be quiet! Dark Rock 3 CPU Cooler Review

Testing
As I said for testing we will be using our Intel X79 system.

be quiet! Dark Rock 3

It is made up of the following components.

Processor: Intel Core i7-4960X Extreme Edition
Motherboard: ASUS P9X79 Pro
Video Card: Sapphire R9 280X Vapor-X Tri-X OC
Memory: 16GB Kingston 10th Anniversary
Power: Raidmax RX-1000AE
Storage: 750GB SATA II Drive
Cooling: be quiet! Dark Rock 3
Case: Cooler Master Cosmos II with 5 fans

For testing we will be using the Intel Burn Test with the AVX instruction set. We use this instead of Prime 95 as it will push the processor much harder. We have it set on the maximum setting and let it ruin through 3 passes. This gives us a realistic idea of the temperatures the processor would hit when it is under full load.

Keep in mind this is an Extreme Edition processor. These run much hotter than normal chips so keep that in mind. Since making our change to the Core i7-4960X Extreme Edition we have only tested a handful of air coolers on it so we do not have that much of a comparison. First up is our idle temperatures.

idle

Now for our load test.

load

As you can see the Dark Rock 3 did not do the best in our tests, but we do have to remind you that we are using an extreme processor here. While other coolers did keep the same processor cooler, this cooler did keep the processor within its temperature limits.

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