more air. I can't imagine the standard fan is anything special, or does it have some special fixings or design that means fixing another third-party fan is impossible?

:confused:

Orison · 18 Dec 2006 at 17:42

While we're on the Ninja vs Tuniq topic, maybe I can get some opinions on the weight issue. I've got a Tuniq Tower coming tomorrow, and the more I think about it, the more apprehensive I am about the sheer size of the damn thing. It's about 20g short of a kilogram with the fan on.

Now off the top of my head, I recall that the ATX standard guarantees up to about 450g of load on the CPU's housing and surrounding area. The Tower is over 15cm tall, and top-heavy. The motherboard weight load was designated with traditional, stubby heatsinks in mind. The lever effect must surely add to what is already an excessive burden on the mountings. In a system with the motherboard mounted vertically (i.e, every tower-type case). I'm worried that I will end up (justifiably?) paranoid about every knock and shock my case is subjected to, lest it crack the motherboard. It only takes one pulled solder joint to knacker a motherboard.

The Ninja is, comparatively, far more reasonably weighted at 600g. (The Vanessa-L is 800g for those interested). And most of that weight, I'm told, is in the heatpipes at the base. The stress on the motherboard is likely far less.

Is my anxiety misplaced? Has anyone heard reports of damaged motherboards or CPUs as a result of fitting Tuniqs? Will the constant steady burden cause the motherboard to crack or warp 6 months, 12 months or two years down the line?

I know that, when it comes to cooling, a lot of OCers are more concerned with performance than longevity in their components. Whether it's the risk of leakage in water systems (now admittedly much diminished from the early days) or condensation damage from phase-change, they're willing to accept a degree of risk.

But more and more I think the air-overclocking market embraces the values of the power user, not the "extreme" user. Air OC'ers these days show much more concern with getting their system truly stable rather than benchmark stable; with having a useable machine that will work every day reliably, than pushing for the last few MHz in an already-smoking chip.

By that reckoning, should I return the Tuniq and buy a Ninja instead? What are people's opinions on this issue? Personal experiences? All input would help. I'd like to ge this issue settled.

Orison · 18 Dec 2006 at 17:44

Bananadude said:
I wonder if there is anything stopping you from putting your own 120mm fan on the Vanessa-L? Anyone know of any reason why you couldn't do this? Adding a quieter fan on there would surely be a good thing, especially if it pushed more air. I can't imagine the standard fan is anything special, or does it have some special fixings or design that means fixing another third-party fan is impossible?

I'm not sure, but I think the Vanessa fan is made of plastic to keep the weight down. Seeing as it's already 800g that can only be a good thing (see post above). But I don't see why you wouldn't be able to replace it with a bit of fiddling.

Northwind · 18 Dec 2006 at 18:19

If weight's a concern, you could easily fly it from the roof of your case... bit of suitable wire... I'd use racing lockwire, since I've got some out the back, but you could use all sorts, heavy fusewire even. Or just string, I suppose, wire's easier to tension though... attached to the PSU fan grill for instance.

But then, have you ever heard of a fault yet?