Performance
Performance of the Scythe Big Shuriken 3 cooler has been tested on the latest AMD Ryzen platform. Used Ryzen 7 3700X processor, even though that has declared 65W TDP then heats up a lot so is a challenge for any CPU cooler.
For tests, we’ve used the ASRock X570 Extreme4 motherboard (even though on the photos was a different motherboard) and default AMD settings.
All tests were performed on an open test rig. The ambient temperature was about 22-23°C.
Our comparison includes three tests. The idle mode is a PC left without any load besides standard Windows services running in the background. The mixed-mode base on a PCMark 10 extended test which uses popular applications and simple games. The max load is a CPU+FPU AIDA64 stability test. Shows about maximum CPU load during the most demanding work on all CPU cores. A maximum load test can also be compared to a popular Prime95 small FTT test.
I’m amazed about the Big Shuriken 3 results. Performance is about as high as that of Noctua D9L with two 92mm fans. Depends on the test, the difference was +/- 1°C. It was also only 3°C worse than the much larger Fuma 2 cooler which is still our best-performing air cooling solution. I have to add that the Big Shuriken 3, the same as Noctua D9L, had to run with a fan at its maximum speed while the Fuma 2 could keep lower fans speed and in the same time was generating lower noise. Our test rig wasn’t too loud during tests and could keep up to 37dB during more extended mixed-load tests. This is about 3dB louder than the platform with the Fuma 3.
Overclocking on the Big Shuriken 3 can be a bit limited if we use the latest AMD Ryzen processor. Regardless if we use Ryzen 5 3600 or Ryzen 7 3700X, the temperature will be similar and we will be forced to keep 1.30-1.35V under full load so our CPU won’t overheat. This voltage lets us set the CPU at 4.2-4.3GHz depends on luck. It’s a good result considering that the CPU runs at all six or eight cores, but it’s not always worth the time spent on stability tests as stock settings are not much slower.
For sure Scythe Big Shuriken 3 is interesting cooler which is one of the top options if we are thinking about a small, mini ITX size PC.
