# be quiet! Dark Rock Pro 4



## crazyeyesreaper (Apr 10, 2018)

be quiet! looks to recapture the high-end air-cooling crown with the new and improved Dark Rock Pro 4. It is a dual-fan, dual-tower design that will certainly turn a few heads. However, it won't be due to noise. Silent and powerful, this new challenger looks to dethrone Noctua's NH-D15.

*Show full review*


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## Beastie (Apr 10, 2018)

Pleased to hear they have made the instalation process easier, it was a chore with my dark rock 3.


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## gamerman (Apr 10, 2018)

naah,nothing new, yess dissapoinment. just new model with new name and little more price.
bquiet dark rock pro 3 make same and i think it can buy now even more cheaper.

aanyway it looks clear that watercool not need anymore,its only few celcius lower but noise it almost twice. meaning that if we install 2000 rpm fan from cair cool,its win.

but, one wish,can techpowerup review alpenhön olym cpu cooler,
i promise it is winner,bcoz i have it and  i recomended test it (also) with *Noctua 140 x 140 x 25mm NF-A14 PWM fans.*
plz!

*thank you*


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## cucker tarlson (Apr 10, 2018)

Great review. The fancy schmancy 360mm CLC geat beat by a solid air cooler once again. When will people learn .... ?



gamerman said:


> naah,nothing new, yess dissapoinment. just new model with new name and little more price.
> bquiet dark rock pro 3 make same and i think it can buy now even more cheaper.
> 
> aanyway it looks clear that watercool not need anymore,its only few celcius lower but noise it almost twice. meaning that if we install 2000 rpm fan from cair cool,its win.
> ...



I'm sure that if test procedure lasted an hour, not just 15 minutes, the air coolers would win hands down. Water takes a lot of time to heat up, once it does the temps rise and the fans have to ramp up.


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## gamerman (Apr 10, 2018)

yes,it can test, but, aircool need only fulltower with good fans like i have

i have CM haf X case,top 200mm 18db,side 200mm18db,front 230mm 16fb and back 140mm 12db, thats it, my computer is whisper quiet and temp low for ever. i can put 2nd 200mm top laso but not need.


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## efikkan (Apr 10, 2018)

This is certainly an interesting product. But as usual, I have an unsatisfactory feeling, and want to know how this would perform on a Skylake-X or Threadripper class CPU under load (no OC). Reviews are usually good at demonstrating the relative performance of CPU coolers and cases, but very rarely manages to answer which product is "good enough" for specific classes of hardware. Even some quick figures would help here.

Coolers like this in a case like the Dark Base 900 sounds very tempting, but how well will it work for high TDP hardware?


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## sutyi (Apr 10, 2018)

On a scale of 1 to meh, I give it a solid meh...

Apart from the simplified mounting, basically nothing happened over the previous generation.


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## efahl (Apr 10, 2018)

I'll stick with my Noctua U14s...


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## crazyeyesreaper (Apr 10, 2018)

cucker tarlson said:


> Great review. The fancy schmancy 360mm CLC geat beat by a solid air cooler once again. When will people learn .... ?
> 
> 
> 
> I'm sure that if test procedure lasted an hour, not just 15 minutes, the air coolers would win hands down. Water takes a lot of time to heat up, once it does the temps rise and the fans have to ramp up.



I have run liquid coolers for hours at a time with Aida64 FPU load temps do not differ. It eventually hits a point of equilibrium. While running AVX FPU loads at 100% for hours upon hours upon hours may have AIOs increase a few degrees. No applications used today place that type of load on a processor so its a moot point. There is also the fact I run the test 3 times to verify so thats 45 mins of heavy FPU load which is already unrealistic.

In terms of performance AIOs are a bit better but have higher noise output. That said they do not interfere with GPUs or Memory 99% of the time. Which obviously giant air coolers do. So depends on what the priority of the builder is.


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## trparky (Apr 10, 2018)

Why in God's name do they make these things so damn big and heavy? Do these designers not understand that there's this delicate little thing called a processor under it? #Bendgate


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## crazyeyesreaper (Apr 10, 2018)

trparky said:


> Why in God's name do they make these things so damn big and heavy? Do these designers not understand that there's this delicate little thing called a processor under it? #Bendgate



Bendgate was a problem due to improper mounting force. Coolers didnt conform to spec and its been resolved. To be honest huge coolers far heavier than this exist and yet no problems. While the size and weight may worry some people in reality its all way overblown.


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## trparky (Apr 10, 2018)

crazyeyesreaper said:


> Bendgate was a problem due to improper mounting force. Coolers didn't conform to spec and it's been resolved.


Really? This is the one thing that I've been so deathly afraid of lately after reading horror story after horror story. Nothing ruins your day worse than seeing a bent chip.


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## crazyeyesreaper (Apr 10, 2018)

trparky said:


> Really? This is the one thing that I've been so deathly afraid of lately after reading horror story after horror story. Nothing ruins your day worse than seeing a bent chip.



Thermalright includes a strengthener for the PCB on some coolers but as far as mounting force issue keep in mind I test these coolers multiple mounts per review. 6700K before 8700K now only cooler I had issues with was the Scythe offerings which they have corrected. If your model is older you can get updated hardware for them. 

Granted sure I wouldn't want to ship a system cross country with a giant heatsink but i used to drag my system to friends places and lan parties from 2006 till about 2009. During that time span I used a Cooler Master Bit Typhoon with a 38mm fan that weight around 800-900 grams. Used a TT Frio with dual Delta 120s that was 1050g - 1100g. Back then i just tossed the system on the front seat buckled it in and away I went.

Generally the WEIGHT of a cooler isn't a problem its the mounting hardware. A heavy cooler with crappy mounting hardware is suspect. Example older Xigmatek coolers where the metal was sharp enough that on AMD systems it could literally cut through the plastic granted very rare but yeah stuff like that happens.

That said don't use your system like a football and its not a problem.

Noctua NH-D14 was 1240g no one complained about that in fact its one of the most awarded CPU coolers of all time.
Thermalright True copper was 1900g. That cooler would worry me.

The rest of today's high end coolers nah no big deal. A good backplate that evenly distributes weight along with proper mounting force and everything is fine.

After all the bendgate stuff was happening with even lightweight coolers example Scythe its H.M.P.S mounting system exerted too much force. Even coolers like the Mugen 4 (625g) could bend the Skylake PCB. Its wasnt a weight issue it was a mounting hardware issue.


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## xkm1948 (Apr 10, 2018)

This thing reminds me of the good old Tower120


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## dj-electric (Apr 10, 2018)

Seeing is 1% below the D15 was a "mmmm whatcha sayyyy" moment for me.


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## Vario (Apr 10, 2018)

dj-electric said:


> Seeing is 1% below the D15 was a "mmmm whatcha sayyyy" moment for me.


Its virtually identical.  All the top end coolers are about the same, it is as good as air cooling gets right now, as much due to fans and thermal paste impression luck.


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## crazyeyesreaper (Apr 10, 2018)

dj-electric said:


> Seeing is 1% below the D15 was a "mmmm whatcha sayyyy" moment for me.











FPU max load situation no difference in performance the be quiet! holds its own in the test that matters most ie worst case scenario when one is pushing for maximum clocks and looking for top tier cooling. On this limited test bench which is also the most popular current gen platform be quiet! manages to tie the D15 but its a full 3 dBA quieter in the process. Granted i prefer the R1 Universal (similar to the Ultimate or the D15S personally) It doesn't change the fact the Pro 4 is an exceptional offering consider its ultra low noise level. Granted running an 8700k with no delid means the differences are minor but thats the new "mainstream" so its what is used.


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## efikkan (Apr 10, 2018)

Air cooling might have plateued (yet there have been fan improvements the last decade). But so has watercooling as well. At this point I no longer see any point with AIO watercoolers due to noise, long-term reliability and sub-optimal mounting options. First off, watercooling only makes sense for extreme overclocking, it's not longer possible to get a >30% gain easily without extreme cooling and overvolting, since both CPUs and GPUs have already taken most of this cheap gain through their boosting. Nowadays I see people boasting about overclocking a few hundred MHz on a >4 GHz CPU, so at this point it's just pointless for any real usage, unless you're doing it for sports. And of course, bumping voltage will kill the CPU over time.

My largest problem with AIO watercoolers is that it prevents you from doing cooling properly. You are usually limited to mounting the radiator at the intake or the exhaust of the system. Putting it at the intake will make the CPU cooler, but put all the heat back into the system, which is stupid. To make matters worse, many builders seem to favor low-airflow cases these days, which makes the AIO watercooling just ridiculous. Putting it at the exhaust will make CPU cooling less efficient but be better for the rest of the system; GPU, VRM, harddrivers etc. But to do watercooling properly you need a case which puts the radiator in a shaft of airflow which doesn't go through the rest of the system, which only a couple of cases do.

Everyone knows watercooling loops gets full of corrosion and various gunk. After 5+ years that AIO cooler is no longer going to perform like in the beginning. And pumps generally becomes more and more noisy over time.

With overclocking becoming less and less relevant, I no longer see the point these AIO watercoolers. Just get a case with decent airflow, a good CPU cooler with a decent cooling area and a single good CPU fan. CPU fans might be good enough at this point, but I still don't understand why the AIB makers of graphics cards can't utilize similar cooling (yet they manage to push out 30 variants of the same GPU :facepalm: ) I don't care if it takes up 10 brackets in the back of the case, I want one of these on a GPU!


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## dj-electric (Apr 10, 2018)

The reason watercooling performs so similar to air cooling is actually Intel itself.
The IHS bottleneck of heat transfer prevents more efficient coolers from performing much better.

Differences will grow if the CPU was actually de-lided.


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## Rebe1 (Apr 11, 2018)

You mean that delided intel Cpu will cooperate better (temperature wise) with AiO than good AC?


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## efikkan (Apr 11, 2018)

dj-electric said:


> The reason watercooling performs so similar to air cooling is actually Intel itself.
> The IHS bottleneck of heat transfer prevents more efficient coolers from performing much better.
> 
> Differences will grow if the CPU was actually de-lided.


Only if you have very significant airflow to begin with.

If you have a case like Fractal Design R5/R6, cooling will be limited by airflow. Adding a radiator will do nothing to improve that. Watercooling is just more efficient at moving heat away from the CPU to where you dump the air. The only "gain" you'll observe is short term gains due to the heat capacity of the water, but ultimately you're be limited by airflow which is actually transporting heat out of the system. The purpose of having the watercooling is to move more heat than a single air cooler can dissipate, but unless you have an increased airflow to go along with it, it becomes 100% pointless.

And of course, people considering delidding are extreme overclockers who have pretty significant airflow.


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## cucker tarlson (Apr 11, 2018)

dj-electric said:


> The reason watercooling performs so similar to air cooling is actually Intel itself.
> The IHS bottleneck of heat transfer prevents more efficient coolers from performing much better.
> 
> Differences will grow if the CPU was actually de-lided.


Proof ?


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## CheapMeat (Apr 11, 2018)

I think the advantage still is in regards to heat soak, time it takes to from material to material to transfer said heat from conduction and forced convection and as a total system, the amount of possible surface area. This is more so important in transient escalations of heat output and the ebb and flow of it.  If both the liquid and air cooler system are consistently on, say 80% utilization for hours, it doesn't matter much since the system and ambient temp will of course try to reach equilibrium and then increase as a whole.  I can't properly explain it. But there's only a relatively minuscule amount of surface area on the chip itself, the IHS and then the heatblock plate. If you look at Der8ours video (I forget the spelling) where he cut a chip in half and looked at it with an electron microscope, the actual silicon of the chip is insanely small and tiny; it's finger nail thick in total, it's hard to believe it doesn't fry itself regardless of what's on top. I think just liquid inherently has a quicker response and can do more within a smaller surface, etc than a large cooler even with heatpipes, etc.  But then you have to consider cost & easy of usage and maintenance, etc.  There's always compromises when putting together something. So for the majority of system and their usage/utilization, an air cooler like this just makes more sense. But I don't think liquid should be downplayed.


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## cucker tarlson (Apr 11, 2018)

What's true of liquid (custom blocks,pumps and rads) is not usually true of CLCs.


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## dj-electric (Apr 11, 2018)

cucker tarlson said:


> Proof ?



Simple logic. When heat transfer becomes much faster, then the effect of the cooler itself increases dramatically. You shift the responsibility of cooling forward, from beneath the IHS to over it.
In past days of LGA775 this was very much how things worked. As someone who watercooled LGA775 in the past, the differences between the best air cooling at the time and simple watercooling were incredibly huge.

Just to let science have a saying in the matter, i am in fact planning to compere my D15 with an AIO soon with stock vs delid to CFL CPUs, expecting a delta of temperatures to increase between the two

Furthermore, a good way to see the neutral differance between coolers is to test coolers like frostytech does, for example.
http://www.frostytech.com/articleview.cfm?articleid=2793&page=6
The difference between watercoolers and air based ones here are quite big, and sometimes far from actual results. This is because of the "fair chance" they are given with the unique testbed they have there. While might not be a correct way to test CPU coolers, it show more "pure" results in regarding to the individual ability of those coolers to handle a hot surface. What deliding a CPU should do, is even the playing field a little more, just like it was done here.


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## cucker tarlson (Apr 11, 2018)

dj-electric said:


> Simple logic. When heat transfer becomes much faster, then the effect of the cooler itself increases dramatically. You shift the responsibility of cooling forward, from beneath the IHS to over it.
> In past days of LGA775 this was very much how things worked. As someone who watercooled LGA775 in the past, the differences between the best air cooling at the time and simple watercooling were incredibly huge.
> 
> Just to let science have a saying in the matter, i am in fact planning to compere my D15 with an AIO soon with stock vs delid to CFL CPUs, expecting a delta of temperatures to increase between the two
> ...


+1 like for the article. That arctic 240 cooler looks pretty neat. Shame they only come with 24 month warranty, which is pretty laughable for any liquid cooler.
Waiting for your tests, I'm eager to see the results.


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## MyTechAddiction (Apr 11, 2018)

The beginning looked like an advertorial , but it got better.
Also why  the intel stock cooler isn`t in the results ?
Why no tests with no fan , 1 fan, 2 fans and 3 fans?
People who appreciate silence might want to know if you can use it  with no fans and some undervoltage of the CPU.
9.7 when the CM 212x blows it out of the water on the value graph?

Edit: I  miss the silent pc review site.RIP


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## crazyeyesreaper (Apr 11, 2018)

MyTechAddiction said:


> The beginning looked like an advertorial , but it got better.
> Also why  the intel stock cooler isn`t in the results ?
> Why no tests with no fan , 1 fan, 2 fans and 3 fans?
> People who appreciate silence might want to know if you can use it  with no fans and some undervoltage of the CPU.
> ...


No stock cooler because Intel doesn't include one with an 8700K which is common knowledge,

I test coolers as they are configured. Unless you want to pay me to do the extra work? It takes about 9 hours of testing as is just for the results. That does not include photo work, trouble shooting problems or issues, writing / editing. So if you would like to pay me I will gladly test with less or extra fans. Considering this is hobby and I work 2-3 other jobs to make ends meet time is money.

CM wins from a value standpoint however if your smart and read the results the CPU thermal throttles making the cooler worthless except in stock situations. Since I test in a controlled environment. Warmer climates obvious higher ambient = high temp = will likely fail. The CM Hyper is also boosted due to the stock results where the Intel CPU is running at 3.7 and using somewhere around 50-60w. Then again i would expect people that read reviews entirely would know this. However its common knowledge no one reads they just look at the graphs check the conclusion and move on.

I am sure someone will get there panties in a bunch over my harsh response but sadly I am not here to please anyone. I procure samples, I review hardware and give it an honest review. You are always free to find the gospel your looking for on another site. Also if the value and score of a product were only determined by price I guess i should give a 0 score to stuff like the Swiftech H220 X2 Prestige or EK Phoenix, NH-D15 etc etc ad infinitum ad nauseam


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## MyTechAddiction (Apr 11, 2018)

Well i guess your signature fits me perfectly.


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## crazyeyesreaper (Apr 11, 2018)

@MyTechAddiction For taking that with cheer here have a +3 and a like someone got the joke.. I honestly can't believe it.

To be blunt reviews take about 12-16 hours for coolers at least for me. On top of working 20-40 hours a week. Add in the fact I cover laptops / mini-pc / desktops which all take far far longer. Seeing complaints gets quite old. So few realize how much time it really takes. I tried streamlining reviews ie removal of Idle tests = waste of 1.5 hours of time but too much boo hooing = it stays. There are many things I would like to do and like to cover but well "shit in one hand wish in the other see which fills up first"


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## HanaBi (Apr 13, 2018)

Heat sink of Dark Rock 3 series look's better than DR4 series.
Black nickel better than only black.
DR4 still can use only nude ram.

But, installation method has advanced.


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## voicy (Apr 16, 2018)

no Le grand macho charts or mention??


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## crazyeyesreaper (Apr 16, 2018)

HanaBi said:


> Heat sink of Dark Rock 3 series look's better than DR4 series.
> Black nickel better than only black.
> DR4 still can use only nude ram.
> 
> But, installation method has advanced.


This cooler can actually squeeze in slightly taller heatsinks example Trident Z sticks but its an EXTREMELY close fit. IE fan sits on top of the memory.


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## HanaBi (Apr 17, 2018)

crazyeyesreaper said:


> This cooler can actually squeeze in slightly taller heatsinks example Trident Z sticks but its an EXTREMELY close fit. IE fan sits on top of the memory.



oh, you are right. not only nude ram, just has limitation.


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## Vayra86 (Apr 17, 2018)

Beastie said:


> Pleased to hear they have made the instalation process easier, it was a chore with my dark rock 3.



Really? I had an easy time with the DRP3, but how you do it is what matters  I turned around the MB and let it rest on the cooler itself with the bolts already through the 4 holes, then fit the bottom side, then turn round and tighten the screws on top.

Nice review, and pretty sick results to be fair. They really did improve it in almost every sense.


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## Dave65 (May 4, 2018)

Wonder why [H] review differ so much from this one, he gave it a FAIL?


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## crazyeyesreaper (May 4, 2018)

Dave65 said:


> Wonder why [H] review differ so much from this one, he gave it a FAIL?


Maybe because H reviewed the Dark Rock 4 and not the Dark Rock Pro 4.

I will admit the naming scheme is not that great when the number and 2 words remain the same the Pro wording seems to get lost on occasion.


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