Dark Rock TF 2 review. A cooler in the name of Be Quiet! Quality, capable of saving a lot of space
How many times during assembly did you complain that your air cooler was in conflict with the RAM? This time the German producer Be Quet! tried to solve this problem with a model that boasts a design that does not prevent the installation of RAM, here is Dark Rock TF 2.
This heatsink is 230W license plate, this is his maximum TDP he can handle, with a diagonal structure with a restrained design. Let’s find out more in the full review.
Unboxing and design | Dark Rock TF 2 review
It comes in a fairly complete and well-kept box, inside we find the thermal paste of the house and then, in a bunk structure we find the two fans, and the heatsink inside a shaped sponge structure. Nothing to say about the packaging, really with attention to the smallest details.
The heatsink has a well-built lamellar body, with the logo engraved on the top of the tower, which however is horizontal in this case. The lamellar body consists of 57 aluminum fins. The installed fan is low profile precisely in order not to impact with the available space, in particular it is a model equipped with motore rifle-bearing, with a diameter of 135mm and with a maximum sound level of 24.4dB (A). The warranty is valid for 3 years. The brand has opted for two fans Silent Wings 3. The fans are equipped with a 6-pole motor, and an Air flow value of 50.5 CFM. It has an operational life of 300,000 hours. With a maximum speed of 1.400 RPM.
The heatsink comes with 6 Heat Pipe da 6mm. The baseplate is defined by Be Quiet! “directly connected”, to transfer heat in an effective and performing way. The heatsink as anticipated at the opening is able to dissipate up to 230W, but it must be contextualized to the type of segment this product is aimed at. We have a total value of Air flow equal to 68 CFM at maximum speed, and a static pressure of 2.1 mm H2O. It should be noted a considerable attention, the fans do not rest directly on the lamellar body, but on two rubber “trolleys” to minimize vibrations and ensure silence during operation.
Compatible with AM2 (+) / AM3 (+) / AM4 / FM1 / FM2 (+) regarding AMD and 775 / 115x / 1200/1366/2011 (-3) Square ILM / 2066 regarding Intel. Her dimensions are 163 x 140 x 134 (L x W x H). It also has a total weight of 945 g including fans.
Assembly and Performance | Dark Rock TF 2 review
The mounting system is to be commended, simple and fast, you will not waste time in the installation to understand how to do it. Everything is quite intuitive, but above all masterfully explained and represented in the manual thanks to three-dimensional graphics. In any case, once you have installed the classic mounting system for AMD AM4 the heatsink has two grooves inside the structure that allow the passage of a screwdriver for fixing. Obviously, the first step is to fix the heatsink, and only then install the fans. The fans are instead stopped by the classic aluminum clips that hook onto the lamellar body.
Of heatsinks in top-down format we see less and less on the market, and in addition to the famous models now on the market there is perhaps not all this interest in creating such a system, probably thanks to the increasing energy consumption that the processors are reaching. But such a heatsink can be useful on many occasions. We will certainly not be able to have miraculous performances, but with this Dark Rock TF 2 you will be able to easily dissipate 8 Core processors without particular pretensions.
The results that can be read in the graphs show the average value of the temperatures found in the period indicated in each test through data provided by HWiNFO64. The various tests are also repeated several times in order to avoid “temporary” situations that could distort the results. With the aim of returning temperatures faithful to any type of use, we opted for the following synthetic and non-synthetic tests: idle, gaming, Cinebench R20 e Prime95. Ambient temperature of 32 degrees. Overall, dissipative performance will not be suitable for those who perform long renderings and prolonged operations with their computer, but we are still talking about a processor that is certainly not among the “coldest” on the market.
Test Bench used;
- Case: Be Quiet! Silent Base 802
- Motherboard: MSI MPG B550 Gaming Plus
- CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 3800X
- GPU: Gigabyte 1050 TI
- RAM: G.Skill Trident Z RGB 16GB 3000MHz
- SSD: Kingston A400
Idle
To carry out the test in idle, Windows was started, left to charge completely for 5 minutes, then the temperature measurement was started for a total of 10 minutes in which the PC was completely unused. The test produced 43 Degrees.
Gaming
The game session lasted about 90 minutes. In this period of time we have changed the various graphic settings while maintaining the same resolution of 2K (2560 × 1440). In this way it was possible to simulate different uses and loads of the CPU depending on the potential of your video card. With a result equal to 74 Degrees.
Cinebench R20
One of the most intuitive and popular synthetic benchmarks in the PC landscape. Several measurements have been made over time to avoid margins of error. We detected 78 Degrees.
Prime95
Full CPU load simulation through Prime95 stability test (CPU stress, FPU stress and stress cache enabled and Maximum Heat). We detected in this test 86 Degrees.
Conclusions and price
Certainly not suitable for HEDT family processors, it can adapt to processors instead with a smaller number of cores to support daily operations that do not have to do with long and demanding editing jobs. If you opt for this cooler you do it for its compact size, and for its highly nature compatible with various RAM modules on the market.
In any case we are faced with a compact heatsink, which overall performed well with such an energy-intensive processor, therefore with less demanding processors it will certainly ensure excellent performance, but above all a considerable degree of compatibility and silence. With a less energy-intensive processor you will certainly be able to experience even a slight overclock. If you want to continue to know the latest news from the hardware world, keep following us. Greetings from TechGameWorld.com.
Points in favor
- Build quality
- Design Low Profile
- 2 Silent Wings fans 3
- Mounting system
- Silence
Points against
- Not suitable for particularly energy-intensive processors