BeQuiet! Dark Rock 2 CPU Cooler Review

Today we are looking at the latest Dark Rock 2. While we recently tested the Be Quiet! Dark Rock Pro 2 this is very much the big brother of the Dark Rock 2 and has a design similar to that of the Noctua NH-D14 in regards to the dual heatsink design. The new and improved Dark Rock 2 is based around the Dark Rock Advanced CPU cooler, which was a single heatsink design. The Be Quiet! Dark Rock Advanced CPU cooler was a very popular model as it combined decent thermal performance with very low noise emissions. It also helped that the price point was very aggressive. The Dark Rock Version 2 that we are testing today features a larger 135mm fan as well as a more substantial heatsink. Specifications Overall dimensions without mounting material (L x W x H), (mm) :97 x 138 x 166. Total weight (kg): 0.86. TDP (W) :180. LGA2011 ready. Socket compatibility:. Intel: LGA 775 / LGA 1155 / LGA 1156 / LGA 1366 / LGA 2011 AMD: FM1, AM2 (+) / AM3 (+) / 754/ 939 / 940 Backplate Mounting. Fan model, number: 1 x SilentWings PWM 135mm. Anti vibration fan fixing. Overall noise level (dB(A)) @ 900/1250/100% (rpm) : 8.7 / 13.9 / 21.2. The Dark Rock 2 CPU cooler ships in a large black box, which is quite heavy - always a good sign for a well-built CPU cooler. The theme of the box is very artistically handled, typical of BeQuiet! packaging. The back of the box highlights a few of the key features of the product, including 'Height adjustable fan' as well as all the technical data. Opening up the Be Quiet! packaging box we find a cardboard accessory box on top of more packaging. Inside, are all the mounting plates, include a very large backplate which has holes for several different sockets - Intel: LGA 775 / LGA 1155 / LGA 1156 / LGA 1366 / LGA 2011 and AMD: FM1, AM2 (+) / AM3 (+) / 754/ 939 / 940 The company have also included a very simple installation guide which is in three different languages. Turning to the product itself, we immediately notice the beautiful, distinctively styled Be Quiet! 135mm SilentWings PWM fan, which offers full coverage and even overlaps the heatsink behind it. As such, the tips of the blades are moving air over almost all of the heatsink. The heatsink itself is ominous by design, courtesy of a dark nickel-plated surface. The fins are fairly dense allowing for lots of thermal transfer - there are 44 aluminum fins in total. The Dark Rock 2 CPU Cooler also boasts 6 thick heatpipes. One side of the cooler has no fan although one could be added later to improve the performance if desired. We like the Be Quiet! CPU 'steel heatpipe caps' which make it stand out. The cooler ships with a protective cover on the core, to help prevent minor damage during shipping. This is not a direct contact base, but there are six thick heatpipes running into the block on either side, leading into the racks of aluminum fins. We installed the Be Quiet! back plate using the AMD holes, which is screwed in from the rear of the motherboard. Plastic washers have to be clipped on to the threads and pushed down. We then apply the thermal paste. Unfortunately the included diagrams aren't too clear, and it is possible (as can be seen in the picture) to install the AMD mounting brackets upside down, even if common sense should prevail! Next we mount the CPU cooler. It can be fiddly as we need to support the cooler with one hand and tighten the screws from the back with the other. Once all the screws are tightened the Dark Rock 2 is certainly very secure, and has clearly been engineered to a very high standard. The finished cooler, mounted to the motherboard and installed inside a system. Today we are going to test the Be Quiet! Dark Rock 2 CPU Cooler with the AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition CPU. We recently tested a cooler from Akasa, and Titan which we will be using as a comparison during testing. Each cooler tested today will be using the 'out of the box' configuration of fans. The Akasa Venom Voodoo ships with 2x120mm fans and the Titan Fenrir Siberia has 1x120mm and 1x140mm fans whereas the Be Quiet! Dark Rock 2 has only a single 135mm fan. We like to try and mirror ‘realistic’ conditions when possible, so instead of an ‘open bench concept’, we are mounting the test system inside the BitFenix Shinobi XL case that we recently reviewed, which does offer very impressive thermal performance in itself, as such our temperatures can't be compared directly to previous tests. Room ambient temperatures were maintained at a steady 20c throughout testing and the coolers were all set to their maximum fan speed. System Specs: Processor: AMD Phenom X4 965 Black Edition @ 3.7 GHz. Motherboard: ASUS M4A785TD- M Evo Cooler (for comparisons): Akasa Venom Voodoo CPU Cooler & Titan Fenrir Siberia Edition CPU Cooler Memory: 4GB Corsair DDR3 1600MHz Graphics Cards: AMD Radeon 6450 HD (GPU @ 850 MHZ, Memory Clock @ 1000 MHz) Power Supply: Akasa Venom Power 750W Boot Drive: OCZ Vertex I 60GB SSD (OS only) OS: Windows 7 Home Edition 64bit Digital Sound Level Noise Decibel Meter Style 2 From these results it is very clear that the Be Quiet! Dark Rock 2 CPU cooler delivers extremely impressive thermal performance. Not only does it outperform the Akasa Venom Voodoo CPU cooler hands down, it beats the physically larger Titan Fenrir Siberia Edition. It is worth reiterating that both the Akasa and Titan products ship with two fans while the Be Quiet! only has one. Very impressive, but what about the acoustical performance? Today to test this cooler we have set our Digital Sound Level Noise Decibel Meter Style 2 one meter away from our case. We then removed the discrete graphics card, and temporarily turned all other case fans off. This leaves us with only the CPU cooler fans and very little noise from the power supply fan. As this can be a little confusing for people, here are various dBa ratings in with real world situations to help describe the various levels. KitGuru noise guide 10dBA - Normal Breathing/Rustling Leaves 20-25dBA – Whisper 30dBA – High Quality Computer fan 40dBA – A Bubbling Brook, or a Refrigerator 50dBA - Normal Conversation 60dBA - Laughter 70dBA - Vacuum Cleaner or Hairdryer 80dBA - City Traffic or a Garbage Disposal 90dBA - Motorcycle or Lawnmower 100dBA - MP3 player at maximum output 110dBA - Orchestra 120dBA - Front row rock concert/Jet Engine 130dBA - Threshold of Pain 140dBA - Military Jet takeoff/Gunshot (close range) 160dBA - Instant Perforation of eardrum We then tested the acoustical performance of the Akasa Venom Voodoo, the Titan Fenrir Siberia Edition CPU cooler and the Be Quiet! Dark Rock 2. All coolers were set to their maximum fan speeds before these tests. We have been singing the praises of the quality BeQuiet! fans now for a long time and the results above highlight why. The Be Quiet! Dark Rock 2 CPU cooler is basically almost silent. The other coolers are clearly audible. The combination of excellent thermal performance and extremely low noise levels will be extremely attractive to the enthusiast audience. Be Quiet! have taken a tried and tested formula and improved it, by adding a larger fan and physically more impressive heatsink. The results today really do speak for themselves. Additionally, the Be Quiet! Dark Rock 2 is easy to install, and extremely secure when in place. The Dark Nickel plating on the top of the heatsink/fan give it a very sleek and serious appearance. In terms of thermal performance, the Dark Rock 2 is very impressive and will cope with a variety of overclocked processors without a problem. We tested the Dark Rock 2 CPU cooler against several high performance dual fan coolers today, and even when equipped with a single 135mm fan, it managed to outperform the competition. One of the most important selling points of this particular product however is the incredibly low noise level. BeQuiet! are market leaders in this regard, as they sell some of the most impressive cooling fans available to the enthusiast audience. The Be Quiet! Dark Rock 2 CPU cooler retails from ARIA for £49.99, cheaper than the Titan Fenrir Siberia Edition which it beat quite comfortably in our testing. We have no hesitation in recommending this product as it is beautifully engineered, quiet with excellent thermal performance. For an additional £10 you can buy the bigger PRO version .... which delivers even better cooling performance while maintaining very impressive noise dynamics. Pros Extremely quiet. Impressive thermal performance from single fan design. Very sturdy. Looks great with the dark nickel plating. class leading fan. Cons £49.99 is a lot of money for a cooler. Single fan. Installation guide could be better. Kitguru says: Another winning product from BeQuiet!, who seem able to do no wrong lately.