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Review: be quiet! Shadow Rock LP

by Parm Mann on 24 April 2015, 15:00

Tags: be-quiet

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Conclusion

...need a compact and barely audible cooler for your small-form-factor PC? be quiet!'s Shadow Rock LP should be on your shortlist.

be quiet! has set out to service the needs of HTPC and SFF enthusiasts with the launch of a high-quality, low-profile cooler that won't break the bank.

Priced at £30, the Shadow Rock LP is compact enough to fit into tight confines and yet, with a good-sized surface area and a quality Pure Wings 2 fan, is able to deliver solid cooling performance allied to minimal operating noise.

Such a cooler would have been considered niche just a short while ago, but with today's PCs becoming increasingly compact and quiet, the market for small-form-factor solutions is brimming with potential. With plenty of experience in low-noise hardware, be quiet! is certain to benefit from the transition to smaller PCs, and the Shadow Rock LP is a good example of the manufacturer understanding its target audience and current market trends.

Bottom line: need a compact and barely audible cooler for your small-form-factor PC? be quiet!'s Shadow Rock LP should be on your shortlist.

The Good
  
The Bad
Practically silent at low load
Low-profile design ideal for HTPC
Decent cooling performance
Good quality Pure Wings 2 fan
Three-year warranty
  
Installation could be simpler
No spare thermal paste



be quiet! Shadow Rock LP

HEXUS.where2buy*

The be quiet! Shadow Rock LP CPU cooler is available to purchase from Scan Computers.

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At HEXUS, we invite the companies whose products we test to comment on our articles. If any company representatives for the products reviewed choose to respond, we'll publish their commentary here verbatim.



*UK-based HEXUS community members are eligible for free delivery and priority customer service through the SCAN.care@HEXUS forum.


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HEXUS Forums :: 10 Comments

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Posted by edzieba - Fri 24 Apr 2015 15:25
It's a bit hard to tell from the photos, but does the heatpipe-side of the cooler stay within the socket keepout area? This is an important consideration in particular for ITX boards, where the socket is often right up against the PCI-E slot.
Posted by Luke7 - Fri 24 Apr 2015 15:53
I'm looking for an extremely low-profile solution for a custom build.. what does anyone reckon to removing the fan from the heatsink and using it as a close exhaust or intake?
Posted by Otherhand - Fri 24 Apr 2015 15:58
Luke7
I'm looking for an extremely low-profile solution for a custom build.. what does anyone reckon to removing the fan from the heatsink and using it as a close exhaust or intake?

I'm not sure why you'd want to do that. Is this going to be a PC with no graphics card?
Posted by scaryjim - Fri 24 Apr 2015 17:02
Luke7
… what does anyone reckon to removing the fan from the heatsink and using it as a close exhaust or intake?

I'm using a stock AMD heatsink with the fan removed in a 2u chassis, with a single 140mm intake fan blowing directly onto it, and that copes perfectly with a heavily loaded 45W TDP Athlon X3. As long as you've got the fan above the heatsink (or, frankly, really good airflow), it should work fine.
Posted by satrow - Fri 24 Apr 2015 18:13
edzieba
It's a bit hard to tell from the photos, but does the heatpipe-side of the cooler stay within the socket keepout area? This is an important consideration in particular for ITX boards, where the socket is often right up against the PCI-E slot.
The dimensions there (pdf download) suggest it's a ~10mm shorter overhang compared to their Topflow, which I had to gently bend (~4mm?) to get clearance on my ASRock ITX. This looks like it has higher compatibility on that side of the cooler.

That ‘board (see my System dropdown <-left side) was hard to find a small, topdown cooler for, I wasn’t sure that Noctua's then-current lineup included one that would also be quiet enough for my liking/usage.

The Noctua site does have motherboard compatibility lists on their site, it might pay you to check against their dimensions to compare with the Shadow Rock LP.

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