Scythe Fuma 2 – Dual-Tower CPU Cooler in Test

With the Fuma 2, Scythe has launched a compact dual-tower CPU cooler on the market. With a price of almost 50 €, it is still a good deal below the flagship models of other brands, where you quickly pay double – but still promises a very good performance. On paper, the Fuma 2 convinces as a dual-tower with a good RAM compatibility, an asymmetrical design, a high-quality look and a pleasant price. How the cooler performs in practice, you can find out here in the test.

Specifications

Scope of delivery and workmanship

The cooler comes with the usual mounting material. In addition, there is a suitable screwdriver, thermal paste and a PWM splitter. Additionally, there is another set of mounting brackets for a third fan, if you want to add one – a third notch for mounting is available on the back of the cooling tower.

The fans are very torsionally stiff and appear to have a high-quality finish. Rubberized pads are attached to the corners to reduce vibrations. Optically, these pads stand out from the otherwise black fan due to their grey colour. These fans also turn in opposite directions. This has the advantage that the air flow is improved and more even.

The cooling towers convince through perfect workmanship. There are no skewed or bent fins, the uppermost cooling fins were colored black and are decorated by the Scythe logo. The heat pipes are not covered – but this is not negatively noticeable visually. The heatpipes are nickel plated and therefore fit to the overall design. The necessary screws for mounting are fixed, so they will not fall out when tilting the cooler.

With its asymmetrical design, the shorter blades at the rear and the narrow front fan, the Fuma 2 stands out for its excellent RAM compatibility. The front fan is a slim model and thus ends in front of the first RAM slot. Even with protruding RAM coolers, there should be no problems at all on the rear due to the cut-outs in the cooling block, if RAM modules are installed on both sides.

Mounting

Scythe has made the installation as easy as possible for us here. Preparatory you screw the mounting rails to the backplate. Already before you insert the cooler, you can fix the fans – so you don’t have to fiddle around with them after installation. The mounting of these fans is also very convenient, because the fan clamps hold in the holes – without having to hold them. With many competing products, you have to hold them and lock them in place at the same time. Especially if you plan to install the cooler into the case afterwards, you have much less problems due to lack of space.

Scythe realizes this by having small recesses in the cooling tower – through these you can fix the cooler with the included screwdriver. Another positive aspect is that the screws are already fixed to the cooling tower. Models of other brands partly use metal rails, which have to be screwed more complex.

The fan has an overall height of 154.5 mm and is therefore not excessively large. This results in a very good case compatibility, the cooler fits in almost every Midi case. The screws can be completely tightened by the springs – so you don’t have to worry about overtightening the cooler. The connection cables for the fans have a comfortable length, so that you can lay them neatly to the right connector.

For mounting on AMD CPUs, the existing AMD backplate is used, for Intel a suitable backplate was included. The whole manual is easy to understand and there is no point of criticism here.

Performance and temperatures

The workmanship is very good, the assembly runs smoothly – we are not surprised by the performance either. In the test I let the fan compete against an EKL Alpenföhn Matterhorn Pure, as a good 120mm single tower fan and the just released SilentiumPC Grandis 3, as direct competition in the dual tower class for 50 €.

The test system consists of a Ryzen 5 3600, which is enthroned on a MSI X570-A Pro. The whole thing is installed with 16 GB RAM and a GIGABYTE RX 5600 XT GAMING OC in a Fractal Design Define 7. A few Wing Boost 3 ARGB have been provided for good case ventilation. For better comparability, identical thermal compound was used everywhere – in this case the Arctic MX-4.

The test scenario is a high CPU load by Prime95 with the “in-place FFTs” – due to this the load is also constant and gives us comparable values. First of all, it should be said that Ryzen’s 3000 series gets very hot in this scenario. This is due to the 7 nm technology and the resulting hotspots on the heatspreader. In normal gaming mode, the CPU is of course much cooler – even at low speeds. However, this test scenario shows how powerful the coolers are.

I decided to do the tests at 50% PWM and 100% PWM. 50% PWM is a good “everyday value”, where the fans should not be too loud under normal load, but keep the CPU cool enough. We then see the maximum potential at 100% PWM.

On the subject of noise – the Fuma 2 was NOT perceptible from the case at 50% PWM – at 100% PWM it was still very quiet. For comparison – the Matterhorn Pure was already louder at 50% PWM than the Fuma 2 at 100%. In the test, the Fuma 2 was slightly behind the Grandis 3 from the same price segment – but this one has a 140 mm and a 120 mm fan.

Conclusion

The Fuma 2 does very much right. The features are convincing, the performance is very good. You have the potential to keep powerful CPUs cool and stay at a very pleasant volume. RGB enthusiasts will miss something about this cooler – but this is not the target group. Especially at a price of about 50 € (current: Price not available *), there is no point why you shouldn’t give an unqualified recommendation. Comparable products of other brands sometimes cost twice as much, but perform insignificantly better. Moreover, the installation was so pleasant that it should be the reference from now on. In short: The cooler knows how to convince!