INTRODUCTION

   I may not enjoy using small PC systems mainly because I’ve gotten used to working with the largest towers available in the market for as far back as i can remember but most people i know have no problem with that and since they care not about serious overclocking nor do they care about high-end CPU performance they almost always turn towards low-profile CPU cooling solutions. Now as you all know in the market currently there are the medium sized low-profile CPU coolers which are not very smaller compared to regular tower coolers and are aimed towards small ATX cases and the really compact low-profile CPU coolers which are targeted towards mini-ITX and mini-ATX cases. Be quiet! released the medium-sized Shadow Rock LP low-profile CPU cooler a few months back and since many of you asked for it we decided to check and see how it compares against other low-profile models.

   be quiet! is a premium brand manufacturer of power supplies and cooling solutions for your desktop PC. be quiet! products are convincing which is proved by reaching and defending the market leadership in PSU business in Germany for five consecutive years *. This is validated and accompanied by numerous awards for both power supplies and cooling solutions. be quiet! is awarded for five times in a row as manufacturer of the year in the power supply category by the readers of the well-known German hardware magazine PC Games Hardware. Another first and second rank in the categories “fans” and “cooler” underline the high acceptance of our products. be quiet! sticks to its name: Ten years’ experience in the field of noise reduction and silence make be quiet! products probably the most silent one on the market. Undoubted fans have a large impact of the noise levels of be quiet! products. Due we are using our specially developed Silent Wings fans in nearly all of our range. They are equipped with various noise reducing features. Thanks to these we ensure a really silent operation - our products reach the best balance between cooling performance and a virtually inaudible operation. If you choose be quiet! you can be sure to get premium quality and second to none silent operation from the quietness experts.

   With a height of just 75.4mm the Shadow Rock LP by be quiet! may not be among the very few compact low-profile C-Type (top-down) CPU coolers that have appeared in the market lately (like for example the NH-L9x65 by Noctua) but at the same time since it's also not large (unlike for example the NH-C14 again by Noctua) it lands somewhere in between and thus can be used not only in regular ATX compatible cases but also in many (if not most) mini-ITX and mini-ATX ones. It also features a pretty good TDP (Thermal Design Power) of 130W and comes fitted with a Silent Wings 2 120mm rifle-bearing PWM fan which features an MTBF (mean time between failures) of 80.000 hours. As usual however the real question is just how good is it so let's move forward and see.

SPECIFICATIONS AND FEATURES

PACKAGING AND CONTENTS

Just like with every other CPU cooler model by be quiet! the Shadow Rock LP arrived inside a black box that has a large product image, the product features and the company logo at the front.

A few words about the product are placed on both sides of the box in 6 languages.

At the rear we find a sketch of the cooler used to showcase its features, the heatsink and fan specifications and the bundle contents.

Packaging is perfect as usual and consists by several pieces of cardboard and black foam.

Inside the box you will find the Shadow Rock LP heatsink, Silent Wings 2 120mm PWM fan, two fan clips, installation instructions, Allen key and all the necessary components to install the cooler onto Intel LGA775/1150/1151/1155/1156/1366/2011 and AMD AM2/AM2+/AM3/AM3+/FM1/FM2/FM2+ mainboards.

THE SHADOW ROCK LP

The heatsink of the Shadow Rock LP is 134.21mm long, 122mm wide and just 50.4mm tall.

It also features aluminum caps for the heatpipes and a brushed aluminum cover at the front on which be quiet! has placed their logo.

The heatsink is made by a total of 55 aluminum fins and as you can see it features large holes at the top which you can use to mount it onto your mainboard.

A secondary smaller heatsink (76mm wide) made out of 34 aluminum fins is placed right beneath the primary one.

There are four 6mm nickel plated copper heatpipes that run from the base of the heatsink and through the entire top heatsink.

Two of the heatpipes however continue to run through the secondary heatsink as well.

Be quiet! chose to ship the Shadow Rock LP with a thin layer of thermal paste preapplied on the nickel plated copper base.

Still since our tests are not performed with the default/stock thermal conductive materials we removed it.

The Pure Wings 2 fan bundled is a 120mm PWM model that features a MTBF of up to 80.000 hours and can spin up to 1500RPM to produce airflow levels of up to 51.4CFM with just 25.1dBA of noise.

With the fan installed the Shadow Rock LP now measures 75.4mm in height and weighs 395g.

TEST BED

TESTING METHODOLOGY

   As we have stated in the past the Intel I7-3770k system is not placed in our lab and so it's obviously not our primary choice when testing CPU Coolers. Still since HTPC oriented models shouldn’t be used with our overclocked Core I7-3930k we have decided to take this path whenever one such model lands at our doorstep. As always our first concern is ambient temperatures so once again we keep the room temperature to around 21-23 degrees (not really hard but unfortunately not 100% accurate as in our lab) and as always to successfully record the load temperatures we use the latest OCCT application (for around 6-10 minutes) to push the processor to its limits so we can record its temperatures. After that is done we wait for about 10-20 minutes for the CPU to cool down and record the idle temperatures. This is done to allow time for the thermal conductive material to achieve the optimal performance level. Same procedure was then repeated with the Passmark BurnIn Test as a failsafe just in case the OCCT results were off. As many of you have pointed out time and again this procedure takes a lot more time than the usual peltier/thermometer tests but this way not only can we deliver real world results based on real CPUs but we can also triple check the results using a variety of programs. Last but not least the temperatures are recorded using both the latest versions of AIDA64 and RealTemp while the noise level tests are performed using a high precision ExTech HD600 Decibel Meter placed about 10-15cm above the CPU Cooler.

TEST RESULTS

CONCLUSION

   When designing a CPU cooler manufacturers always have two routes to take, either use a large heatsink or a small heatsink. Large heatsinks are usually paired with both mid/high-speed (mid/high-noise) fans since thanks to their total surface they can dissipate heat quite fast. Small heatsinks on the other hand don’t have that privilege so manufacturers almost always pair them with high-speed (and usually loud) fans to make up for that (at least partially). Be quiet! did their best to increase the total surface of the heatsink by adding a secondary smaller heatsink and that paid off since thanks to the rather large total surface for such a cooler they were able to “marry” it with a low-noise 120mm fan from their Silent Wings 2 line. This allowed them to surpass the recently released NH-L9x65 model by Noctua (if only by a very small amount) in performance without having to worry about noise (quite the opposite since it's even less audible).

   You can currently find the Shadow Rock LP CPU Cooler by be quiet! for USD69.99 inside the USA (Amazon.com) and for 39Euros inside the EU (Amazon.co.uk). Now leaving out the fact that be quiet! should obviously lower the price of the Shadow Rock LP inside the USA the EU pricing is actually right on the spot since you are getting a very good low-profile CPU Cooler for quite a bit less than what the competition asks for their solutions. Of course it’s still not even close to being as compact as the NH-L9x65 so I do believe that these two are not aimed at exactly the same audience but overall if performance and low noise is what you’re after the Shadow Rock LP is a more complete CPU cooler and that’s why it gets our Golden Award.

PROS

- Good Build Quality
- Size (75.4mm height)
- Very Good Performance
- Low Noise Levels
- Socket Compatibility
- EU Pricing (For Some)
 

CONS

- USA Pricing (For Some)
- Not As Compact As Its Immediate Competition