In Japanese legend, the Orochi was a giant eight-headed dragon of immense power. The Scythe SCORC-1000 "Orochi" is another large beast – able to cool systems of immense power. In a word, Scythe's Orochi is huge. But, it is also ninja-quiet.
Coupled with its large, slowly rotating 140mm fan, the Orochi keeps a lid on a 150W heat load at only 10.8 dBA, moving over 29 CFM of air over the array. 10 copper heatpipes feed heat into the array of nickel plated aluminum convection fins. They rise from a nickel plated copper base that draws away the dragon's breath of excess heat and sends it to be banished among the cooling fins.
The Orochi can cool the fires of the full range of AMD and Intel processors, but it requires a large amount of room to do so. Its one kilogram weight may be more than can be used by many motherboards, but for the ultimate in high-capacity, absolutely silent cooling, the Orochi is the beast you want at your service.
Superior Heat Dissipation and Cooling PerformanceA total of ten copper heatpipes and high-density fins maximize heat transfer and dissipation, plus a huge 140mm round-shaped cooling fan to push cooling performance to the next level.
Support for Fan and Fanless ModesThe versatile Scythe SCORC-1000 supports both fan and fanless modes for top-to-toe CPU cooling with low-to-zero noise.
Universal Socket CompatibilityThe Scythe SCORC-1000 features broad compatibility with AMD socket 754, 939, 940, AM2 and AM2+ platforms, as well as Intel socket 478 and LGA 775 platforms.
Pros: Large, clean and well polished base. This heat sink would have been the perfect silent cpu cooler for the Q9300 quad processor I selected for my new build. Unfortunatly...
Cons: I suppose I could have done some more homework on the board layout. The motherboard (Intel DX38BT) does not have enough room around the CPU to fit the bracket for the heat sink. I went with the NOCTUA NH-U12P as a near silent alternative (reviewed recently on anandtech.com, but not available for purchase on newegg for some reason). The brackets have plenty of clearance to avoid touching the board components. The case (Antec P182) has room for the heat sink but the motherboard (Intel DX38BT) did not.
Overall Review: Shopping for a 3rd party heat sink is difficult with different board designs, bracket layouts and mounting mechanisms. A tool that would check the measurements (or even point out what points to measure) would be helpful. I'm not aware of one now.