Finished Looks

The Scythe Ashura is a sleek-looking cooler once installed, which is in part due to the black aluminum top plate. Only the heatpipes of the heatsink stand out because they are out of bare copper. It would have been nice to see them nickle-plated to match the fin stack, but that is extremely nit-picky of me.


The included black fan works well with the heatsink's sleek appearance because it lacks LEDs and has a sleeved cable. The sleeving unfortunately does not extend all the way to the fan itself as several wires are visible, but those should be hidden from view relatively well once everything has been installed into a case.


The Scythe Ashura manages to look good while not interfering with any of the motherboard's heatsinks or power plugs.


Memory clearance is where the Ashura really stands out as the cooler's offset heatsink design offers access to all four DIMM slots. Users can then utilize any memory they wish, including Corsair's Dominator Platinums, without running into clearance issues. Add to that the good clearance around the socket and you have an exceptional cooler. However, one issue does crop up as the cooler blocks the first expansion slot. While offsetting the heatsink to offer memory clearance, Scythe failed to do the same for the first expansion slot. Though unfortunate and a missed opportunity, this is a norm with such larger air coolers.