It’s time to throw away huge coolers and be quiet! seems to have it all covered with the new Dark Rock Slim, but let’s see what this is all about. This cooler is the latest addition in the Be Quiet Dark Rock line up, focused on performance cooling with compact size and minimal acoustic footprint.
It has 159.4mm height and a moderate width of 127mm. Its profile is small at 72mm, with one 120mm Silent Wings 3 fan attached. It bears the comfortable weight of 620 grams and can cool up to a hefty 180W TDP of heat while being compatible with all contemporary Intel and AMD sockets.
Let’s have a look on the actual item. Dark Rock Slim comes in a typical black box with Company Logo and an image of the actual item. Feels quite small with a classy feeling. Opening the box one can see a thick foam pudding and a little cardboard box. The first contains the cooler and fan while the latter is the accessories kit for the mounting. It is neat and well thought out giving away a hint for a well-designed product. That is exactly the impression one feels when taking the actual cooler at hand.
It is an all-black nice-looking piece of machining with no imperfections at the finishing. The metal fins are carefully machined to detail so they don’t protrude or hurt your fingers. On its lower side one can notice four metal pipes moving heat away from the CPU block to the radiator. The latter features a curved design to fit in the fan while saving some space at the profile. There is even some rubber material to dampen the vibrations from the fan which also enhances the quality feeling. The black finish is eye catching though prone to scratching if you persist too much. On the top side the be quiet logo can be seen in brushed aluminum lettering.
The other half of the kit is the silent wings 3 fan. It is an 120mm, all black fan featuring PWM control. It can spin up to 1500 RPM with 12V where it asks for 0.12A of current. It is a fitting match to the cooler both for size, color, silence and efficiency as well. It is attached by metal clips to the radiator and there’s an extra pair of those in case you opt to add a second fan for maximum performance. That would stack up to a 94mm profile which is still reasonable but for the most compact configurations.
Installation with the included brackets is standard issue with no trouble whatsoever unless it’s your first time and you need to refer to the included instructions where the little sketches left little room for misinterpretation. When placed, the cooler fits nice without covering the ram sticks. Overall it seems aesthetically pleasing giving a quite discreet look. If you are looking for a CPU cooler that doesn’t over impose itself, you are at home with this one. But with this done and away it’s time to get to the core of it.
Noise wise it is a very quiet cooler. In 100% fan speed at almost 1500 rpm 23.7dB of noise were measured in our hemi-anechoic chamber with a 6 dB(A) noise floor. This is on par with the 23.6 dB(A) spec given by the manufacturer at the 100% speed setting.
The Dark Rock Slim in the standard 120mm single fan configuration tops at 58C at 100% CPU usage, just 4C behind the Noctua U14S single 140mm fan and 6C hotter from the best possible configurations of the Noctua NH-U14S dual fan and Kraken X61 AIO, both featuring two 140mm fans.
Considering the size and noise footprint of the other two, Dark Rock Slim does well staying close and under the 60 degrees Celsius region. Even at the extreme case of both CPU and GPU constantly running at 100% load, Dark Rock Slims holds its ground and the 6C difference with the dual-fan Noctua U14S remains the same, while temperatures remain below 70C.
Considering all above, the Dark Rock Slim seems to be a solid choice. It fits anywhere and is barely heard. It cools at least in the same league as top air and liquid coolers, plus It looks nice and discreet. And with a MSRP under 60$ there’s so much to love and none to hate. We can’t be too quiet about it!
Pros
High Performance CPU Cooling in a compact form
Very low noise- quiet operation
Quality construction - beautiful black finish
High Compatibility
Moderate price (under 60$)
Cons
There’s still better performance if size and noise is not a factor
No other color choice than black
Paint finish can be damaged easily
Only one fan included
No Light effects (in an RGB era)
