Home / Component / Cooling / be quiet! Dark Rock Pro 3 CPU Cooler Review

be quiet! Dark Rock Pro 3 CPU Cooler Review

Luke Hill February 23, 2014 Cooling, Featured Tech Reviews

inside-system

Thermal Performance Test Procedures:

  • Idle temperatures are obtained after sitting at the desktop for 15 minutes.
  • Load temperatures are obtained after running Prime95 in the ‘Small FFTs' mode for 15 minutes.
  • We tested with our CPU set at 3.9GHz (typical multi-core turbo speed of most motherboards) using a BIOS-set voltage of 1.200V (in the region of most common MCT voltages).
  • We repeated testing with our CPU overclocked to 4.5GHz (45x multiplier, 100MHz base clock) using a BIOS-set voltage of 1.325V.
  • The cooler's fans are set to 100% to eliminate inaccuracies due to dynamic PWM fan speed adjustments.
  • The supplied thermal paste is used to provide an accurate interpretation of the cooler's out-of-the-box performance.
  • We use HWMonitor to measure the CPU temperature.
  • CPU temperature recording is precise to +/- 0.5°C. Ambient temperature recording is precise to +/- 0.05°C.
  • Ambient temperature was maintained at 22°C.

Acoustic Performance Test Procedures:

  • We measure the noise output of our entire system from a distance of 1m while the CPU cooler's fans operates at 100% (indicating the maximum noise output).
  • We set the case and motherboard fans to minimum speed (hence noise) and avoid using a discrete GPU to isolate the CPU cooler's noise output.

Test System:

Comparison Coolers:

  • Noctua NH-D14 (100% fan speed).
  • Corsair H100i (100% fan speed).

Software:

  • CPUID HWMonitor.
  • Prime95.
  • Windows 7 Professional with SP1 64-bit.

Become a Patron!

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Tags

Check Also

Nvidia RTX 5060 Ti 16GB Review ft. Gigabyte & Palit

RTX 5060 Ti is here - yes there is still an 8GB model, but we're reviewing the 16GB config today

5 comments

  1. John
    February 23, 2014 at 12:22 pm

    What a fantastic cooler. I dont mind their fitting methods, they are never as good as noctuas, but the dark rock coolers are sadly underrated in our circles. they are fantastic, and very low noise.

  2. Eran
    February 23, 2014 at 12:23 pm

    I will be ordering this one. I dont like the noise of Corsair’s all in one coolers, last one I got I had to replace both fans, which is extra cost on the already high pricing.

  3. Greg
    February 23, 2014 at 12:24 pm

    Their products are always beautifully finished. love the fans too, bought a ton of them last month.

  4. Toko Gorden
    February 24, 2014 at 11:11 am

    I’d like to thank you for the efforts you have put in writing this blog.

    I really hope to check out the same high-grade blog posts from
    you in the future as well. In truth, your creative writing abilities has motivated me to get my very own website now 😉

  5. affinityseattle
    August 24, 2014 at 9:18 am

    Can you comment on what improvements could be expected with an additional 120mm silent wings 2 fan using the kit-included clip?

© Copyright 2025, Kitguru.net All Rights Reserved Standard Terms

We've noticed that you are using an ad blocker.

Thank you for visiting KitGuru. Our news and reviews teams work hard to bring you the latest stories and finest, in-depth analysis.

We want to be as informative as possible – and to help our readers make the best buying decisions. The mechanism we use to run our business and pay some of the best journalists in the world, is advertising.

If you want to support KitGuru, then please add www.kitguru.net to your ad blocking whitelist or disable your adblocking software. It really makes a difference and allows us to continue creating the kind of content you really want to read.

It is important you know that we don’t run pop ups, pop unders, audio ads, code tracking ads or anything else that would interfere with the KitGuru experience. Adblockers can actually block some of our free content, such as galleries!