Dark Rock 4 or Pro?

[blatherscribe]

I'm planning on building a PC based around the new Core i9-9900K. I'm not planning on overclocking, and I want as quiet a computer as possible. I'm looking at the Be Quiet line of air coolers, and I was wondering, is the Dark Rock 4 likely to be good enough? Or should I spring for the Dark Rock 4 Pro? I worry about the extra weight (not to mention blocking RAM slots), not to mention extra noise from the second fan.

Will the standard Dark Rock 4 do the job?

 

[Darkbreeze]

If you are not planning on overclocking, then either of those is fine. The Dark rock 3 is actually probably even fine and from some reviews seems to be a better performer.

I'd actually recommend this over any of those.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU Cooler: Thermalright - Macho Rev.B 73.6 CFM CPU Cooler ($49.90 @ Amazon)
Total: $49.90
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-11-05 15:17 EST-0500


Or this, because I'm not positive whether the Macho rev.b has the right adapter for the 9900k, although I believe it does.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU Cooler: CRYORIG - H5 Universal 65.0 CFM CPU Cooler ($52.89 @ OutletPC)
Total: $52.89
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-11-05 15:26 EST-0500

Any of these or any of the Dark rock coolers would be ok. Bequiet rides mainly on noise levels, which they actually get from running their fans at lower RPMs, not through superior design, which results in them underperforming compared to other coolers from folks like Noctua, Thermalright and Cryorig.


Below is my list of preferred CPU AIR coolers, also known as Heatsink fans (HSF).

Do not look here for recommendations on water/liquid cooling solutions. There are none to be found.

They are basically listed in order of preference, from top to bottom. To some degree that preference is based on known performance on similarly overclocked configurations, but not entirely. There are likely a couple of units that are placed closer to the top not because they offer purely better performance than another cooler which is below it, but potentially due to a variety of reasons.

One model might be placed higher than another with the same or similar performance, but has quieter or higher quality fans. It may have the same performance but a better warranty. Long term quality may be higher. It may be less expensive in some cases. Maybe it performs slightly worse, but has quieter fans and a better "fan pitch". Some fans with equal decibel levels do not "sound" like they are the same as the specific pitch heard from one fan might be less annoying than another.

In any case, these are not "tiered" and are not a 100% be all, end all ranking. They are simply MY preference when looking at coolers for a build or when making recommendations. Often, which HSF gets chosen depends on what is on this list and fits the budget or is priced right at the time due to a sale or rebate. Hopefully it will help you and you can rest assured that every cooler listed here is a model that to some degree or other is generally a quality unit which is a lot more likely to be worth the money spent on it than on many other models out there that might look to be a similarly worthwhile investment.

Certainly there are a great many other very good coolers out there, but these are models which are usually available to most anybody building a system or looking for a cooler, regardless of what part of the world they might live in. As always, professional reviews are usually an absolutely essential part of the process of finding a cooler so if you are looking at a model not listed here, I would highly recommend looking at at least two or three professional reviews first.

If you cannot find two reviews of any given cooler, it is likely either too new to have been reviewed yet or it sucked, and nobody wanted to buy one in order to review it plus the manufacturer refused to send samples out to the sites that perform reviews because they knew it would likely get bad publicity.

IMO, nobody out there is making better fans, overall, than Noctua, followed pretty closely by Thermalright. So if you intend to match case fans to the same brand on your HSF, those are pretty hard to beat. Of course, Corsair has it's Maglev fans, and those are pretty damn good too, but since they don't make CPU air cooling products, only AIO water coolers, they cannot join the party.


Noctua NH-D14 (Replace stock fans with NF-A14 industrialPPC 2000rpm)
Noctua NH-D15/D15 SE-AM4
Noctua NH-D14 (With original fans)
Thermalright Silver arrow IB-E Extreme
Phanteks PH-TC14PE (BK,BL, OR or RD)
Cryorig R1 Ultimate or Universal
Thermalright Legrand Macho RT
FSP Windale 6
Scythe Mugen 5 rev.b
Thermalright Macho (Direct, 120)
Noctua NH-U14S
Scythe Mugen max
BeQuiet dark rock pro (3 or 4)
BeQuiet dark rock (3 or 4)
Deepcool Assassin II
Thermalright true spirit 140 (Direct, Power, BW)
Cryorig H5
Noctua NH-U12S
Phanteks PH-TC12DX (Any)
Phanteks PH-TC14S
Cryorig H7
Deepcool Gammaxx 400
Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO

 

[The Original Ralph]

YOU MIGHT want to search this forum re the Dark Rock Pro 4 - one poster posted a fairly lengthy complaint about the difficulty in installing it, and a couple of other Pro 4 owners chimed agreeing

fwiw

 

[blatherscribe]

Wow -- thank you, Darkbreeze! I really appreciate the detailed response.

I had considered going with Noctua, but I've read some comparisons of the DH-15 and the Dark Rock 4 that show that Noctua is marginally cooler but noticeably louder, with complaints of an audible hum at all speeds. I have problems with tinnitus, which is why a quiet computer is so important. But if Be Quiet fans are of lower quality overall, that would change the equation. Is Noctua that much better?

 

[Darkbreeze]

One thing Noctua is NEVER, and that is louder, than anybody. Noctua is, by far, vastly superior in terms of heatsink and fan quality, than anybody else. That pretty much holds true no matter who you compare them against. Their fans take YEARS to engineer. Not months like most other manufacturers.

And they are quiet. The ONLY thing Noctua has going against it traditionally is the baby shit brown color of their fans but even that is a thing of the past because you can now get MOST of their high end fans in black models known as Chromax.black.swap versions of all their common fans.

https://noctua.at/en/products/fan


Noctua doesn't pad their specs like a lot manufacturers. If they say X, they MEAN X.

You didn't mention if you were going to be overclocking or not? If you're not, I'd suggest that the NH-U14S is practically dead silent AND it easily keeps my 6700k well below the thermal threshold even with a 4.6Ghz full time overclock. It's also a hell of a lot smaller than the D15 and only uses a single fan. Thermaltake, Cryorig and Phanteks also make very good products. I doubt you'd be disappointed in 90% of the coolers made by any of those manufacturers. Even the Cryorig H5 would be ok for a stock configuration or mild overclock.

 

[blatherscribe]

No, I'm not likely to do any overclocking. So I guess just about any good cooler will do the job, in terms of temperature.

My apologies for pressing the question, but I checked again and found test results of the Dark Rock 4 and the NH-U14S from Tom's Guide, and the Dark Rock 4 is 6 dB quieter at all times, according to their tests. And 10 dB quieter than the NH-D15. That doesn't seem like much, but because it's a logarithmic scale, it's a noticeable difference to me. But you say Noctua is quieter. Is there a flaw in the testing methodology you're aware of, or some other reason for this?

Again, sorry for pressing the matter. I don't want to seem disbelieving, I'm just trying to understand which is truly quieter. If you had my tinnitus, you'd understand my caution.

Thank you very much for your help!

 

[Darkbreeze]

Let's revisit that. Quieter AT any given RPM. The Dark rock 4 might be quieter than the Noctua at a given load, or when both fans are at max PWM reference signal speeds, but you need to also factor in that the performance of the Noctua is going to allow that it probably won't HAVE to remain at a higher speed because it will, overall, offer better cooling which which will likely reduce the need for it to BE at a high RPM.

I'll be honest. I don't have tinnitus, but I am VERY particular about sound levels and especially about resonance. I can't stand listening to irritating vibrations or harmonics within certain frequencies in an ongoing fashion from my PC.

I have five case fans and a Noctua NH-U14S with two fans on it. One is in front and is an NF-A14 PWM chromax.black.swap and one is in a pull configuration and is an NF-A14 industrialPPC-2000 PWM. I don't hear the fans, AT ALL, unless I'm doing something very demanding that causes there to be an ongoing full throttle type response.

When that is the case, it doesn't matter what cooler you have. If you are under full load conditions there are NO coolers that will be silent. You ARE going to hear the CPU cooler fan no matter what cooler you are using if you are under full load demand conditions UNLESS, and probably even then to some degree, you have a VERY GOOD case designed and intended for sound reduction like the Fractal design R5 or R6 cases WITHOUT the side panel window.

And THAT is probably of far more importance than what cooler you choose, to a degree, and assuming some model of top shelf cooler to begin with.

Noctua fans are quieter at any given RPM than any other fan on the market that I've ever used, tested or read about. Other fans that claim to be quieter, are ONLY quieter because they are rotating at lower RPMs OR they are of a design that does not move as much air. Both of which are counterproductive to performance. If you REALLY want silence, and are not overclocking, you might want to consider a passive heatsink with no fan but I wouldn't advise doing that with your CPU.

 

[blatherscribe]

Thank you very much for taking the time to explain it to me, Darkbreeze. Greatly appreciated.

I had not understood the "quieter at a given RPM" part properly. Of course tests done at full speed would mark a fan with a higher max RPM as being louder! That was daft of me -- I got lost in the decibels, and forgot to consider the RPMs. Be Quiet *is* quieter... because it's slower, which is why the cooling isn't quite as good. And if the Noctua is quieter at any given RPM, then it can do more cooling before I notice it.

Thanks again, I appreciate the help! Looks like I'll be sticking with Noctua.

 

[blatherscribe]

Oh, I should've said, since you mentioned it -- I'll be building this in a Define R6. I'm thinking of getting the window for the first time, even though it reduces the sound dampening. After 20 years of building my own computers, I'm finally giving in to the temptation. I wanna see all the STUFF. And that's one reason I'm taking great care with the components. It also helps that in some tests I found online, the window only seemed to make a 4-5 dB difference at load.

Speaking of which, I know I'll hear fans at full load, but that doesn't bother me. If my computer is at full load, there's probably enough noise from the speakers that it drowns out the fans. But I appreciate the warning.

And yeah, 20 years in I'm still asking dumb questions. I can plug the things into the other things, but I'm well aware that doesn't make me an engineer.

Thanks again!

 

[Darkbreeze]

I understand and I can say without reservation that Fractal design does a wonderful job with their cases. I have a Define S window model. They also have excellent customer support although they are overseas so sometimes if you need something from them it can be a pain. They do not have a facility in the US for manufacturing or parts, but hey, they're in Europe so it's at least not a China build component like everything else.