Currently considered the venerable man of the CPU cooler market, Be Quiet! has a reputation for producing well-functioning coolers with minimal fuss, atmospheric aesthetics, and excellent build quality, and the Dark Rock 5 seems to continue that theme. There’s no RGB lighting here, but this mid-sized, single-fan model has some improvements over previous generations and is one of the best-looking Be Quiet! heatsinks that we have seen.
Starting with the project, Be Quiet! introduced a magnetic cover for Dark Rock 5, which covers the heat pipes and the screwdriver hole for mounting the radiator. Its coolers, especially the higher-end ones, historically weren’t particularly ugly and often had a black anodized finish.
However, the cap that can rotate depending on the orientation of the fridge looks even better and definitely makes it stand out from the crowd. That’s good because you don’t expect much of a change from $70 or £70 for this cooler, which is quite steep for a single-fan heatsink setup.
However, the compact dimensions and single fan have advantages, such as the ability to bypass all memory slots, allowing the utilize of memory modules of unlimited height. At 161 mm high, it will also fit into virtually any ATX case. The downside is that it’s a relatively deep heatsink, and the six heatpipes could utilize an extra fan.
Be peaceful! Dark Rock 5 specifications
Fortunately, be peaceful! it includes clips for one of these in the box, but with a max speed of 2100rpm, the included Silent Wings 4 120mm PWM fan isn’t the biggest or most powerful we’ve seen bundled with a heatsink, so we’ll have to see how it handles our excellent Core i7 14700K.
The machined base is nickel plated rather than bare copper, which means that if you want to utilize liquid metal paste, you won’t be at risk of the paste staining or being absorbed by the copper and drying out so quickly. However, you won’t need to do any liquid metal paste testing as standard thermal paste is included.
It comes in the form of a tube, so you can utilize several applications, not just one when the paste is previously applied. There are also two spring-loaded mounting screws in the base, while owners of older Be Quiet! coolers will remember that a separate plate had to be used to secure the cooler.
The assembly mechanism is identical to that of Be Quiet! liquid coolers. and requires a lot of elements. This is uncomplicated, but probably not something you want to try with the motherboard still installed in the case.
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An exception may be AMD motherboards, which do not require an included backplate. Installing the Silent Wings 4 fan is much easier, however, as the clips slide into recesses in the heatsink with minimal effort. The same definitely cannot be said for some of the cheaper heatsinks.
Unfortunately, Dark Rock 5 was not able to fully tame our Core i7 14700K. Temperatures were acceptable for the first few minutes of our various stress tests, but steadily climbed, and in our grueling x264 and Cinebench stress tests, the CPU reached almost 100°C and began to throttle.
We should emphasize that this only happened during long, multi-threaded stress tests and on 14th Gen Intel processors, but it seems that handling weighty workloads for long periods of time on these processors is a bit beyond Dark Rock 5.
It was much happier in our gaming tests, hitting 83°C in Metro Exodus and 87°C in our 3D Mark Steel Nomad test, but even these were noticeably hotter than Noctua’s larger NH-D15 G2 dual fan. One of the reasons for this is undoubtedly airflow.
The cooler operated quite quietly at full speed, reaching 50 dBA on our sound meter, which was 2 dBA quieter than the Noctua cooler, but it also moved significantly less air through its relatively gigantic heatsink. It also took a long time to get the CPU back to idle temperatures. Adding a second fan would undoubtedly facilitate in all areas.
Buy if…
✅ You want a great looking and peaceful heatsink: The black finish and magnetic cap really facilitate this fridge stand out from the crowd, and what it lacks in airflow it makes up for in its low noise level.
✅ Want Unlimited Memory Clearance: This cooler does not protrude over the memory slots on most motherboards, allowing for unlimited height memory modules
Don’t buy if…
❌ Want to chilly high-end Intel LGA1700 processors: While it was capable of gaming, extended multi-threaded workloads proved to be a step too far as the CPU throttled after a few minutes.
❌ You’re on a budget: build quality, magnetic cap and anodized finish affect the price, but not the cooling performance. There are plenty of dual-fan refrigerators available for a similar price
Book Be Quiet! The Dark Rock 5 is an attractive cooler with excellent build quality that remains quite peaceful at full speed and doesn’t suffer from memory and motherboard compatibility issues nearly as much as larger coolers.
Even with powerful 14th generation Intel processors, such as our Core i7 14700K, it is able to tame them in games, but the same cannot be said about extensive, multi-threaded workloads, where the temperature eventually rose enough to notice the slowdown.
However, dealing with less power-hungry AMD processors will be different, as will avoiding multi-threaded workloads using high-end 13th or 14th generation Intel processors that take more than a few minutes to complete.
As a result, we cannot be too critical here, especially if gaming and low noise are your main goals, as most scenarios are within the capabilities of this refrigerator.
That said, it’s a shame that a cooler costing this much can’t handle all situations with popular current CPUs at standard speeds, and while it does include clips for a second fan, adding one would make it a much sweeter deal.
Ultimately, the future looks cooler when it comes to processors, as Intel Core Ultra 200 processors run much cooler than their predecessors, so while it’s not ideal for handling everything that a 14th Gen Intel Core i7 or Core i9 processor can provide, the Dark Rock 5 will do much better once sizzling Intel LGA1700 processors become a thing of the past.
