A Closer Look

While the be quiet! Dark Rock Elite is not the heaviest enthusiast air cooler I have tested its still a hefty bit of kit at 1340 g. Each fin stack is comprised of 45 black ceramic coated fins for heat dissipation. Fan mounting for the front fan has built in rails and the eagle-eyed among you will notice i put one of the rails back on backwards. You won't need to remove or mess with these in any way, in my case it was my curiosity getting the better of me. Anyway, the front fin stack has cut away fins to improve compatibility with memory and the rail system for the fans means raising the fan to accommodate slightly taller than average heatsinks is a breeze.


The only concern with raising the fan higher, however, is case clearance. The cooler is already 168 mm tall, raising the fan via the rail system will likely making the cooler incompatible with a quite a few cases. Something to keep in mind.


The top cover is illuminated with ARGB, and the middle fan is connected to it. Under the outer black plastic clip is the fan switch for performance or quiet mode. Magnets and clips secure everything in place, and the entire assembly will pull up and off relatively easily. Even so, there is enough holding power once firmly seated that I don't expect any issues with it coming loose at any time.


To transfer heat from the base to the heatsink, be quiet! has opted for seven heat pipes along with a smaller heatsink that sits on top of the base where the mounting bar is located. As for the base itself, it is nickel-plated but lacks a mirror finish as machining marks are visible. The base on my cooler is also slightly convex, yet it is well machined, as there was no noticeable difference when using a flat edge to check for worst-case differences.


The Silent Wings fans should perform well enough; however, the mounting setup for the fans is essentially semi-proprietary, meaning swapping fans is likely to be a bit of a headache. Granted, with a three-year warranty, I don't think it's a huge issue, but regardless of how good the fans are, using proprietary setups or non-standard connectors (the front fan hooks into the controller using different connectors) means users are out of luck should the fans die out of warranty. Again, I don't see that happening, considering be quiet's exceptional fan quality, but it is still something to think about.