Looking back over the years, it is perhaps shocking to remind ourselves just how limited were the methods used to cool CPU’s. As some older readers may recall, it wasn’t until the later 80386 days when CPU coolers even became common. Initially, these were low profile heatsinks and much didn’t change even in the 80586 era with the usual slight increase in heatsink height and on occasion, a 40mm fan. Today a typical northbridge cooler is larger than the then CPU coolers used to cool say a Pentium/Pentium MMX. The reason is of course simple - heat. As Silicon Valley rose so did the amount of heat, even with advanced nanotechnology running a CPU at several GHz is not just a case of ramping up the clocks. I remember Intel showing a nice slide at IDF 2003 which depicted just how hot CPU’s have become over the years, easily hot enough to self destruct if it wasn’t for the many in-built thermal properties in modern processors. Competition in the CPU cooler market segment is tough with designs galore all trying to grab the hearts and wallets of none other than, you guessed it consumers. Today Scythe feels up to the challenge and thus has sent us their mid-range Samurai-Z CPU cooler. Can it make the mark or is it destined for a life beyond your PC? Let’s find out!