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

Key features

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.

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!

• Contents
• Key features
• Measurement methodology
• Results – 39 dBA
• Results – 42 dBA
• Results – 45 dBA
• Results – 48 dBA
• Results – maximum speed
• Spectral analysis of noise
• Conclusion and evaluation