be quiet! Dark Rock TF CPU Cooler Review

Final Thoughts

Price

The Dark Rock TF has only just launched, so retail availability won’t actually be available for a few hours at least from the time this review is published. However, be quiet! have informed us that the suggested retail price will be $79.90 / £62 / €86 and no doubt the street price will be a little lower as stores aim to compete with each other.

Overview

Wow, has this cooler impressed me! It’s not perfect, but it certainly gets a lot of things right. Let’s get the minor issues I have right out-of-the-way first. My biggest issue with this cooler, as has been the case with some other be quiet! coolers, is that it’s a pain in the butt to install. The bolts are near impossible to reach due to our motherboards VRM coolers and while that’s subjective on a per-motherboard basis, ours are hardly unwieldy and it’s likely you’ll run into difficulties too. To install this cooler, you absolutely will have to remove the motherboard from your chassis.

Overclocking performance didn’t offer the most amazing cooling performance in the world, but keep in mind we’re running a fairly significant overclock. For those looking to perform a less intensive overclock, you’re going to see even better performance. Of course, there’s one trick here that I simply cannot ignore. Despite the fact we’re running this cooler on an overclocked CPU, it kept the chip stable and it was so quiet, I had to double-check the fans were actually spinning! This cooler isn’t just quiet, it’s the quietest cooler I’ve ever seen/heard!

Build quality is exceptional, as you can see in the pictures, it looks like a premium quality product and from handling it, it’s certainly built to a premium standard; you don’t get any better quality than this, and that’s a fact.

Pros

• The quietest cooler we’ve ever tested
• Great stock cooling performance
• Out-performed Dark Rock Pro 3 when overclocked
• Competitive price
• Exceptional build quality
• Gorgeous design

Cons

• Trick mounting solution

“be quiet! has blown us away once again. The Dark Rock TF offers commendable cooling performance, a cooler design that would look great in any systems and true to the be quiet! name, ultra-quiet performance.”

Thank you be quiet! for providing us with this sample.