BeQuiet! Dark Rock Elite – The new king of coolers?

Pavel Sekerka

12 months ago

Spectral analysis of noise

I will start this year’s cooler tests with a real treat. I’ve prepared a review of the Dark Rock Elite cooler, the absolute top of BeQuiet!’s range. This is a premium cooler offering very high performance at low noise levels thanks to its sophisticated design in combination with high-end fans. I’m very curious to see how it performs compared to the high-end coolers I’ve had the opportunity to test over the past year.

Key features of the cooler

Dark Rock Elite was recently launched together with the successor of the well-known Dark Rock Pro cooler, now in its fifth version. Both of these coolers are very similar, so most of the things from today’s article, when we discuss the Dark Rock Elite in detail, will also apply to the Dark Rock Pro 5. But while the Dark Rock Pro 5 is the logical evolution of the previous model, the Dark Rock Elite represents the new pinnacle of BeQuiet!’s range. At first glance, it’s already clear that this is a premium cooler with an emphasis on maximum cooling efficiency.

The cooler’s heatsink is made up of two dense bundles of aluminium fins, which are interconnected by seven six-millimeter copper heatpipes. These heatpipes take care of the heat distribution from the large copper base of the cooler with its large coldplate surface. This contact area is the only element of the cooler that is not in a matte black finish, but is coated with a thin layer of nickel to protect the copper from oxidation. In addition, the manufacturer states that this cooler is fully compatible with liquid metal as well, if you are handy and brave enough to use liquid metal between the cooler and the CPU heat spreader instead of the traditional method with thermal paste. According to the manufacturer, the remaining surface area of the cooler is covered with a layer of black paint with ceramic particles for a sleek look while maintaining high thermal conductivity.

The top surface is almost extravagant by the standards of BeQuiet! coolers, taken with exaggeration of course. In the centre is a silver logo on a thin brushed aluminium plate in black. Surrounding this plate is a translucent white stripe that hides the ARGB LEDs and if I’m not mistaken, this is the first cooler from the BeQuiet! range to include some sort of backlighting. Not counting the Pure Rock 2 FX cooler, where a fan from the Light Wings series takes care of the backlighting.

The top cover is easily removable, including the middle fan, to which it is connected by the frame. This gives access to a pair of screws with springs for optimal pressure, which are fixed to the base of the cooler. The top surface of the base is designed as another small passive cooler. The total finned area may not be very large, but every watt counts.

Under the top cover, there is not only ARGB LEDs, but also an integrated splitter for both fans, which also serves as a maximum speed limiter. Simply remove the magnetically attached edge of the top cover, which hides a two-mode switch. Q(uiet) mode limits the maximum speed of both fans, while P(erformance) mode lets the fans run at full speed.

And while the middle fan is connected by the frame to the top surface of the cooler, the fan on the front tower is mounted in plastic rails and can be slid upwards in several steps. Along with the cutout in the front tower’s fin bundle, this feature serves to maximize the cooler’s compatibility with tall RAM modules, but it adds quite a bit to the already very tall profile of the entire cooler. Unfortunately, both of the fans used have proprietary connectors for plugging into the integrated splitter/limiter and are also attached to the cooler in an atypical manner. This makes their eventual replacement very difficult, although the vast majority of users probably won’t ever be expected to take this step.

The accessories of the Dark Rock Elite cooler may look surprisingly modest, but it all fits nicely into the philosophy of BeQuiet!, which has never indulged in fads or unnecessary things. Don’t let the first impression fool you though, there’s nothing missing here. The mounting system components are universal for both Intel and AMD processors, so only the bars differ. You will look in vain for fan clips here, which is logical given the design of the cooler. There is, however, the famous long-shafted screwdriver with a magnetic tip, which you will appreciate especially when installing the cooler to the mounting system bars, but personally I have been using an older version of it for many years as a universal tool when assembling computer builds.

Cooler and fan parameters

The first thing that catches your eye when you look at the Dark Rock Elite cooler is its overall size. This really is no small cooler for compact builds. With a minimum height of 168mm, you’ll need to be very careful when choosing a suitable case. Additionally, if you want to move the front fan to a higher position to allow enough room for tall RAM modules, be prepared for an overall cooler height of up to 206 mm! However, with low profile modules you can leave the front fan in its default position. Thus, compared to its direct competitors, the Dark Rock Elite does not stand out from the crowd. And price-wise, it also fits in nicely with the other top-end coolers from other manufacturers.


Cooler	BeQuiet! Dark Rock Elite	Noctua NH-D15 chromax.black	Cooler Master MasterAir MA824 Stealth
Supported sockets	Intel LGA 115x, 1200, 1700, 20xx; AMD AM4/AM5
Height	168 mm	165 mm	166 mm
Width	136 mm	150 mm	151 mm
Depth with fan	146 mm	161 mm	162 mm
Weight	1332 g	1320 g	1630 g
Maximum RAM height	acc. to front fan position (keep in mind the cooler's total height)
MSRP	115 EUR	119 EUR	109 EUR

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The 135mm fans used here are modified versions from the Silent Wings 4 series with the ability to plug both fans into a splitter/controller under the top cover of the cooler, so you only need a single PWM header on the motherboard. You also have the option to adjust their maximum fan speeds to 1500 and 2000 RPM respectively, using the Q/P switch under the top cover. These are very powerful fans in terms of parameters, so I just hope that the manufacturer has also worked on their acoustic optimization in order to keep the noise level low even at higher speeds.


Fan	Silent Wings 4	Noctua NF-A15 PWM	Mobius 135/120
Bearing	FDB	SSO2	LDB
Speed range	400–2000 rpm	300–1500 rpm	0–1550/1950 rpm
Max. airflow	136.2 m³/h	140.2 m³/h	108.0/107.2 m³/h
Max. static pressure	2.41 mm H₂O	2.08 mm H₂O	1.92/2.69 mm H₂O

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I will kick off this year’s cooler tests with a real treat. I’ve prepared a review of the Dark Rock Elite cooler, the absolute top of BeQuiet!’s range. This is a premium cooler offering very high performance at low noise levels thanks to its sophisticated design in combination with high-end fans. I’m very curious to see how it performs compared to the high-end coolers I’ve had the opportunity to test over the past year.

Testing methodology

As a test processor and heat generator I use the Intel Core i7-11700K on the Asus TUF Gaming Z590-Plus WIFI motherboard. The entire build is mounted on a Streacom BC1 frame with no fans to provide airflow. Acoustic shielding (acoustic foam on OSB boards) is installed around the test rig to eliminate ambient noise. The Voltcraft SL-100 calibrated noise meter is placed perpendicular to the cooler in a fixed position relative to the motherboard at a distance of approximately 35 cm from the processor socket.

Stress tests are performed using Prime95 with a duration of 30–35 minutes. Coolers are tested at four standardized noise levels (39, 42, 45 and 48 dBA) and at maximum speed. I did not measure the data for the 45 and 48 dBA noise levels initially, they were only incorporated into the methodology later. Because of this, results for these noise levels are only available for some (usually newer) coolers. The tests are run in two sets corresponding to the thermal output of the processor.

The first set of tests is at 125 W, the forced PL1 limit of the processor. The second set is then at a power draw of about 210 W (4500 MHz at 1.285 V). However, this level represents a very high heat concentration given the overall small die area. Thus, not all coolers can be expected to pass this set of tests at all noise levels.

The highest temperature reached is always recorded after the test. All data regarding temperatures and thermal output of the processor are obtained from HWiNFO64. The measured values are then adjusted against the temperature in the room as the resulting Delta T. The test success limit is set to 75 °C. Any higher value means a risk of processor temperature above 95-100 °C and a risk of thermal throttling. Therefore, if the cooler does not pass the load with a Delta T value below 75 °C, such a test is marked as a failure.

Results – 39 dBA

Why is there a missing value in the cooler chart? Either because the cooler could no longer handle the load in the specified mode, or because the fan could not be slowed down to the required level, typically the mode with the lowest noise level.

Results – 42 dBA

Results – 45 dBA

Results – 48 dBA

Results – maximum speed

Spectral analysis of noise

This is a simple analysis at noise levels of 39 dBA, 45 dBA and at maximum speed of the cooler. For the analysis I use the UMIK-1 microphone from miniDPS in conjunction with True Audio’s TrueRTA application. The resolution of the analysis is 1/24 of an octave and the shape of the spectrogram is an average of 100 samples acquired over 20–30 seconds.

Conclusion and evaluation

So what is left to say in conclusion? That we have a new king of air coolers. While this virtual victory over Cooler Master’s MA824 Stealth is extremely close, the Dark Rock Elite takes the gold thanks to its superior acoustics. Although even here the manufacturer failed to completely eliminate tonal peaks around 200 and 500 Hz, the overall sound is not very distracting and if you knock the speed down to somewhere in the 1000–1200 rpm range, you will be virtually unaware of the cooler.

I’m just a bit disappointed that the fans used have a proprietary connector and their attachment to the cooler is non-standard. That means that if the need arises to replace them, you will have to contact BeQuiet! support, as the regular Silent Wings 4 series fans cannot be used.

Anyway, the BeQuiet! Dark Rock Elite is a superbly crafted cooler with a sleek design that dominates our charts with its absolutely stunning performance with a well-tuned acoustic response, especially with the speed limited in the quiet mode. So I have no reason not to give it our highest editorial award!


BeQuiet! Dark Rock Elite
+ Top-notch cooling performance
+ Quiet fans
+ Excellent build quality
+ Eye-catching design
+ Integrated splitter/speed limiter
- Not possible to swap the fans

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Continue: Conclusion and evaluation