Packaging and Overview
Our first introduction to the Dark Rock Pro 2 is via the front of its massive box albeit in much smaller scale than the actual product. Be Quiet! chooses to go the simple and informative route here with a direct and to the point in black, orange and white and the strip down the left side reading “high-end” lets you know this cooler is intended to cater to the enthusiast.
The reverse of the package give us a wiredrawing layout of the entire cooler and highlights a few specific points such as the solid aluminum top cover, dual fans and the whopping seven performance heat pipes. The coolers specifications follow and all in all you couldn’t expect much more from external boxing.
Diving right in we find all of the Dark Rock’s accessories packaged in a nice little box on top. Included are the usual warranty information and install guide as well as everything you will need to connect the heatsink to your processor through an array of the clamps, screws and adapters we all know and love. There is enough thermal compound for maybe three attempts so let’s hope the install isn’t too much of an issue.
On to the cooler itself we see the pair of PWM fans that move air across the fins. Both are removable for replacement or cleaning and the front 120mm fan is even slightly adjustable to let you squeak out every little bit of space you can above your RAM. This is good because of the sheer bulk of the Dark Rock Pro 2 as it comes in just under 7 inches tall and is wide enough to hang over at least the first three DRAM slots on most ATX motherboards.
Next we take a look at the seven heatpipes that do the real work when the Dark Rock is in operation. Each is an impressive 6mm in diameter and made of nickel plated copper. Each individual pipe runs through the copper base and is arrayed to distribute heat even to both sets of fins. The base itself has a near mirrored CNC machined finish to make the best possible contact with the processor.
