Hardware Be Quiet Dark Rock Advanced

The first Be Quiet! cooler that we've seen impresses in more ways than one

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/cooling/2011/03/18/be-quiet-dark-rock-advanced/1

 

I've got this cooling my 4.5GHz overclocked 2500K and it is whisper quiet!

I can't fault it at all and it fits inside my Antec 300 case easily.

The only problem I did have was gettign hold of one as it was out of stock everywhere for a long time but Scan came good in the end.

Bag yourself a great cooler - if you can find one.

 

I just spoke to Be Quiet! about this, and they underestimate demand, so have put another batch into production ASAP.

 

they sell the fan alone as well, i suppose they would make for good, silent casefans

 

Was the US price unavailable or is the cooler unavailable in the US.
I can't find one around where I live.

 

Why something with a score of 8 gets an Excellence Award (that means "10")?
Please, either give it a score of at least 9, or change the award to "Recommended"

 

Sorry for the confusion, we talked about this internally this morning as we're planning on updating the scoring and awards on bit-tech and bit-gamer shortly. A side effect of this is that this particular product only gets an eight in the current score system, but is so good its worth an Excellence Award.

 

To the best of our knowledge you cant get any Be Quiet! products in the US at the moment. Sorry.

 

No testing for LGA775?

 

When I get more money, it's going to between this and a H50... but I'll certainly be buyring some of the fans!

 

i'm impressed. asus g73jh arrived today, WOOHOOO, but i'll be torn weather to go with Be Quiet Dark Rock Advanced or corsair h50 when intel releases x68 chipset and cpu's

 

Would love an additional noise and cost level against these fans as well. Always good to know how well it cools, of course, but when you tell us "it's really quiet" without comparing it in a similar chart to its cooling capability, it leaves us hanging. Then take a combined cooling / noise ratio, and compare cost against other fans on the list. That gives us a true measure of its value.

 

Not bad, this is the cooler i was very interested in as its priced the same as a Frio but is quieter. Little disappointed with the AMD results but i'd rather it be a few deg's hotter compared to a frio than have a super loud cooler.

Edit: just noticed the review says the voltage was 1.6V on the 1090t, thats very high for a small overclock.

 

How easy is installing the cooler as ive seen in other reviews its a right pain and needs 2 people to get it in?
Also what ram would be be compatible as you never seem to to take into account the ram heatsinks getting in the way of these huge cpu coolers.
Thanks

 

I will say the cooler was a bit fiddly to fit - would have been helpful if I had three arms - but I got there in the end but I did have the motherboard out of my case (no motherboard cut out on my old antec 300)

I definitely felt it was worth the 10 minutes effort it took.

Also I only have standard corsair ram with no extra heatsink but there appears to be some considerable clearance so I'm not worried about adding more ram in future if I want to.

All in all it's been a great purchase - oh! and it looks the business after I cut a window in the side panel!!!

 

how can there be a difference of almost 20C in the delta between socket 1155 and am3?
does it mean that either:

- 1155 socket cpu-s are making really bad contact with all coolers
- am3 cpu-s require much higher cooling power and lower efficiency coolers show their shortcomings?
- testing results are skewed (don't believe this at all, just trying to come up with all explanations).

just seems that cannot trust any results.

for comparison: http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/cooling/2009/02/19/ga-1366-cpu-cooler-group-test/7
here all the results seem quite close to each other.

for comparison: http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/cooling/2010/03/22/akasa-nero-s-cpu-cooler-review/2
again, here most seem very close on am3, but very different results for 1156.

can anyone explain? i'd like to know for example, where my cooler stands, but from all these results, i have no idea what's going on

 

There are two main factors at work here:

1. The Socket AM3 CPU we use has a significantly higher TDP than the LGA1155 CPU we use.
2. Socket AM3 CPU also need to be overvolted more than LGA1155 CPUs (despite being less overclockable).

 

I would agree and cpus more so phenoms are very good for space heaters using the stock heatsink at stock speeds can result in tosty heatsink and noise (the athlon ii are ok thought, as long its an real one not an phenom with L3 turned off and 2 cores)

 

Hmm, so maybe the am3 socket shows the real max performance of a cooler? So would it not make sense to choose the cooler that performs best on am3 and use it on a socket like 1155(if compatible), while overclocking the s**t out of your 2600k?