Scythe Fuma 2 CPU Air Cooler, Intel LGA1151, AMD AM4/Ryzen, 120mm Dual Towers, Black Top Cover

Bought this cooler in conjunction with a Gigabyte z690I Aorus Ultra DDR5 mini-ITX motherboard to cool an intel i7-12700K.Fitting this particular cooler on my motherboard was dicey because of the motherboard form factor; I was forced to remove the M.2 heatsink and the finstack was pressing against the VRM heatsink, however no adverse effects on the performance of my components (VRM, SSD or CPU) has been observed.As advertised, the finstack easily cleared my 34.9mm-high RAM sticks, and if not for Gigabyte engineers allowing their VRM heatsink to creep into the 95mm keep-out zone of the CPU, the cooler would’ve cleared the height of that heatsink as well.Other than the abovementioned motherboard mounting troubles, installation was straightforward, and the excellent magnetized Philips screwdriver included in the box was of great quality, and proved very useful not only for the installation of the cooler, but for the assembly of the entire PC.Strangely, the included fans spun faster than the advertised 1,500 RPM, reaching 1,625 RPM under high load, and although they are not whisper quiet by any means, their sound was not too loud nor distracting.The cooler performed well under realistic load. However, to avoid thermal throttling in synthetic benchmarks, I was forced to undervolt the CPU (adaptive voltage, V-core: 1.290 V, Offset: -100 mV). With the aforementioned undervolt settings I was able to stay under 95°C even after 3 straight hours of prime95 with no thermal-throttling, in fact, the performance in Cinebench r23 30-minute stress test with these settings was more than a thousand points higher than stock.In conclusion, I found the cooler to perform as advertised or even better, and to be well worth the money, especially when compared to the NH-U12A, which is of similar size and performance yet sells for almost double the price. I would whole-heartedly recommend this product, although I would advise some caution when seeking to pair this cooler with z690 mini-ITX boards, as there may be clearance issues.

This air cooler saved my computer and let me continue to run folding@home 24/7.I recently started running my stock computer 24/7 with the distributed computation software called folding@home as part of a community of hundreds of thousand computers helping scientists calculate protein folding of the virus that causes COVID-19.I was pleased to be able to help out with my 7-year old computer. (Fractal Design Define R4 midtower case, Intel i5-3570 CPU, 4 x 4 GB RAM, 3 intake fans and 1 exhaust fan and Intel stock air cooler).. Everything started out OK but after a few hours the CPU’s temperature climbed to 90 C at 100% utilization. I adjusted folding@home to the medium power setting so CPU usage dropped to 65%. I reseated the stock cooler and used new thermal paste as the old paste was 7 years old. The CPU temperature dropped to 85 C but my hard drive was no longer recognized by the computer. Thinking the 2-year old HDD had failed, I installed a new SSD. After 1 day the SSD was no longer recognized by the computer. I shut down the computer overnight and the next morning the SSD worked fine, with no loss of data. My theory is that the CPU overheated enough to cutoff one SSD (I use 2 other internal SSDs and 2 external HDDs) without shutting off the computer.I purchased the Scythe Forma 2, installed it and resumed running folding@home at its medium power setting. After an hour with the CPU running at 65% utilization the CPU temperature never exceeded 65 C and the computer remained whisper quiet, with the two air cooler fans running at 350 rpm (1200 rpm max). I couldn't be happier.The directions were pretty clear except for the guidance on which direction to place the fans so they push air from front to back. However, there were excellent video directions on YouTube.The air cooler has dual towers and dual 120 mm fans so the cooling capacity increased dramatically from Intel's stock cooler. I have to say that until I started using folding@home there had been no problem with the CPU temperature. I don't use the computer for gaming but I often use several programs at the same time such as Adobe Photoshop Elements, Family Tree Maker, Microsoft Excel, and Outlook.When I upgrade to a new computer I will be able to take the Scythe Forma 2 air cooler with me since it can be used with either Intel or AMD CPUs. I will just put back the stock Intel cooler and donate a functional computer.I reinstalled the HDD to see if the CPU temperature was the problem.. The HDD workEd fine, with no loss of data.After 24 hours of continuously running folding@home at medium power the CPU did not exceed 65 C. My CPU has a 77 W TDP.I am now able to run the CPU at 65% utilization 24/7 so I am back to helping scientists calculate in their research of COVID-19.Very pleased with the noise level, price and ease of installation. There was no need to remove the motherboard, the RAM, or the GPU. This was the first time I installed an aftermarket air cooler on a computer and there were no disasters.

Right out of the box, this cooler has excellent quality in the parts. Excellent manufacturing quality. It looks so very sleek in the case, especially with that nice looking black metal plate at the top. The Kaze Flex fans that come with the Scythe Fuma 2 cooler are very quiet but still do a great job pushing a great amount of air, while maintaining good static pressure. Also, the cooler is designed with plenty of clearance for RAM slots and the IO cover that was on my motherboard, plenty of room to install it with nothing touching.If one truly desired, you could probably knock a few more celsius down off your CPU by going with more expensive high-static pressure fans (high end noctua's come to mind) but it really isn't necessary. The cooler with the two Kaze Flex fans it came with dropped my temps significantly, and I never go over 60c playing games like Monster Hunter World fully maxed out, and this is with a higher temp Ryzen cpu. Keep in mind, this is with my case having a simple setup of a single 120mm intake and a single 120mm exhaust fan (im using Meshify C stock configuration). With a better case fan configuration, say 140mm intakes, the temps could drop even more.Excellent value. The setup itself was actually very easy. You simply mount the fans with the clips to the heatsink wings, then mount the cooler with the screws (which are so easy to work with).One small gripe, the method I just explained wasn't what was specified on the manual. It actually tells you to mount the fans with the clips afterwards. Take my advice and mount the fans to the heatsinks first though before mounting to the CPU, it will make it a lot easier to install, especially if you have a smaller case (and it might save your hands from a cut, the heatsinks aren't dull, be careful).