Installation Tips

Besides two contemporary platforms – Socket 754/939/940/AM2 and LGA 775, Scythe ZIPANG may also be installed onto mainboards with the pretty outdated Socket 478. That is why those of you who still own this platform and haven’t yet replaced the default boxed cooler with anything more advance have one more choice option to consider. They say you may not need to remove the mainboard from the system case to install Scythe ZIPANG onto any of the above mentioned platforms. However, it is not quite true. Theoretically, the installation is extremely simple, just fasten the appropriate retention brackets to the cooler base with four screws…

… and then install it on top of the CPU covered with a thin layer of thermal compound. I don’t know about AMD K8 processors, but in case of LGA 775 platform I could not complete the installation with the mainboard inside the system case. The cooler size and height above the mainboard PCB wouldn’t let me reach the plastic clips and push them in until locked. Besides, it really makes sense to make sure that the cooler weighing 815 grams is installed properly with all clips locked securely in place, which cannot be done when the mainboard is in, unless you have a gastrofibroscope available :)

There is nothing in the manual about the cooler positioning preferences that is why we first installed it so that we could also ensure additional cooling of the copper heatsink on top of the chipset North Bridge, which heats up a lot during our tests:

In other words, the heatpipes were positioned horizontally. However, after a few preliminary test runs, we discovered that when the cooler sits with the long ends of the heatpipes facing upwards, the processor temperature under peak workload was always 2ºC lower. It is hard to tell what really affected the end result in this case: was it really the heatpipes positioning (we didn’t see the same effect on an open testbed) or additional cooling of the mainboard voltage regulator heatsink:

But the fact is undeniable: if the heatpipes in the cooler heatsink array (not the ones beneath it) are aimed with their ends upwards, the processor temperature under maximum workload is 2ºC lower than in case of their horizontal orientation. By the way, the same photo shows how a 120mm fan can be installed and that the wire clip on one end is not even fully fastened, but the fan holds on very well.

In conclusion to our discussion of the new Scythe ZIPANG cooler I have to say that the recommended retail price of this solution is set at $58.80, which is quite comparable to what other super-coolers are priced at these days.