PC Components

be quiet! Dark Rock 4 Review: Performance Meets Style?

The be quiet! Dark Rock 4 is a massive tower cooler in a stylish black finish and tames processors not only particularly quietly, but also extremely efficiently. The Dark Rock 4 cools up to 200 Watt TDP and is easily able to keep an overclocked mainstream CPU in check. In addition to its elegant appearance and outstanding performance, the be quiet! Dark Rock 4 also stands out for its user-friendly assembly. So if you are looking for a quiet tower cooler for your new gaming PC and want top performance with a noble design, you should definitely take a closer look at be quiet! Dark Rock 4!

Technical Details

Dimensions (with fan) 136 x 159.4 x 96.3 mm (w x h x d)
Weight (with fan) approx. 920 g
Material Copper (base plate, heatpipes), aluminium (lamellas)
Heatpipes 6x Ø 6 mm
Fan 135 mm PWM (max. 21.4 dB(A))
Cooling capacity 200 W TDP
Connection 4-pin PWM
Compatibility AMD AM2, AM2+, AM3, AM3+, AM4, FM1
Compatibility Intel 115x, 1366, 2011, 2011-v3, 2066
Price € 99.90 *

Packaging, Scope of Delivery & Workmanship

The foam-packed Dark Rock 4 is delivered with the necessary assembly kit, assembly instructions, a screwdriver and the PWM fan. The assembly kits are sorted according to Intel and AMD and packed in resealable bags. Additional brackets for mounting an optional 120 mm fan are also included in the scope of delivery. If a second fan should be retrofitted, it can be connected to the CPU cooler header of the mainboard together with the supplied 135 mm fan via Y splitter. The Dark Rock 4 is also very well processed and none of the slats had a sharp edge or other defects.

Design

The Dark Rock 4 is slightly asymmetrical and compatible with almost any RAM. Even with Mini-ITX mainboards there should be no problems. The aluminium fins and the six copper heatpipes are coated with a black colour. This contains ceramic particles, which are supposed to conduct the waste heat of the processor better. The black top plate made of anodised aluminium has been discreetly provided with the be quiet! lettering. The heatpipes are connected to a copper base plate and have a diameter of 6 mm and end in caps that sit on the end plate. In addition to the elegant radiator, the PWM fan is also available in black. The Dark Rock 4 acts like a stealth cooler, which is further enhanced by the particularly quiet operation of the fan.

Assembly

As the following video from the manufacturer shows, the assembly of the Dark Rock 4 is very easy. I will clarify the individual steps also still by means of pictures.

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More Information

First you should have a look at the instruction manual and the working steps for your socket. In this case we use a motherboard with the AMD AM4 socket. First unpack the mainboard, then lock the CPU in the socket and remove the existing fan terminals above and below the socket.

Now the AMD spacer bolts are placed on the threads. The “long AMD mounting bridges” are now attached as shown. Before placing the cooler on the CPU, remember to apply the thermal paste.

The next step is to position the radiator mounting bridge in the notch above the base plate. This is then screwed to the AMD mounting bridges.

Now only the fan has to be attached to the cooler with the help of the fan clips before it is connected to the 4-pin CPU cooler header of the mainboard. Afterwards the bundle of mainboard and CPU cooler can be installed in the case.

Result of the be quiet! Dark Rock 4 Review

The Dark Rock 4 not only looks very good, but can also convince with performance. The AMD Ryzen 7 2700X used in the system runs at 61 degrees Celsius – after a 20-minute benchmark with AVX2 command set activated and a power consumption of 115 watts. That’s very good! In idle, the CPU runs below 35 °C, in games between 50 and 60 degrees. The Dark Rock 4 is also extremely quiet, so that the volume of the system in the Dark Base 700 is primarily dominated by the graphics card.

Due to the perfect workmanship, the easy assembly and the high cooling capacity we can only recommend the be quiet! Dark Rock 4*. Especially since you can also retrofit a second fan in an emergency in order to further increase the cooling performance.

be quiet! Dark Rock 4

Workmanship
Features
Cooling Performance
Value for Money

Performance meets style

The be quiet! Dark Rock 4 is a first-class CPU cooler that combines outstanding performance with a noble design!

Simon Lüthje

I am co-founder of this blog and am very interested in everything that has to do with technology, but I also like to play games. I was born in Hamburg, but now I live in Bad Segeberg.

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