Introduction
On our test bench today we have the be quiet! Dark Rock Pro 4 which sits atop be quiet!’s premium series of air coolers. We will strap it to our Air Cooling test platform that features a Ryzen 7 2700X processor to see how it fares against other air coolers that have passed across our bench. Read on to see if it lives up to its brand name!
be quiet! Dark Rock Pro 4 Overview
The be quiet! Dark Rock Pro 4 cooler is an air cooler that is designed to work on a wide variety of sockets, including Intel’s LGA1150/1151/1155/11566/1200/1366/2011-3/2066 and AMD’s AM2(+)/AM3(+)/AM4/FM1/FM2(+). While this covers most high-end desktop processors, it is not compatible with the Threadripper’s TR4 socket (which is probably a good thing given its rated 250W tdp – there is a version that supports up to 32 core Threadrippers though).
Heatsink
The be quiet! Dark Rock Pro 4 utilizes what be quiet! calls “the special black coating with ceramic particles makes a perfect transfer of heat possible”. Perfect? Bold claim there seeings how nothing is perfect in conducting heat. be quiet! goes on to say that this heatsink is “airflow-optimized, wave contoured cooling fins with small dots on their surfaces increase the air circulation”. Let’s see what that all looks like below.
The heatsink is constructed from a copper interface and black ceramic coated copper heat pipes with aluminum fins. The Dark Rock Pro 4 sports seven heat pipes that are 6mm in diameter.
The heatsink looks like a massive cube when sitting on our desk and the dual tower design allows up to three fans to be attached in a push pull configuration.
The second unique part of the construction of Dark Rock Pro 4 are the fins themselves. In this case, be quiet! has gone for a design that utilizes 90. The shape of these fins is interesting as they are not uniform as we see in the pictures above. Overall, the heatsink weighs in at 1130g with the fans. So, in case of emergency, you can bludgeon someone to death with this HSF.
Fan
The included fans come from be quiet’s Silent Wings line of fans. The fans we get with our heatsink today are 120mm and 135mm models. These FDB fans are rated at 0.08A each (which is very low). The listed “Lifespan” is 300,000 hours. The fans support a maximum speed of 1500 for the 120mm model and 1200RPM for the 135mm model at a reported noise level of 0 to 24.3 dB(A). Lastly, these fans use a 4-pin PWM connector.
The fully assembled HSF is a bit different than some other units we have seen as it comes blacked out. Without the frag harder disco lights that so many people prefer, the housing for the Dark Rock Pro 4 is sleek and elegant looking. We see lots of bling but rarely do we something as elegant as this unit.
Let’s move on now to our test setup and installation of the be quiet! Dark Rock Pro 4.