As my quest to go ever smaller collides with the fact that I've done slightly less gaming in the last 6 months or so, I've recently sold off my badass 5820k/980ti NCase setup and downgraded to less powerful (and less expensive!) components.......that just happen to fit in a NFC S4 Mini
While I am waiting for that (still in the queue at the moment), I thought I'd take the time to try out the Scythe Kodati. Since I didn't really want to drop £40 on a Noctua NH-L9i. The Kodati set me back a mere £15 - but a week later I found a second hand NH-L9i for £20 so thought I'd pit them up against each other.
Lets talk about the Kodati then. The Cooler itself is as small as its price tag - and comes in a tiny box too! Installation is very straightforward once you have the correct socket size mounting attached to the bottom of the cooler. Once installed, while it will never win any awards, since you can't see the fan which is mounted on the bottom of the heatsink, drawing air through, it looks pretty good.
So, onto performance.
At idle, its silent, as should be expected. Pushed to 100% load, the fan spins up to more than 3000rpm, and you can definitely hear it - but its not *that* loud and it's not a particularly unpleasant tone either. Whilst gaming in Battlefield 1, I could hear it, but here, it was quieter still, and really quite impressive.
Lets push it to its limits and compare it to the Noctua then shall we? For this I used OCCT's 'Linpack' test. My CPU is a an i7 4770S, a 65W chip, with multicore enhancement enabled (so all threads can run at max turbo boost of 3.9Ghz)
First up the Koduti:
Ouchy! As you can see, as OCCT began the test at the 60" mark, the CPU temps quickly jumped to 83C within the first 20 seconds of the test. Toasty. By 40" in the temps were at 85C, and at 46" in, OCCT hit its safety over ride as the temps hit 86C and shut off the test. Ok, so not great. Lets see how the Noctua got on shall we.
Clearly.....better. As the test starts at 60", we can see the temps jump in the same way as the Kodati - but only to around 69C. At the 20" mark, where the Kodati was hitting 83C the Noctua sits at relatively balmy 73C - a full 10C cooler. 40" in where the Kodati was pushing 85C, CPU temps under the Noctua had completely plateaued at 75C. Perfectly acceptable. With no sign of a risk of hitting the temperature ceiling, I ran the Noctua for a full minute longer than the Kodati at which point temps hit 77C but climbed no higher. Throughout the test the Noctua hummed gently, and was undoubtedly quieter, with a deeper more rhythmic sound profile than the Kodati.
So, overall, I guess I'm a little bit sad we didn't find a NH-L9i killer here for under £15. In normal use (including gaming) the Kodati is fine. It never hit more than 78C in Battlefield one even after a few hours of play. Under 100% load though, it simply can't put up with the heat output of a 65W chip, while the Noctua can. The sound profile is acceptable, but again, not as nice as the Noctua's. It will come as no surprise I suppose, that the two areas where it does come up trumps are looks (Noctua, I beg you to release a grey version of your 92mmx15mm fan) and price. For the money it is a perfectly acceptable and better looking alternative to the stock intel cooler. But nothing more.
While I am waiting for that (still in the queue at the moment), I thought I'd take the time to try out the Scythe Kodati. Since I didn't really want to drop £40 on a Noctua NH-L9i. The Kodati set me back a mere £15 - but a week later I found a second hand NH-L9i for £20 so thought I'd pit them up against each other.
Lets talk about the Kodati then. The Cooler itself is as small as its price tag - and comes in a tiny box too! Installation is very straightforward once you have the correct socket size mounting attached to the bottom of the cooler. Once installed, while it will never win any awards, since you can't see the fan which is mounted on the bottom of the heatsink, drawing air through, it looks pretty good.
So, onto performance.
At idle, its silent, as should be expected. Pushed to 100% load, the fan spins up to more than 3000rpm, and you can definitely hear it - but its not *that* loud and it's not a particularly unpleasant tone either. Whilst gaming in Battlefield 1, I could hear it, but here, it was quieter still, and really quite impressive.
Lets push it to its limits and compare it to the Noctua then shall we? For this I used OCCT's 'Linpack' test. My CPU is a an i7 4770S, a 65W chip, with multicore enhancement enabled (so all threads can run at max turbo boost of 3.9Ghz)
First up the Koduti:
Ouchy! As you can see, as OCCT began the test at the 60" mark, the CPU temps quickly jumped to 83C within the first 20 seconds of the test. Toasty. By 40" in the temps were at 85C, and at 46" in, OCCT hit its safety over ride as the temps hit 86C and shut off the test. Ok, so not great. Lets see how the Noctua got on shall we.
Clearly.....better. As the test starts at 60", we can see the temps jump in the same way as the Kodati - but only to around 69C. At the 20" mark, where the Kodati was hitting 83C the Noctua sits at relatively balmy 73C - a full 10C cooler. 40" in where the Kodati was pushing 85C, CPU temps under the Noctua had completely plateaued at 75C. Perfectly acceptable. With no sign of a risk of hitting the temperature ceiling, I ran the Noctua for a full minute longer than the Kodati at which point temps hit 77C but climbed no higher. Throughout the test the Noctua hummed gently, and was undoubtedly quieter, with a deeper more rhythmic sound profile than the Kodati.
So, overall, I guess I'm a little bit sad we didn't find a NH-L9i killer here for under £15. In normal use (including gaming) the Kodati is fine. It never hit more than 78C in Battlefield one even after a few hours of play. Under 100% load though, it simply can't put up with the heat output of a 65W chip, while the Noctua can. The sound profile is acceptable, but again, not as nice as the Noctua's. It will come as no surprise I suppose, that the two areas where it does come up trumps are looks (Noctua, I beg you to release a grey version of your 92mmx15mm fan) and price. For the money it is a perfectly acceptable and better looking alternative to the stock intel cooler. But nothing more.
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