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The Be Quiet! Dark Rock Pro is definitely one of the most attractive looking coolers on the market. The black colour scheme that they have used will be more widely accepted than the coffee and cream colour scheme that Noctua use for their fans. It will also fit in aesthetically with almost any setup – it certainly looked great when combined with our Crosshair V Formula motherboard.
We were a little disappointed with the mounting mechanism that Be Quiet! use for the Dark Power Pro. While it ensures compatibility with every motherboard socket that has been used in last few years, the installation process is really quite tricky, especially if you plan to install the CPU cooler onto the motherboard while it's inside the case. Noctua's mounting mechanism is far superior and makes installation much simpler.
In our tests the Dark Rock Pro was able to cool our overclocked Phenom II X6 1090T processor with ease, maintaining very good temperatures. It was also very quiet with the fans set to maximum and, in PWM mode, it is pretty much silent providing it's used inside a quality case.
For many users, price will play a big part in the decision on which cooler to buy. The Be Quiet Dark Rock Pro can be yours for the reasonable price of £52 at Scan which makes it around £12 cheaper than the Noctua NH-D14 which can be bought from YOYOTech for £66. This makes the Dark Power Pro a very good option for people who want to achieve a decent overclock on their system without forking out more money for a Noctua NH-D14.
Pros
- Attractive design
- Good cooling performance
- Quiet Fans
- Good Value
Cons
- Complicated mounting mechanism.
- Not quite at the same cooling proficiency as the best heatsinks on the market, such as the NH D14
KitGuru says: An attractive looking cooler from Be Quiet! that doesn't disappoint in terms of performance.
I love the appearance. seems very good. I think the fitting procedure is standard for some makers now. my last cooler was a bastard to fit 🙁
Looks like the cool twin of the D14. I agree, those beige fans from noctua are really ugly as hell.
This is still quite expensive, but the noise is great. as you would expect from bequiet. quality fans.
They should start selling their fans to thermaltake who use the cheapest fans ever. my friend has the original frio, and it sounds like a helicopter on takeover at anything over lowest.
seems quite a good cooler. mounting issues are something you either grow into or dont
Quality. I love this company. they make such damn good hardware.
Looks good to me. would have liked to get results on a 2500k or 2600k. not sure how hot those AMD processors are.