Thermal Paste
We use Arctic MX-2 for all heatsink cooler tests and in fact we use it for all builds, test or otherwise. We run the AIDA64 Engineer stability test as our burn in programme for thermal paste, which allows the paste to spread out and share the love across the mating surfaces. It is worth doing, we always notice a drop in temperatures after 30 minutes of burn in. Below is the AIDA64 CPUID for both stock and overclocked tests.
Results
Let’s look at the stock results. We have load performance as the primary metric with idle included as well. The lower the value, the better the performance. The stock temperature performance is good, though the Phononic HEX 2.0 has a clear advantage over second and third place.
The Kabuto 3 is only in third place due to the idle performance, other than that, it’s a solid performer. The Intel 6700K has a TDP of 91W, so it’s not really a cooker, but all performances are relative.
The Scythe Kabuto 3 drops back a place when comparing sound performance, though in comparison it doesn’t perform too badly. Also, it has excellent idle sound performance, in second place by the smallest of margins. The difference between the Scythe Kabuto 3 and the Cryorig H7 at idle is imperceptible, only a digital reader could pick this up.
Scythe Kabuto 3 CPU Cooler Review
Package - 7.5
Performance - 7.5
Price - 7.5
Consumer Experience - 7.5
7.5
The Kabuto 3 hasn't topped any charts in our review, but it hasn't been at the bottom either. It's an uncomplicated CPU cooler, and has performance to offer for most AMD and Intel CPUs. The biggest downsides from our point of view is the lack of LGA2011v3 support, and the slightly stock cooler mounting system.