Test System and Benchmark Results of the be quiet! Dark Rock Slim 180W TDP
- Temperatures are averaged (last minute) from individual core temperature results monitored by AIDA64 System Stability Test after 15 minutes of the run time.
- FPU load average is used to simulate worst case scenario load levels similar to Intel Burn Test or OCCT, results marked “0″means thermal limit was reached and the CPU was throttled and thus the results were discarded.
- Stock settings have all power saving features enabled in the motherboard with Vcore set static to 1.140V and set to “Balanced” in the OS. Multiplier at 43 at stock speed of 4.3GHz.
- Overclocked settings have Vcore voltage automatically set to 1.224V with the adjusted multiplier set at 48 to gain overclock at 4.8GHz.
- All tests were taken at least three times to get the final result.
The Stock test was run with the CPU set to the stock settings in the BIOS. The cooler’s fans was set to the normal setting in the Arous BIOS. This allows the fan to spin up and down based on temperature. The stock temperature curves in the BIOS were used. Stock Vcore was set to 1.140V. (Stock speed of 4.2GHz)
The Overclock test was done with custom settings. I set the voltage for the CPU at 1.224v for Vcore and set the multiplier on all cores at 48. To hit stable 4.8GHz. The fan was set to full speed in the Aorus BIOS settings.
| System Configuration | ||
| Component | Product Name | Provided By |
| Case | Open Test Bench | |
| CPU | Intel Core i7 8700K | |
| CPU Cooler | be Quiet! Dark Rock Slim 180W TDP | be Quiet |
| Motherboard | Gigabyte AORUS Z370 ULTRA GAMING F12 Bios | Gigabyte |
| Ram | (2) GEIL Super LUCE RGB SYNC 3200 GLS416GB3200C14DC | GEIL |
| GPU | Gigabyte GeForce RTX™ 2060 GAMING OC 6G | Gigabyte |
| Monitor | BenQ EL2870U 28 inch 4K HDR Gaming Monitor 3840×2160 @ 60 Hz | |
| Hard Drives | Corsair Force MP510 NVMe Gen 3 x4 M.2 SSD (480Gb) | Corsair |
| Power Supply | Thermal Take Tough Power RGB 80 Plus Gold 750W | |
Benchmarks:
Sound levels of Dark Rock Slim 180W (Silent Wings 3) were taken from the manufacturer. My sound test equipment was useless as the lowest sound it can pick up is 30dBA.
Performance Summary:
Overall I am very much impressed with Dark Rock Slim 180W cooler. At the stock speed of i7 8700k, the CPU cooler kept up well with the cooling demand. Maximum CPU temperature was reached was 38C. FPU temperature that was reached is 51C.
When I have overclocked i7 8700k to 4.8GHz the CPU temperatures stayed slightly higher than expected. CPU temperature in the overclocked state was 49C and FPU temperature was 64C.
In idle state, temperatures were as low as 22C.
