Well I know you guys are dying to see this thing so I'll kick it off with a nice photo for you all.

It's insane! The sheer size of this cooler worries me. At over 1kg it is the heaviest heatsink I've had on my hands and I can't even begin to describe it. Like I mentioned earlier the fin density on the Orochi is very low, which is vital to the performance of a passive cooler. Any air moving around in the case must be taken advantage of and has to be able to flow freely through the fins. This also reduces the amount of noice produced when using a fan as there is less turbulence.

Heatpipes heatpipes and more heatpipes. 10 in total, and this is not your classic "5 u-shaped heatpipes, or 10 effective". This is literally 10 heatpipes, and some of the longest pipes I've ever seen on a heatsink. They're pretty well distributed amongst the mass amounts of fin, Scythe has done a good job placing them evenly throughout the heatsink to disperse the heat to all of the fins.

However, with all the heatpipes do come some issues. In the picture below you'll notice that 5 of the heatpipes that lead to the lower level of the heatsink are not in direct contact with the base, they are on top of the other 5 heatpipes which lead to the upper proportions. With the growing popularity of direct touch heatpipes, this seems to be a step in the wrong direction almost.

As I've mentioned in almost all of my heatsink reviews, Scythe has equipped the Orochi with a small (and I use that term lightly) heatsink on the base of the cooler as seen above. While on most applications this is effective, this heatsink does not seem to have much contact with the base but more so the upper level of heatpipes.

Scythe yet again includes a mirror finish and flat base. Lapping has become popular in the enthusiast scene and taking the extra step to bring a perfectly flat base to the user before hand is a nice touch. Not only does it look professional, the performance benefits can be very noticeable. Take a lesson here, a flat base is a happy base.

With such a large cooler compatibility issues are bound to happen. I came close to being forced to use the lower PCI-e slot when the cooler almost touched the GPU. Different board layouts will have different issues, and I can see this being one of them. However, you can always just rotate the cooler 90 degrees if your case allows it

The Orochi does have a "passive mode", but it also includes a large 140mm fan as well. The fan comes in at 500rpm and 30cfm. Tiny numbers, yes, but they also keep a tiny number in the noise department with a shocking 10 decibels. This cooler is obviously not intended to be a all-out-performer. Scythe aims for performance in silence, to the point where no fan can be used.

The fan can also be mounted in a few different ways. It can be mounted to blow downwards which (which a higher power fan) is beneficial to the RAM, mosfets, and northbridge. It can also be mounted to blow through either side. This is ideal for a case with a front-to-back airflow style. It's good to have a few options!

Let's be honest, you want to see how it performs, I know it. So, let's move on to installing and testing the beast.