Be quiet in the world of CPU cooling! has been busy lately. We recently tested (and liked) the company’s Shadow Rock Slim 2 cheap air cooler. Now the company is adding a high-end cooler to its Dark Rock range, defined as a topflow (downdraft) ‘TF’ model, aptly named the Dark Rock TF 2. Utilizing six copper heatpipes and a pair of whisper-quiet Silent Wings 3 fans, be quiet! did some metallurgy origami to create its latest low profile air cooler.
As a dual heatsink downdraft cooler, the Dark Rock TF 2 utilizes a pair of large + small fin stacks, turned on their sides to allow for compact or cramped structures where traditional coolers can exceed installation space.
Specifications:
| Height | 5.125″ / 130.2mm |
| Width | 6.5″ / 165.1mm |
| Depth | 5.50″ / 139.7mm |
| Base height: | 2.0″ / 50.8mm |
| Assy. offset | 0.0″ (centered) |
| fans | (1) 135 x 25mm |
| Connectors | (2) 4-pin PWM |
| Weight | 34.1oz / 966g |
| Intel sockets | 115x, 1200, 2011*, 2066* |
| (* square ILM mounts only) | |
| AMD sockets | AM4, AM3(+) |
| Guarantee | 3 years |
| web price | $86 |
Be quiet! Dark Rock TF 2 comes with mounting hardware suitable for most current Intel desktop sockets and AMD’s AM3(+)/AM4 socket CPUs. All hardware also arrives dressed in the company’s usual stealth black color scheme. A 4-pin PWM splitter provides single-head fan control and a spray of unobtrusive thermal paste is included – presumably it’s quiet! clutch.
be quiet! covers the Dark Rock TF 2 with a 3-year warranty.
The Dark Rock TF 2 has a downdraft design, which means that the cooling fans move air through the cooler to the motherboard instead of through the cooling tower. Using six heatpipes, the large, top cooling stack distributes heat evenly across the wide surface of the cooler, directly below the top-mounted fan.
Below that, the smaller heatsink sits centered under the center fan, catching the folded ends of the heatpipes, while providing a surface to dissipate heat that doesn’t travel further down the cooler tubes. From end to end, the six heatpipes run between a machined baseplate, mounting block and fixed hardware bracket, wrapping around and around to form the Dark Rock TF 2’s folded dual-heatsink downdraft design.
A pair of 135mm fans accompany the Dark Rock TF 2; one is a Silent Wings and the other as a Silent Wings 3 variant. Each are 4-pin PWM managed and rated up to 1400 RPM.
The milled base of the Dark Rock TF 2 is completely flat, eliminating ambient light between our steel ruler and the mounting surface of the cooler. Beneath the small lower cooling tower, we see a milled, wide-toothed heat exchanger that extends between the heat pipes and the cooling fins of the lower tower, allowing the cooler to utilize even more surface area.
The milled 40mm x 43mm Dark Rock TF 2 heatsink provides a high-quality thermal bond and is able to distribute universal paste over the integrated heat spreader (IHS) of the CPU during the installation process.
The Dark Rock TF 2 mounts over a pair of stabilizing brackets and is secured with the two permanently integrated machine screws. Note that the heatpipe cluster can cause incompatibility issues with memory DIMMs depending on motherboard space and clearance, making a cooler orientation important when choosing mounting.
Once installed, the cooler sits noticeably lower than most heatpipe coolers, thanks to its downdraft design. This allows the Dark Rock TF 2 to be used in systems with lower cold rooms. The center-mounted fan slides easily between the small and large cooling stack, and the top fan rides on a set of rubber fan glides. Both are locked by a set of spring clips to hold them securely in place.