INTRODUCTION

   Whenever CPU cooler manufacturers sit down to design a new model (or refit an older one) they have 3 things they can do to further improve cooling performance, first to increase the total surface area of the fins, second to add more or thicker heatpipes and third to use a higher-performance (or larger) fan. Yes there are other ways to "tweak" the performance level of any cooler (such as using an heatpipe direct touch base or use special designs for the fins) but these are quite honestly secondary and don't really amount to significant performance improvements (using copper instead of aluminum for the fins works well but it's far more expensive). Be quiet! released their compact Pure Rock CPU cooler back in 2015 and roughly 5 years later with me i have the new Pure Rock 2 model.

   be quiet! is a premium brand of power supplies, PC cases and cooling solutions for desktop PCs. The products of be quiet! offer legendary quiet operation and first-class performance thanks the passion for quality and precision. Attention to detail is the key to perfection. Which is why our very own experts lead product conception, design and quality control from our headquarters in Germany. be quiet! sticks to its name: More than 15 years experience in the field of noise reduction and silence make be quiet! products probably the most silent ones on the market.

   The first Pure Rock was based on an 155mm tall, 121mm wide and 62.5mm long heatsink with a total of four 6mm heatpipes which be quiet! had paired with their 120mm Pure Wings 2 fan (1500RPM/87CFM/1.25mmH2O/26.8dBA). Now since the Pure Rock had an TDP (thermal design power) of 150W its cooling efficiency may not have been great but its strong selling point was actually its size since it was among the very few zero-interference models in the market at that time. Well strangely enough the brand new Pure Rock 2 model is virtually identical to its predecessor (an all-black model is also available) so once again we see a TDP of 150W, a heatsink with the same exact measurements, four 6mm heatpipes and the same 120mm Pure Wings 2 fan. What has changed in the new Pure Rock 2? Well for one the number of fins has increased (there are now 55 instead of 48 - resulting in more surface area for heat dissipation) and as for the base this time over it features an heatpipe direct touch (HDT) design. So, let's see just how much improvement in cooling efficiency these two additions/changes amount to.