Like many of the heatsinks coming out of Scythe's Japanese headquarters, the Katana II heatsink (model no. SCKTN-2000) makes use of one large slow rotating fan to push air through an array of slanted aluminum cooling fins. The fans' low speed of 1500RPM makes the Katana II a very quiet heatsink under operation. The heatsink weighs in at 535grams, and stands about 144mm tall. If you have an AMD Athlon64 processors in socket 754/939/940/AM2 or socket /478/775 Intel Pentium 4/D, Core 2 Duo/Quad processor you'll find the Scythe Katana II SCKTN-2000 heatsink compatible. It is available through most this online retailer for around $32 USD.

Scythe Katana II Heatsink

heatsink specsheet manufacturer: scythe model no.: katana ii (scktn-2000) materials: aluminum fins, copper heatpipes, copper base plate fan mfg: sy1025sl12m fan spec: 1500rpm, 12v, 0.11a fan dim: 25x100x100mm heatsink & fan dim: 144x75x105mm weight: 535 grams includes: multi-socket mounting hardware, screws, thermal compound, printed instructions Compatible with Sockets: 754/939/940/AM2, 478/775 Est. Pricing: $32USD ($45CDN / £16 GBP)

The Katana II heatsink uses three 6mm diameter copper heatpipes to conduct heat from a thin 4mm thick copper base plate to the 51 slanted aluminum fins above. Since the aluminum fins are slanted about 10° downwards, exhaust airflow is directed right at motherboard power circuitry, or northbridge chipset. The added airflow simply helps to further reduce board level component temperatures.

Installing the Scythe Katana II heatsink onto LGA775, Socket 478 Intel processors, or AMD Athlon64 K8 motherboards each requires one different metal mounting bracket be used. The heatsink ships with three separate mounting brackets, each of which is attached with a couple of screws. It's an uncomplicated way to make one heatsink multi-platform compliant. Thankfully each of the clips interface with existing heatsink retention mechanisms, or use through-PCB holes, and no proprietary or complicated mechanisms are used.

The Scythe Katana II heatsink is compatible with socket 754/939/940/AM2 AMD Athlon64 processors, and socket 478/775 Intel CPUs. The heatsink ships with printed instructions and a small packet of silicon-based thermal compound.

The Scythe Katana II SCKTN-2000 heatsink will be tested on FrostyTech's Intel LGA775 and K8 version of the Mk.II synthetic thermal temperature test platform, and compared against several reference LGA775 and K8 heatsinks. The whole test methodology is outlined in detail here if you'd like to know what equipment is used, and the parameters under which the tests are conducted. Now let's move forward and take a closer look at this heatsink, its acoustic characteristics, and of course its thermal performance!