be quiet! live up to their name once again, offering a CPU cooler with excellent ability and gorgeous design. The be quiet! Dark Rock 4 managed a virtually silent 29 dB in our acoustic testing while the CPU was idle, and only rose to 35 dB while being stressed by AIDA64.
The Silent Wings 135mm PWM fan performed remarkably well, even dealing with an Intel i7-3930K @ 4.4GHz, pumping out 180W at full load, which is dangerously close to that claimed 200W TDP. Noise was never an issue, even at these extremes.
The ceramic-particle coating was a bit of an issue when installing the fan. The metal holding straps scraped along the edges of the fins, taking the coating off all-too-easily. Albeit, ceramic’s thermal dissipation properties are well-known and clearly put to good use on the Dark Rock 4.
The cooler itself presented no issues towards RAM clearance, with its fairly modest size and height from the motherboard; however, when installing the Silent Wings 135mm fan onto the heatsink, we found our Corsair Vengeance DDR3 memory sticks, measuring only 30mm tall, would be fouled completely. In our exact instance, the slot that was blocked wasn’t actually required, but anyone using a smaller motherboard with tighter tolerances between components should certainly check the size and specification before going ahead with a purchase. Having said that, installation of the cooler when using the provided Philips screwdriver was simple and painless, with most of the work done before the heatsink is even introduced into the case - those with smaller cases may have difficulty attaching the Silent Wings fans so we would advise removing the motherboard at that point.
As is to be expected of be quiet!, the Dark Rock 4 felt solid and well put together. The fan claims a lifetime of 300,000 hours (34 years), which should be enough.
be quiet! have pulled it out the bag, yet again, and offer incredible thermals as well as near-silent operation, all for a decent price.
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The Silent Wings 135mm PWM fan performed remarkably well, even dealing with an Intel i7-3930K @ 4.4GHz, pumping out 180W at full load, which is dangerously close to that claimed 200W TDP. Noise was never an issue, even at these extremes.
The ceramic-particle coating was a bit of an issue when installing the fan. The metal holding straps scraped along the edges of the fins, taking the coating off all-too-easily. Albeit, ceramic’s thermal dissipation properties are well-known and clearly put to good use on the Dark Rock 4.
The cooler itself presented no issues towards RAM clearance, with its fairly modest size and height from the motherboard; however, when installing the Silent Wings 135mm fan onto the heatsink, we found our Corsair Vengeance DDR3 memory sticks, measuring only 30mm tall, would be fouled completely. In our exact instance, the slot that was blocked wasn’t actually required, but anyone using a smaller motherboard with tighter tolerances between components should certainly check the size and specification before going ahead with a purchase. Having said that, installation of the cooler when using the provided Philips screwdriver was simple and painless, with most of the work done before the heatsink is even introduced into the case - those with smaller cases may have difficulty attaching the Silent Wings fans so we would advise removing the motherboard at that point.
As is to be expected of be quiet!, the Dark Rock 4 felt solid and well put together. The fan claims a lifetime of 300,000 hours (34 years), which should be enough.
be quiet! have pulled it out the bag, yet again, and offer incredible thermals as well as near-silent operation, all for a decent price.
Pros
+ Incredibly capable
+ Whisper quiet
+ Looks great
+ Price
+ Easy to install
+ Free screwdriver
Cons
- RAM clearance is a big issue, completely blocking a DIMM slot on our board
- Ceramic coating scraped off too easily
+ Incredibly capable
+ Whisper quiet
+ Looks great
+ Price
+ Easy to install
+ Free screwdriver
Cons
- RAM clearance is a big issue, completely blocking a DIMM slot on our board
- Ceramic coating scraped off too easily
Click here for an explanation of our awards at Vortez.net.
Stay connected with the Vortez Social Media pages:
