be quiet! Dark Rock Pro 4, BK022, 250W TDP, CPU Cooler

be quiet! Dark Rock Pro 4, BK022, 250W TDP, CPU Cooler review

be quiet! Dark Rock Pro 4, BK022, 250W TDP, CPU Cooler review

FOR
Great cooling ability
Excellent build quality and design
Silent operation at all speeds
Supports most CPU sockets

AGAINST
High price
Cooling potential slightly lower than prior version's
Large and heavy
No Threadripper support.

we finally have the be quiet dark rock pro4 in the studio now I have benchmarked this with a 5820k and 16 gigs of RAM I tried to keep the platform consistent I don't think it matters as much what CPU we're using as long as we have a baseline and as long as we keep our tests consistent so I didn't want to just throw one set of graphs at you right with just this cooler without anything else with which to compare so that's why this review took a while to produce I wanted to test this thing put it head-to-head against something like the Noctua NHD 15 which is another beefy air cooler comparable to this one the size and TDP a couple of a iOS and also a

few smaller air cooler just so you get an idea of what you're getting for your money so without further ado let's go ahead and talk installation and then we'll get into those thermals and to be clear the dark rec pro 4 makes no substantial cooling performance jump from the DRP 3 both are 250 watt TDP s the big thing be quiet outing with this one is the installation it has been vastly improved from what they're saying and we got a glimpse of it at CES but we'll see in our own testing if that in fact is the case the new RP 4 has an MSRP of about a hundred USD it

might be slightly lower than that in some cases we'll keep a lookout you can find the product linked in the review description if you want to check it out after watching this video but I want you to watch this video because after installing it running my tests there are a few things that you should know before you just jump on the bandwagon and purchase the improved dark rock pro 4 we're still stuck with the same 250 watt TDP again perfectly fine for an air cooler it's not a sign issue 7 large copper heat pipe spanning from the base up through some black

ceramic coated fins good for heat dissipation and you do get two silent wings three fans one is 135 millimeters in diameter and the other 120 the larger fan sits between the two heat sinks this is where it belongs because the smaller fan upfront means that you won't have as many RAM clearance issues all right now I want to talk ease of installation at this point because this is something that be quiet touted especially at CES and I don't want to say it was kind of misled but I didn't know the full story because I didn't actually install anything myself they had the

Phillips head screwdriver that is included by the way with the purchase of the cooler it's a very elongated one it's magnetic which is a good thing you'll know why here in a second but the installation process is lately it's held back by a few design flaws that I want to point out especially you know if they want to take this criticism to heart implement this in the next generation you guys will see what I mean in a second so the holes that they've drilled here these are the new holes that were supposed to make the installation much easier right you can thread the Phillips head screwdriver down and then secure the cooler to your socket with just two

Phillips head screws well that's fine and dandy but the problem is the only thing that fits through these holes is the Phillips head screw driver the screws themselves are too wide at the head so you actually have to hold the screw underneath the plate and then somehow get that magnetic screwdriver to grip into the threads perfectly at which point you can secure the cooler to the socket I found that especially when building in a case it was very difficult to get that top screw to thread into the Phillips head screwdriver you know poking through the cooler what they should have done was widen the holes a little bit so you don't have to hold the screw

underneath the screwdriver it just it makes things so much easier actually drop the screw a few times I had to flip my case around very frustrating to get that screw back out so if they widen the holes and then the other thing is because these holes line up perfectly with the fan that would otherwise be here that I removed for the purposes of filming this segment of the review you have to remove the fan and you have these stupid you know little metal hinge things that are a pain to get off you have to I almost have to use like a prying tool I can't even do it with my fingers it you know and you're bending the the fins when you do that I've already you can see

I've already cut a few of them just by trying to pry off the middle fan it just holds this cooler back if this coolers ease of installation was improved dramatically like I expected it to be you know they touted this cooler as a massive improvement of the DRP 3 then there would literally be no other competition out there I think it already looks the best it performs admirably we'll get to that in a second but the ease of installation is just not there yet so I'm definitely a little disappointed with the fact that be quiet it's almost taking a sidestep here it's an improvement over the DRP 3 you know getting at it from the bottom and trying to secure everything

underneath near the heat pipes was a royal pain with a dark rock pro 3 but the DRP 4 really didn't expedite things much in the way of you know how long it took for me to install the cooler I still found new problems especially doing it the first time around it just it wasn't ideal make the hole slightly larger move them in heatsinks and then boom you've got a perfect cooler all around for the price I'm waiting on that cry work does it really well ripped cry rig off you guys and then you've got an excellent cooler in the Dr p5 revision now on to cooling potential and its sound both of these are really important we look for an air cooler you don't want it to be loud

but you do want it to cool your CPU very well now the way that we've kept things pretty mainstream and baseline here was I use the exact same fan curve for every fan in the case it will remain that way for all the other coolers you'll see tested in this review and so it's just a normal fan curve it's a normal preset when you go into the hardware monitor fan utility and that averages around 40 to 50 percent utilization for each fan so that varies per fan especially when they're PWM controlled you know 50 percent for one fan might be slightly higher lower in terms of rpm than another fan that's a little bigger and so that's something you need to take into consideration and you're also gonna be hearing the case fans when you hear the you know

the overall sound of the cooler that's something that I don't want to I don't want to not include that because it's the whole system right that you should be considering for something like this so we're gonna start first with the audible tests and then we'll jump into thermals so the first test was at idle and these coolers always impressed me from be quiet it was virtually inaudible about 20 decibels which is and that's a whisper practically and then when things heated up and around 64 65 degrees Celsius under load under full load with out of 64 on the CPU side that things really didn't pick up that much at all around 25 DB something to keep keep in mind

though you know the the loudness of these cooler is gonna be based on the fan curve so if we use a much smaller cooler now that doesn't keep temperatures as low then the fan curve will peak in a much higher utilization for those fans right around 80 90 percent so the system will get hotter and then the the system will get louder as a result that's okay though because we're still being consistent if the cooler can keep things as cool as it is you know if this one in particular keeps things under let's say 65 degrees Celsius then it deserves to be quieter and it deserves recognition for that because it is doing an adequate job dissipating heat so that's what this test

will revolve around so just to recap again that is 20 decibels at idle and then a mere 26 decibels under full load again full load for the CPU not necessarily the cooler unless you're doing some severe overclocking this cooler should never approach 100% fan and utilization now on to the temperatures you'll see both idle and low temps again this is not full load for the fans and the coolers this is just full load for the CPU under i-264 conditions the CPU by the way is running its stock speed so I think things turbo to around 4 gigahertz for the 5820k but as long as things stay consistent across all coolers it's really all we care about here the deltas are what truly

matter in relation to the price of each so the DRP 4 stayed nice and cool at around 33 degrees Celsius the idle the AI was across the board were slightly cooler at idle but this is probably because the liquid inside the loops hadn't actually equalized anything higher than room temperature by this point but under full load this is where the dark rock pro 4 shines so not only was it the quietest of all the coolers tested here apart from the nokju and HD 15 which was arguably about the same the in HD 15 was slightly more audible in the sense that the the tones and the fans were slightly louder the silent wings three fans in the dark pro four are slightly

bass here there they have a lower tone now this it really depends on which you were more receptive to but both coolers are extremely quiet in their own respects and both cool about the same the dark rock pro 4 is actually slightly cooler in this respect and I think that might have to do with the positioning of the fans so the DRP 4 is fans on the cooler lined up perfectly with the fans in the case both of the front and rear so airflow you know in and out of the case was pretty much as optimal as it could get so very cool and quiet here just twenty six decibels that's practically a whisper and then 65 degrees Celsius at the highest temperature core core free for some reason was was peaking every now and then above the others but nonetheless that's the

one we took because it was the hottest across all six of them and again 65 degrees is nothing that's plenty of overclocking Headroom we could have easily pushed this thing to may be 4.3 4.4 gigahertz and for 5820k that's pretty impressive especially for an air cooler one other thing to note regarding our testing I was sure to use the thermal paste included with each cooler respectively so the knock to a cooler used to the knock do a thermal paste included in the box would be quiet' cooler used to be quiet thermal paste and so on and so forth I would cry ever

get seven in here I used the cryo rig thermal paste in that box and that's because I don't expect the consumer to have you know seven or eight there compounds laying around you might use just one thermal compound it might not be any of these listed but it does keep things consistent and it influences and encourages these manufacturers to throw the best thermal compound they can into their boxes so as to minimize you know variances and temperatures so my verdict on the be quiet dark rock pro 4 is surprisingly almost the same verdict that I had with a dark rock pro 3 things slightly improve of the installation side of things and that's really about it the

cooler looks as good as it did in the previous generation it cools about the same as the previous generation did and it's also extremely quiet it's got three of the four major components for an air cooler going for it I just wish that the ease of installation was was there it's really not yet it's improved but if you have a dark rock pro 3 you know you're perfectly fine even if you have something that's comparable TDP wise it doesn't look as good you're probably best just stick in with that if you're building a new PC for the first time and you want to go with air cooling then I still do strongly recommend the dark rock pro 4 you're not gonna have as difficult the time

installing the cooler you're gonna be impressed with the way it looks in your case you're gonna be impressed with how quiet it is and how cool it keeps your CPU so you know this still a cooler I recommend it's just not everything I thought it would be be quiet probably doesn't want to hear that but I have to be honest I expected more they touted the installation process of being so much easier and for me anyway it just wasn't unless I'm completely misunderstanding the installation manual which by the way is pretty it's pretty straightforward if you have you know am 4 or C 370 or even x-29 9 it's very straightforward how to install the cooler thanks to the

manual if you haven't done to this sort of thing before so it's nice that they included that and in several languages too I was surprised by how many different languages they had in the box with that again you can find the links to this cooler and it's be quite dark route pro 3 counterpart in the review description if you want to leave a comment suggesting future comparisons between this and other air coolers do that in the comments below .

Specifications
MANUFACTURER:	be quiet!
MODEL:	Dark Rock Pro 4
SOCKET SUPPORT:	Intel: LGA1150, LGA1151, LGA1155, LGA1156, LGA1366, LGA2011, LGA2066 AMD: AM2, AM2+, AM3, AM3+, FM1, FM2, FM2+, AM4
HEATSINK:	Material: Aluminum (Fins) Copper (Heat pipes & Base) Dimensions: 162.8 mm x 136 mm x 145.7 mm Heatpipes: Ø6 mm - 7 pcs Weight: 1130 g
FAN:	Model: SilentWings 3 Dimensions: 120 mm x 120 mm x 25 mm Fan Speed: 1500 RPM (PWM) Fan Airflow: Not listed (max) Fan Noise: Not listed dBA
FAN:	Model: SilentWings 3 Dimensions: 135 mm x 135 mm x 22 mm Fan Speed: 1200 RPM (PWM) Fan Airflow: Not listed CFM (max) Fan Noise: Not listed dBA
FEATURES:	Seven advanced high performance copper heat pipes Virtually inaudible SilentWings PWM fans 250w TDP Dual tower design Black ceramic coating

be quiet! Dark Rock Pro 4, BK022, 250W TDP, CPU Cooler

the be quiet dark Rock Pro for probably one of the beefiest air coolers I have ever come across so let's start with the basics the dark rock pro 4 is an absolutely monstrous air cooler with an interesting dual fan configuration 120 millimeters silent wings 3 fan and 135 millimeters silent wings fan both PWM it is also on the dearer end of the air cooler spectrum but you do get a lot of metal for your money with the dark rock Pro for weighing in it's a whopping 1.1 3 kilos all that aluminium is expected to handle heat well though with cooling performance of 250 watt TDP which also makes it the best performing cooler from be quiet line up the dark rock pro 4 follows the same aesthetic as other be quiet coolers and

shows no signs of aluminium or copper thanks to an all-black ceramic particle coating these ceramic particles should help with heat transfer rather than a black paint coating acting as some kind of insulation the only exception to the all-black looks is a small silver be quite logo on the top of the cooler and white and orange logos on the fans in the box we have the cooler itself packaged in soft foam which should help prevent damage in shipping a large accessories box with a number of separate instruction manuals covering most popular languages and mounting hardware for all current Intel and AMD mounts as well as most legacy sockets as well you do also get a rather long be quite screwdriver which is necessary during installation as a dark

Brook Pro 4 is so vast as both included fans are for pin PWM there is also a small 4 pin splitter included and an extra set of retention mounts for adding a third fan as well which is nice to see these smallest tube of thermal compound I have ever seen is also supplied you'd likely only get one application maybe two at a pinch a little more would be appreciated just in case you make a mistake during installation this just seems to me to be a little bit stingy one small point is that by fans feature braided cables but not the included splitter a minor gripe but I have seen a number of coolers at lower price points with braided splitters included this would have been

nice to see for a slightly more quality feel there isn't any cheeping out on the fans though both are high-quality as mentioned interestingly the fans are of different sizes 135 millimeter and 120 millimeter this initially struck me as a little weird but does make sense as the small 120 millimeter fan is intended to be installed at the front of the cooler where it overhangs your memory slots the smaller 120 millimeter fan offers just a little more clearance for your memory modules the fans do also differ in speed with the 135 millimetre running at 1200 rpm and the small 120 millimeter at 1500 rpm at 100% this should help balance the airflow between the two different sizes the front fan comes pre-installed but the center fan comes loose installation does

require accessing the central section of the cooler so this does speed up the process looking through the mounting hardware there are a lot of parts included so it's definitely worth consulting the manual to make sure the cooler is being installed correctly the dark Rock pro 4 is definitely the sort of thing that you don't want to come loose when moving your system around there are quite a few stages to installation but this is understandable considering the size and weight of the dark rock Pro 4 you start with the backplate and bypassing four screws through the correct socket holes for rubber o-rings are included to hold these screws in place for

standoff space and nuts need to be screwed in place on the top of the motherboard and then two mounting brackets can be fitted atop these standoffs and screwed into place depending on your socket whether these are oriented vertically or horizontally will dictate the orientation of the cooler when attached something worth bearing in mind there is a cooler mounting Bridge which passes through the cooler and cleverly be quiet to have considered accessing the mounting for this bridge with to unscrew poland' removable caps at the top of the cooler you simply unscrew these caps and position the mounting bridge along the base of the cooler add

some thermal paste and position the cooler atop your CPU with the two caps removed you can actually use the included long screwdriver to pass straight through the cooler and reach the screws used to mount to the bridge to the mounting brackets with the cooler firmly mounted you can then reattach these top caps and mount the central fan using the included fan clips anti-vibration rather bars are also pre-installed on the cooler both in the central and front fan locations which should also help with vibrations and audible noise with the cooler and fans mounted both fans can be attached to the splitter and connected to your CPU fan header

overall not a super tricky process at around 15 minutes of work for me it is a little fiddly but it's nice to see that be quite have improved the installation process by simply adding a long screwdriver to the kit for ease of access with the cooler being so large there are a few things to consider firstly whether it's going to fit in your chosen case be quiet do provide dimensions of the cooler at 145 point 7 by 136 by 160 2.8 millimeters length width and height but the 162 millimeter height is stated to not include the mounting hardware measured from the base of the motherboard I found that the cooler actually stands roughly 175 millimeters tall give or take a millimeter and it would be worth making sure your case is a little extra clearance ideally about

2 centimeter or so clearance for RAM is also an issue as the front fan extends over three of the four memory slots on our test board you only have 42 millimeters of space to play with really only suitable for low-profile memory I was just barely able to squeeze the one stick of guile Evo X our gb ram into the furthest two slots on the motherboard but you would either need to install your RAM before the cooler or remove the front fan if installing after not a big deal and realistically if you're considering a cooler of this size you would probably be checking and double-checking these clearances anyway there is no doubt in my mind that the dark rock pro 4 will perform better than a stock cooler but I would expect comparable

performance to a similarly priced liquid cooler so let's move on to testing this beast many people don't appreciate the importance of a good power supply a bad power supply can take out your motherboard might even take out your processor see Sonic because one more rewards can keep guru over the past 10 years than any other company kick guru recommends see Sonic at kick guru we have recently updated our testing setup and now test temperatures on the more recent zeg 170 platform for CPU we are testing with the Intel Core i7 7700 K installed in an Asus n170 Pro gaming motherboard for round we have a single 8 gigabyte stick of guile Evo X RGB for some added bling running at 3200 megahertz and storage is handled by a 120 gig

SanDisk SSD plus powering our bench is AC Sonic prime platinum 650 watt power supply when testing we take a number of readings with both the i7 7700 KS turbo locked and overclocked to 4.5 gigahertz the temperatures taken our delta T values meaning we subtract the ambient temperature from the CPU temperature more details of our full testing methodology can be found on kit guru net with the 7700 K locked in at 4 gigahertz performance looks pretty good at full load it's the best performing air cooler we have tested but it does start to sit behind the dual fan liquid coolers this is being said only by about 4 degrees compared to say the acquiring AAT its idle performance is stronger taking Scylla metal just behind the Arctic liquid freezer 240 with the 7700 K at 4.5 gigahertz performance by comparison really makes the dark

rock probe for standout sitting in third place just below the Cryer ek 80 and Arctic liquids freezer 240 what's even more impressive is that whilst managing the extra heat the dark grub pro 4 is the quietest cooler tested it's closely followed by the ma 410 M but considering how much more efficient it is and keeping your CPU cool it's a clear winner if you're not particularly fussed about RGB lighting and LEDs when be quiet state that the dark rock pro 4 is excellent for overclocked systems and demanding workstations they aren't lying it's clearly a great option for quieter operation and impressively does a really good job of handling

temperatures even when overclocking so to summarize I do have a few small gripes firstly that the included splitter doesn't feel as premium as the rest of the kit simply matching the same braiding as the fans would resolve this the mounting brackets for the fans being why are also quite fiddly not so much with installation fan but certainly when removing one it's pretty hard to do without a tool to help you pry it off and this is only something that frustrated me following a couple of installations and removals for the cooler this being said you do receive a spare set which could be used to add an extra fan and this is appreciated thermal compound

could have done with more not a huge deal for me but if you were to mess up installation and have to go out and buy more it would be a bit irritating installation has been simplified I feel as much as it can be for a cooler this size with clever removable covers and the long screwdriver this being said the dark rock profile basically does exactly what it says on the tin as it were it does a great job of keeping your CPU cool while source of providing really quiet operation and for those looking to build it into a workstation or more work oriented system it's a really good option it's not suited to the budget oriented builder , but it's also unlikely that you'd be pairing it with say a Pentium CPU the added value doesn't come from LED

lighting effects but from solid build quality and aesthetically I think it looks great I really like the all-black murdered-out look and all the mounting hardware receiving the same black treatment is also a big plus although it's a powerful cooler easily able to deliver blows against 240 millimeter AI or liquid coolers with the COFF benefit being less points of failure and potentially more peace of mind with prolonged operation overall a really good cooler.

Learn more about the be quiet! BK022

ModelBrandbe quiet!ModelBK022
DetailsTypeFan & HeatsinksFan Size135mmCPU Socket CompatibilityIntel: LGA 1150 / 1151 / 1155 / 1156 / 1366 / 2011(-3) Square ILM / 2066

AMD: AM2(+) / AM3(+) / AM4 / FM1 / FM2(+)Bearing TypeFluid DynamicRPM1,200/ 1,500 RPMNoise Level12.8 - 24.3 dBAPower Connector4 PinColorBlackHeatsink MaterialAluminum
Dimensions & WeightMax CPU Cooler Height163 mmFan DimensionsFront: 120.00 x 120.00 x 25.00 mm / Inner: 135.00 x 135.00 x 22.00 mmHeatsink Dimensions146.00 x 136.00 x 163.00 mmWeight1.13kg
FeaturesFeaturesTwo virtually inaudible Silent Wings PWM fans

Funnel-shaped frame of the front fan for high air pressure

Achieves only 24.3dB(A) at maximum fan speed

Seven high-performance copper heat pipes

Airflow-optimized cooling fins; cutouts enhance the RAM compatibility

Easily installable black installation kit can be mounted from above

Brushed aluminum top cover with diamond cut finish

German product conception, design and quality control.