Be Quiet! Dark Rock TF review

Cooling 189 Page 10 of 10 Published by

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Final words and conclusion

Final words and conclusion

First let me begin by saying that the cooler itself is pretty terrific, is can easily measure up with the Noctua NH-D15 in cooling performance and I dare say it, it's even a notch more silent. So the performance overall is pretty terrific for a heat-pipe cooler. But as you have been able to ready, we did run into some nags. Now there are five variables to keep in mind when purchasing a heatpipe CPU cooler:

  • Aesthetics
  • Cooling performance
  • Noise level performance
  • Ease of use / installation
  • Price

Aesthetics & Design

The looks always remain trivial as taste differs, but for a sub 79 EURO product we think that it is a good looking product. The design overall is dark, we have nice nickle plating the fans are dark and thus will fit most motherboards that have a black PCB. Sure, it might be a bit bulky, but that is to be expected for cooler in this performance class.


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Cooling Performance

The cooler performs really well, we armed our test system with the difficult to cool Core i7 4970K, obviously on purpose. The default clock frequency performance is good, nothing more, nothing less. Overclocking with a CPU like this normally ill-advised though with added CPU voltage. However with a cooler of this caliber our 4790K processor at 1.3 Volts clocked at 4600 MHz was running just over 70 Degrees C when under full stress, this cooler thus is recommended with an overclock. The cooling performance as such is just terrific and can measure up with 100 EURO AIO liquid cooling kits.

Noise level Performance

Terrific, seriously terrific. You'd expect some sort of noise / noticeable to the hearing airflow with two fans, but the SilentWings work their magic. They are relatively low RPM yet offer enough airflow pressure to get rid of that heat. Our maximum measured DBa level on the cooler was 37 DBa, and that is actually close to your average background noise. The same level was reached when overclocked. Now if you combine the cooling potential with the low noise levels then that is very impressive.

The Mounting Kit

We tested on Socket 1150 with an ASUS TUF Z97 SaberTooth motherboard. We use this motherboard on purpose as it has a back-plate and front-side shielding. That will make mounting niche cooler a bit more difficult. Unfortunately as good as the Dark Rock is in design, cooling and low noise levels, the mounting kit however is not my favorite. You need to secure four nuts onto the four screws/pins that are mounted towards the CPU cooler back-plate. With larger sized heatsinks or some shielding like the TUF series offer, it is impossible to reach and secure the nuts. That meant in our case that the shielding needed to come off in order to mount the CPU cooler. And once you mounted the CPU cooler, there's no chance you can mount the shielding again. The same goes for the backside, the TUF backplate Shield is an issue. The CPU cooler backside bracket is bigger then the gap in the TUF backplate, meaning we had to get rid of the TUF backplate as well. Seriously frustrating. So you can only mount this cooler if you have plenty of space to work with around the CPU area and without a motherboard back-plate.


Guru3d-recommended

Final Words

Despite our remarks with mounting this cooler I am still recommending it to those that have the space on their motherboard for it as the cooler itself is truly terrific. We do hope that be Quiet will change up that mounting kit as it will seriously hinder usability on the vast majority of motherboards. I am not saying you won't be able to mount it, but it is going to be a tough task at hand and anno 2015 I don't get that. Mounting kit aside, the performance is excellent, the noise levels are incredibly low. The looks and aesthetics, well you either love or hate the design I guess, there is nothing in-between. But the dark and black tones will please the vast majority of you guys I think. This is a high-end performance heatpipe cooler and we do need to factor in the CPU being used today -- the Core i7 4790K, it is among the worst processors to cool and the Dark Rock TF maintained good cooling performance and low noise levels in all conditions we fired at it. Albeit I should probably refrain from using the word 'noise' whatsoever, as the cooler remains very silent. Just hook the fans onto your motherboard CPU fan headers and select 'normal' cooling levels in the BIOS. Then even when you overclocked your processor, you'll have a hard time hearing this product. The cooler will sit in the 79 EURO bracket, pricey for performance wise worth it. The product can be found in the stores as we speak and is covered by a 5-year carry in warranty. So yes, recommended if you have a motherboard with enough space to be able to mount it. 

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