be quiet! Dark Rock TF 2 CPU Cooler Review

1. be quiet! Dark Rock TF 22. Installation3. Testing Methodology4. Testing - Noise5. Testing - PBO Temperatures6. Testing - Overclocked Temperatures7. Testing - VRM Temperatures8. Closing Thoughts9. View All Pages

The be quiet! Dark Rock TF 2 is a well-built, good-looking down-draft style air cooler that features exceptional low noise operation thanks to the use of two high-quality 135mm fans.

Whilst noise levels are a clear benefit, the cooling performance left plenty to be desired in our test configuration and setup. The limited heat dissipation area and inherent size constraints of the top-down design did not bode particularly well when combined with our Ryzen 9 5950X test CPU pushing in excess of 180W.

It is clear that the Dark Rock TF 2 is not designed to deal with such high levels of heat output from an AM4 processor. However, with a down-draft cooler targeting SFF/mITX users and the AM4 platform currently being the go-to option for those builders, we feel that our test procedures are actually quite reasonable.

We even opened up the case side panel to give the Dark Rock TF 2 direct access to fresh out-of-chassis air, but this only reduced temperatures by an insignificant amount.

Put simply, the Dark Rock TF 2 did not like our CPU cooling test setup whether that be the motherboard socket area, chassis fans, or nearby graphics card. There's no denying that our test environment is clearly not optimised for a down-draft CPU cooler. However, this raises the questions of where down-draft coolers make sense in today's market.

Many SFF chassis – even particularly small ones such as the NCase M1 – can take a moderately-sized tower air cooler or a 240mm-class AIO liquid cooler. When looking at SFF use cases – and factoring in the expensive price tag of £79.99 – it is difficult to look past the option of using a 240mm AIO instead.

Of course, there will still be scenarios where a down-draft cooler such as the Dark Rock TF 2 can make sense. Perhaps you have a compact chassis with limited room for a tower cooler. Perhaps you do not trust liquid cooling. Or perhaps your motherboard VRM heatsink is poor and needs assistance. But we are getting into the realms of a niche user base at that point.

With an expensive price tag of £79.99 and with the cooling performance deficiencies versus reasonably sized air coolers in our hot-and-heavy Ryzen processor testing, it is difficult to make a compelling argument for the be quiet! Dark Rock TF 2.

Aesthetics are great, build quality is superb, and the low-noise operation truly is fantastic. But with most modern cases – even compact SFF ones – designed for a front-to-back airflow path that accommodates tower and AIO liquid coolers with relative ease, the down-draft style be quiet! Dark Rock TF 2 certainly has a niche target market.

Pros:

• Excellent low-noise operation.
• All-black aesthetics are superb.
• Fantastic build quality with a reasonable warranty.
• Good RAM clearance, especially for a down-draft cooler.

Cons:

• Very expensive at £79.99.
• Performance struggles when tasked with a particularly high AM4 heat load.
• Down-draft CPU coolers feel like a solution from a bygone era of chassis designs.

KitGuru says: Credit to be quiet! for adding another option to the under-served down-draft CPU cooler market. With that said, the Dark Rock TF 2 is very expensive and leaves CPU performance on the table in our testing.

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