The Scythe Ashura Shadow is a dark nickel plated version of the vanilla Ashura heatsink Scythe also has on the market. Structurally, there's no difference between the two coolers, aside from the cosmetic metal coating. The Ashura Shadow heatsink stands 162mm tall and has a footprint of 145x89mm so it should fit most motherboards without memory slot interference. Like most tower coolers, the Ashura comes with one 140mm PWM fan but can accommodate two; extra fan clips are supplied for this reason.

The Ashura Shadow weighs 750grams and is built around six 6mm diameter copper heatpipes. The copper heatpipes are covered by a chunky copper heat spreader, rather than being exposed at the base. The fan supplied with the Ashura Shadow is a reasonably quiet 140mm 'GlideStream' model that spins at 1400-800RPM and moves upwards of 87CFM according to the maker. Scythe's Ashura Shadow heatsink installs onto AMD socket AM2/AM3/FM1/FM2 and Intel LGA2011/1366/115x/775 processors. Retail price is around $45USD/CDN.

Scythe Ashura Shadow Heatsink

heatsink specsheet manufacturer: scythe model no.: scythe ashura shadow (scasr-1000se) materials: dark nickel plated aluminum fins, copper heatpipes, aluminum base cap, copper base plate fan mfg: scythe sy1425hb12m-p fan spec: 1400-800rpm, 12v, 0.37a fan airflow: 97cfm fan dim: 25x140x140mm heatsink & fan dim: 154x123x72mm weight: 750 grams includes: multi-socket socket mounting hardware, thermal compound, instructions Compatible with Sockets: AMD - FM2/FM1/AM2/AM3 Intel - LGA2011/1366/115x/775 Pricing: $45USD ($45CDN)

The 140mm PWM fan Scythe have chosen for the Ashura Shadow is called the "GlideStream 140" and it employs a unique fin geometry. The back of each impeller blade is smooth, but the front side is covered with shallow grooves. According to Scythe, these grooved fan blades "contribute to less air resistance". The eleven blades are mounted on a relatively compact, 40mm diameter motor hub. Fan speed ranges from 1400RPM (stock) to as slow as ~800RPM.

One small detail we really like are the low profile wire fan clips. At first I thought this was just bad design that made removing the fan difficult. However, as the 140mm fan frame has its mounting holes set on a 120mm-spacing, it easily unclips at the frame.

The up side is that if your motherboard can fit a 145mm wide heatsink, you won't have a nasty surprise with the Ashura Shadow - it's fan clips do not extend beyond the width of the fins. A few heatsinks we've installed have come close to shorting out an expensive videocard because the wire fan clips have little thumb tabs that extend out an extra 8-10mm.

The leading and trailing edges of the Ashura Shadow's dark nickel plated aluminum fins have a small "V" bend to help break up airflow as it enters the fin stack.

The aluminum fin stack measures 107mm tall, 145mm wide and 61mm deep.

Heatsink Mounting Hardware