be quiet! Dark Rock Slim Review

1. Introduction2. Unboxing and First Look3. The Installation Process4. Testing Methodology5. Performance and Comparisons6. Closing Thoughts7. View All Pages

Temperatures

All temperature charts are sorted with lowest load temperatures at the top.

At 4GHz under load, unfortunately, the Dark Rock Slim's performance isn’t particularly groundbreaking, and it sits alongside similarly sized 120mm coolers like the Cooler Master MA410P. With a peak delta temperature of 38.2 degrees, it is certainly a little hotter than most other coolers on test at this frequency.

Moving on to 4.5GHz it's basically the same story. The Dark Rock Slim doesn’t move at all, still just outperforming its closest competitors from Cooler Master. With recorded temps of 63.6 degrees at full load, the Dark Rock Slim sits 3rd from the bottom of our list.

At 5GHz things do look a little better, as the Dark Rock Slim starts to move its way up our cooler list. The peak temperature of 72.4 degrees under load is comparatively much better, and has the Slim outperforming basically every comparable 120mm air cooler tested so far.

Noise levels

In terms of audible noise levels the be quiet! Dark Rock Slim really excelled here and was barely audible throughout all of my testing. To be honest, this really wasn’t that surprising considering the Silent Wings 3 fan has a maximum speed of 1450RPM – so it is clearly designed with low noise levels as its top priority, rather than all-out performance.

Looking across all of our results, it is really impressive to see the Dark Rock Slim matching the larger 140mm Alpenföhn Brocken 3 in every test. This is actually pretty impressive when you consider how much larger the Alpenföhn Brocken 3 is when compared to the Dark Rock Slim, though this be quiet! cooler is basically offering very similar temperatures and audible noise.

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