be quiet! Pure Rock Slim CPU Cooler Review

Performance

This isn’t the biggest cooler in the world, in fact, it’s pretty tiny, so to expect big performance would be ambitious, to say the least. However, given that it kept the CPU at just +29c over ambient is very impressive, beating out both compact coolers from Noctua, Silverstone, Cooler Master’s popular 212X and more.

This is not an overclocking CPU cooler, but again it beat out the compact and affordable solutions from SilverStone and Noctua, which is certainly something to be proud of. These temps are still too high for these clocks though, but for mild overclocks and boost clocks, it’s certainly capable. It looses out to the 212X here, but as you’ll see in a moment, be quiet! takes the lead for acoustics.

This is where be quiet! show their worth, clocking in at just 36dBa, it’s in our super-quiet category. The fan barely broke past 500RPM, which meant it was virtually inaudible even at close range on an open-air test bench.

Pushing the heat did cause the fan to spin up, in fact, it topped out at 2000RPM quite quickly while at full load. However, even at full speed, this fan was quieter than we expected given its compact size, and only reached 42dBA.