For a deeper comparison, I’ll even pit these fans against Noctua’s offerings as they continue to dominate the landscape. Albeit, a much bigger name in Asia, they have been looking to push hard in the ‘West’ in recent years with designs that are honestly a lot better than you might expect. Users have the option to replace the pre-installed fan by using a supplied dedicated screw-set with a regular aftermarket fan of 25 mm height, if needed. I'm sure it will idle a bit higher in warmer climates or regions that have lower humidity (UK is around 70-80%).

Opening the instructions we find several drawings that are crystal clear and do a terrific job to simplify the installation experience. I was surprised with performance as it beats some larger coolers and at the same time fits into small ITX cases. Still since HTPC/SFF models shouldn’t be used with our overclocked Core I7-3930k we have decided to take this path whenever one such model lands at our doorstep.V. During all these tests, fans are set to run at 100% in the BIOS, with temperatures being recorded by AIDA64. How the cooler is shown to be installed on the box, we are looking now at the part of the cooler which would be near the VRMs on the motherboard. Many cover some if not all of the memory, of course, they cool the CPU, but they also add direct airflow to the PWM of the motherboard. All testing was performed on an open test bench, which minimizes ambient temperature and gives a “worst case” scenario for sound level.

Overall, we would have liked to have a seen a wee bit bigger box, but there is something to be said for truth in advertising – as once you see this box you will instantly grasp how compact the Big Shuriken 3 really is. With the bracket bolts pushed through, plastic standoffs hold it in place for the rest of the install process (the standoffs integrate rubber washers that hold tight to the bolts – a nice touch). Overall this is a great refresh and re-design on what was one of the already better small form-factor CPU cooling solutions available. The first picture for the LGA1700 socket appears to be wrong, too, because it shows offset screw holes, but the actual LGA1700 bracket is the one with only one screw hole on either side and no offset.Asymmetric and offset design for excellent compatibility with Mini ITX, Micro ATX motherboards and high-end RAM. The new line of AM boards have the same issue with the possible exception of the MSI B650I Edge Wifi. Kaze Flex 120 Slim PWM inherits also the rubber decouplers for reduction of vibration transfer as well as the PWM fan control ability. This fan is horizontal placed over the processor which leaves ample room without the risk of touching the side case cover. The only negative was that a couple of the heatsink fins around the edge were slightly bent during transit, but this was easily fixed with some needle point tweezers.