Twelve CPU Air Cooler Roundup

BeQuiet! Shadow Rock 2

Be Quiet! is well known through Europe. Their products have won countless awards. In 2013 Be Quiet started bringing their products into the U.S. market and continued to win awards. The Be Quiet Shadow Rock 2 is a massive square tower cooler that features four 8mm heatpipes.

The packaging for the Be Quiet! Shadow Rock 2 is quite simple. The color scheme they chose to use is not flashy, but does grab the attention and is elegant. The front of the box shows a nice picture of the CPU cooler housed inside. The rear of the box has a line art drawing of the cooler and lists out the features and specifications.

The contents of the Be Quiet! Shadow Rock 2 is very well packaged. There’s not a lot of wasted space. Included in the package are the mounting brackets to get the cpu cooler mounted to almost any modern motherboard.

The Be Quiet! Shadow Rock 2 is a large cooler but at the same time it is lighter than some of the other coolers in this round up. There are four 8mm copper heat pipes that run through the tower portion of the cooler.

Fin spacing is good on the Shadow Rock two and visibility through the cooler is good. The 51 aluminum fins are pressed onto the heat pipes and are not soldered.

The Shadow Rock 2’s tower is square and measures in at 122x122x160 mm. The top of the cooler is nicely finished with an aluminum cover and machined caps for the heat pipes.

The base of the CPU cooler is highly machined and polished to a mirror finish. The copper heat pipes are soldered into the copper base which is plated in nickel.

Here is an absolutely perfect mirror finish on the base of the Be Quiet! Shadow Rock 2. There is only as very slight amount of distortion at the extreme edges of the base and the reflected lines and sharp and straight.

The fan that is included with the CPU cooler is the Be Quiet! Pure Wings 2 120mm. The fan measures in at 120x120x25mm and is a 4-pin PWM fan.

The blades of the fan feature a very unique design. There are slots throughout the entire length of each of the nine blades. This is designed to reduce operating noise and increase airflow. The fan is rated at 1500 RPM (Max) and flows 51.4 CFM (Max) while maintaining a noise level of 19.2 dBA.

Installation of the Be Quiet! Shadow Rock 2 was interesting, to say the least. The first step is to assemble the back plate. According to the instructions, the screws (not bolts) need to be installed in the manner shown above.

The next step to get the Shadow Rock 2 installed is to attach the retention brackets. A set of four tiny screws are included and it is as simple as screwing the bracket to the base. Make sure to have the bracket in the proper orientation. If not damage to the CPU may occur.

Next after the previous to parts have been assembled, put the back plate on the motherboard. Then slide each of the included plastic clips over the screws that stick out from the motherboard. These help keep the screws from falling out during assembly.

There is a small notch just under the threads where this clip should snap into place.

Next up screw the stand offs to the screws at each corner.

Here is a close up of the correct stand off. There are two different sets of stand offs. For the 1150 board the stand offs are hollow with threads inside. The solid stand offs are for the LGA 2011 boards.

The next step in the installation process is to install the assembled CPU cooler onto the assembled motherboard. Easier said than done. If the motherboard has heatsinks around the CPU socket, it will be a tough fight to get the upper nut installed on the stand off as there is little room. Best bet, go get a small socket. After fiddling around for five or ten minutes I was able to get the nut to bite just a bit. Using a screw driver on the back of the motherboard I was able to tighten the nut. I was able to do they by holding the nut with the included wrench and turning the screw.

Actually, the correct and easiest installation process is to attach the standoffs to the retention bracket as shown.

For our purposes, the standoffs will be installed in the number 2 slot on the retention bracket. Then place on the motherboard and tighten the screws on the back of the retention plate.  Depending on the case, a second set of hands may be needed to help hold the CPU cooler in position.

This cooler is massive. The CPU cooler does overhang the 1st memory slot but some memory will just barely clear. The HyperX Beast kit that we are using did just clear. Adding the fan however does overhang all four slots. The fan can be moved up to accommodate taller memory modules.

After a little bit of a battle and not the smoothest install I’ve done, the Be Quiet! Shadow Rock 2 is installed atop the motherboard and ready for the test bench.

Next to the test bench is the BeQuiet! Dark Rock Pro 3.