Hands on with Be Quiet!'s affordable,
low-profile CPU cooler
Be Quiet! used to be something of a kingpin
in the high-end CPU cooling market with its Dark Rock range, but this price
range is now predominantly ruled by high performing all-in-one liquid coolers,
which even the biggest of air coolers fail to keep pace with.
Shadow
Rock TopFlow SR1
This means there's currently a huge amount
of pressure on mid-range CPU coolers to be well designed, low noise and highly
efficient in their work. It's into this competitive slice of the market that Be
Quiet! has entered the $51.15 Shadow Rock TopFlow SR1.
Its four copper heat pipes and baseplate
are nickel plated, which lends the cooler a nice finish. It's also advertised
as low-profile, and as such features a dense stack of fins arranged vertically
rather than in the traditional horizontal way of tower coolers, reducing its
height while maintaining a high surface area.
A 135mm PWM-capable Silent Wings fan sits
atop the heatsink, blowing air down onto it, as well as indirectly onto your
motherboard's components below.
A
135mm PWM-capable Silent Wings fan sits atop the heatsink, blowing air down
onto it, as well as indirectly onto your motherboard's components below
Even so, at 126mm tall, it's no dwarf, and
will still struggle to fit into the majority of mini-ITX builds. That said, the
spacing between the baseplate and the array of fins provides a great deal of
clearance for motherboard components and heatsinks, as well as RAM modules,
which will be of benefit to many.
The mounting systems of Be Quiet! coolers
have never been their strongest point, and it's no different here. The TopFlow
SR1 requires you to align the backplate, motherboard, washers and the cooler
itself with the correct mounting holes, before screwing everything together
from the rear of the motherboard, which is fiddly and inconvenient. It also
means you'll need to remove your motherboard from your case to attach the
cooler, unless you have a second pair of hands to borrow. It's a shame, as this
is an area which can really help a cooler stand out in a crowded market.
The
mounting systems of Be Quiet! coolers have never been their strongest point,
and it's no different here
On both Intel and AMD sockets, cooling
performance is nothing to shout about, although it was always unlikely to be
from a low-profile cooler. That said, it is able to keep pace with the aging
and much larger Dark Rock Advanced, but the Dark Rock Pro series maintain a
healthy lead, temperature wise. Noise levels, on the other hand, are very
ear-friendly, as they remain at barely audible levels even when a heavily
overclocked system is placed under full load.
The
lessened height of the TopFlow SR1 will work to its advantage in some cases,
but as the majority of mini-ITX cases won't contain it, its appeal as a
low-profile cooler is significantly reduced.
It's difficult to outright recommend the
TopFlow SR1. It's great value, well built and provides respectable temperatures
for the noise it emits. However, equally quiet coolers with a similar price,
better mounting mechanisms and improved performance are available, such as the
Thermaltake Macho Rev.A and Thermolab Trinity (which has a very useful fan
control, too).
The lessened height of the TopFlow SR1 will
work to its advantage in some cases, but as the majority of mini-ITX cases
won't contain it, its appeal as a low-profile cooler is significantly reduced.
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Details
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Price: $52.545
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Manufacturer: Be Quiet!
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Website: www.bequiet.com
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Required Spec: Intel sockets: LGA1155,
LGA1156, LGA1366, LGA1150, LGA775; AMD sockets: AM3+, AM3, AM2+, AM2, FM2,
FM1, 754, 939, 940; 126mm CPU cooler clearance
Ratings
·
Quality: 7/10
·
Value: 8/10
·
Overall: 7/10
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