INTRODUCTION

   Catering to the "needs" of the global gaming community has always been beneficial to manufacturers and so naturally it's something we see all the time in this industry. Still it was quite a surprise to everyone when numerous manufacturers came together (namely ASUS, Antec, Apacer, Crucial, Cooler Master, Corsair, Deepcool, Enermax, G.Skill, GeIL, ID-COOLING, In Win, Scythe, SilverStone, T-FORCE and XPG) to create the TUF Gaming Alliance with one simple goal, to provide gamers with high performance hardware components. That's also why Scythe launched the Mugen 5 TUF Gaming Alliance model last year and since some of you asked, we decided to check it out.

   Scythe Co., Ltd., (Registered and incorporated in Tokyo Japan) originally started its business operation in Japan's famous "Akihabara Electric Town" located in the metropolitan Tokyo, where visitors can find a variety of products from the latest computer parts to the world's most advanced high-tech electric devices. Scythe Co., Ltd., began its operation and business since November, 2002 as a distributor and the manufacturer of passive and low-noise PC parts. Since then, the company has established the R&D facility in Taiwan & China for production and quality control, and the USA office (in Los Angeles, California) & European office (in Hamburg, Germany) for customer care and sales support. At Scythe, we believe that the best ideas for product come simply from knowing customers' needs and their expectations. Based on this philosophy, the PC enthusiasts working at Scythe know what to develop because that is exactly what we would like to have for ourselves too! We offer products with 100% quality assurance and total pride, and if the product has the Scythe name on it, you can rest assure that its quality will be up to the "Zero Tolerance" standards!

   Even though the Mugen 5 TUF model was released last year and thus long before the recent Mugen 5 Black RGB it's actually slightly larger (157.5x136x110.5mm - 154.5x136x110mm / fans included) and heavier (950g - 890g) something which i personally didn't expect (i thought they'd be identical in size and weight). There's another difference however so although both feature the same Kaze Flex 120 RGB PWM fan (1200RPM/51.17CFM/1.05mmH2O/24.9dBA - compatible with mainboard RGB sync technologies such as ASUS Aura Sync, ASRock Polychrome Sync, MSI Mystic Light and the GIGABYTE RGB Fusion 2.0) the Mugen 5 TUF also features an RGB illuminated top section (which is why it's also taller) which can sync with the fan to produce an rather impressive result. Cooling efficiency however is what matters so let's move forward with today’s review and see just how good the Mugen 5 TUF Gaming Alliance CPU cooler by Scythe really is.