bequiet Shadow Rock Slim Review

Up Close:  The Cooler

At just 52mm deep without the 22mm deep 130mm silent wings fan the Shadow Rock Slim certainly justifies its name.  We’ve seen these fans before on other bequiet products and they seem to do the job pretty well, and as importantly, quietly.  at 130mm the fan is actually slightly oversize for the fin stack, overlapping it by quite a margin at the base, on the plus side, this additional airflow will help keep things cool around the CPU area.  The fan is powered by means of a 220mm long 4pin PWM connector.

The 4x6mm Heat pipes are distributed evenly within the fin stack which should make for even heat distribution.  A slight notching to the otherwise clean lines of the fin stack is, we think, intended to give the illusion of twin stacks.  Either that or bequiet think that reducing the heat disipant area will increase the coolers abilities.

The fin stack comprises of 52 aluminium elements, topped off with a thicker Aluminium top plate.  Although finished in matte Nickel, as opposed to the Black we saw when we looked at the Dark Rock Pro3, the overall effect and feel is of a high quality, high cost component.  It certainly looks like it costs a great deal more than the £33 being asked for it. 

The thick, almost billet like Aluminium top plate does a great deal to add to this feel of quality, as do the milled chrome effect heat pipe end caps, which to me resemble miniature versions of the volume and selection knobs seen on 1970s Hi-Fi separates.  We also quite like the machined simplicity of the recessed hex bolt heads and the elegant bequiet logo, but as remarked when we reviewed the Pro3, it’s a shame the logo appears on its side when the cooler is mounted in the case.

The heat pipes are securely held into the base plate, although we did note there was quite a large amount of solder bleed in evidence.  This of course won’t be seen when the cooler is mounted, but we’re not called OC3D without good reason.  Although not polished to a mirror finish the base plate has been machined and appears very flat indeed