Installation

Scythe provides mounting brackets for Intel sockets 478 and 775, and AMD sockets 754, 939, 940, and AM2. With these brackets, the Katana II can be positioned one of four ways inside the case. It's entirely up to the user. Simple screw the brackets in with the four included screws to the bottom of the cooler.

I installed the Katana II on to my Phenom-powered system on a Sapphire 780G motherboard. Previous heatsinks gave me clearance issues with one of the chipset, but the Katana II just sneaks in there.

After spreading some Tuniq TX-2 thermal compound, I positioned the Katana II so the air was being blown towards the rear fan. This way, the fan is also taking in some of the hot air from the RAM and moving it backwards.

Now that's installed, let's see how it works.

Test Setup

As mentioned before, I'm installing the Katana II in to my Phenom 9500-powered computer.

We are very grateful to all our sponsors (Thermaltake, OCZ, Sapphire, Excelstor, and Corsair), and we ask readers to stay tuned for individual reviews of these components in the upcoming weeks.