be quiet! Dark Rock Slim CPU Cooler Review

Installation

As we said at the start of the review, in terms of the Dark Rock releases, we haven’t always had the best of experiences fitting them to our test bench. For reasons we’ve never truly understood, be quiet! seems to insist on a good, but bizarrely complicated mounting system.

Thankfully, in this regard the manual provided is excellent and as such, for beginners or experienced hands, what you have to do it clearly laid out for you.

That isn’t, however, to say that the design is perfect. While not overly complicated, it is a little bit fiddly. In addition, the diagrams within the manual are not as clear as you might have hoped. Particularly when it comes to ensuring you get two of the cross brackets fitted the right way around. A factor that you’ll soon enough discover if you got wrong.

Once this is done, however, the simply attachment of a cross bar fits the cooler to the CPU with a nice and tight feel.

So the good news is that this design isn’t anywhere near as difficult as the standard Dark Rock coolers. On the other hand, however, it is still a little bit fiddly and one of those jobs that would be easier with 6 fingers on 3 hands.

Given that this only took me around 15 minutes to install, however, it’s certainly not bad and once fitted looks fantastic.