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Review: be quiet! Dark Rock Pro 4 TR4

by Tarinder Sandhu on 20 December 2018, 14:01

Tags: be-quiet

Quick Link: HEXUS.net/qad2li

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Testing Results

Comparison Coolers

Category Model HEXUS Review Reviewed Price Warranty Product Page
Air be quiet! Dark Rock Pro 4 TR4 December 2018 £70 3 Years be quiet!.com
Deepcool Gamerstorm Fryzen November 2018 £80 2 Years gamerstorm.com
Cooler Master Wraith Ripper - £110 3 Years coolermaster.com

HEXUS Ryzen Threadripper CPU Cooler Test Bench

Hardware Components Product Page
Processor AMD Ryzen Threadripper 2970WX amd.com
Motherboard MSI X399 Creation msi.com
Graphics Card Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 Ti nvidia.com
Memory G.Skill Trident Z RGB 32GB (4x8GB) DDR4-3200 gskill.com
Power Supply be quiet! Dark Power Pro 11 1,000W bequiet.com
Primary Storage 256GB Samsung 950 samsung.com
Chassis be quiet! Dark Base 700 bequiet.com
Monitor iiyama ProLite X4071UHSU-B1 iiyama.com
Operating system Windows 10 Pro microsoft.com

Benchmark Process

To get a feel for how the coolers compare, CPU temperature is logged while the longer Blender test is run. The average CPU temperature is taken from minutes 13-15 of the test, representing a worst-case scenario for the coolers.

Actual CPU temperature is recorded and we also graph the delta temperature - that's CPU temperature minus ambient temperature. Last but not least, to give you an idea of cooler acoustics, we use a PCE-318 noise meter to measure overall system noise in both idle and load states.

Notes

Testing is done in an open-air environment in order to push the cooler(s) to the limit. Fan speed is set by the Smart Control function within the MSI BIOS, with the fans spinning at pre-determined percentages of maximum at various temperature points.

We test at stock speeds for the Ryzen Threadripper 2970WX, which defaults to an all-core 3.475GHz with 1.1875V. Such cooling, even on a 24C48T chip, is relatively easy for high-end heatsinks so we also test by manually increasing the all-core speed to 4.0GHz alongside a heat-producing 1.35V. We used both supplied fans when testing the be quiet! Dark Rock Pro 4 TR4 cooler.

Performance

Run at stock, the 2970WX's 250W TDP is no obstacle for any cooler. Having two fans running in tandem enables the be quiet! cooler to leapfrog the performance of the more expensive Cooler Master. Good stuff.

What's more surprising is that the fans are also very quiet under load, beating our pre-baked expectations.

Of course, cooling a stock CPU, even a 24C48T monster, ought to be straightforward. Running at an elevated all-core 4.0GHz and using 1.35V puts some serious load on the coolers - the system pulls over 500W - and the trio shows a marked increase in temperature.

Again, impressive performance from the dual-fan Dark Rock Pro 4 TR4, which is able to keep the processor running at that 4.0GHz during the full 15 or so minutes.

The fans do produce a noticeable hum once the wattage really spirals, and the 46.3dB is what we expect from a dual-spinner solution.

Overall, for the £70 outlay, the performance is of the Dark Pro 4 TR4 is commendable on this high-end platform.