German cases and cooling specialist be quiet! has launched a new low profile (LP) cooler which is claimed to tame up to a 100W CPU. That’s enough for a vast swathe of mainstream users, whether they use their PC for multimedia, content creation or even gaming. Thanks to its diminutive dimensions, the new be quiet! Pure Rock LP is described as the cooler of choice for ultra-compact Mini-ITX builds, and its headlining quality is that it is just 45 mm tall.
The dimensions of the cooler are 92 (W) x 92 (D) x 45 (H) mm. You will have probably deduced that it uses a 92 mm diameter fan (which is 15 mm thick). Larger fans are usually preferable in PC air cooling, and while 100 mm or even 120 mm fans are welcome, 92 mm fans aren’t unusual in compact coolers. The worry would be that the smaller fan will have to spin faster to push through the necessary cooling air flow, and thus be noisier. Later you can check the comparison table and ponder over such details.
With the fan being 15 mm thick, that leaves this be quiet! design with a 30 mm heatsink depth. Be quiet! appears to use this remaining depth to its maximum extent with the cuboid base completely surrounding the processor. Inside the black brushed aluminum finned heatsink are a trio of “high-performance 6mm heat pipes.” The whole product weighs in at 358 grams.
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We previously mentioned that be quiet! uses a 92mm fan, and this fan is powered / controlled with a 4-pin PWM connector. The maximum rotation speed is 2,500 rpm, and at this speed the cooler will make about 30.6 dB of noise, according to be quiet!’s figures. Noise levels of 30dB are classed by the US CDC as “whisper quiet.” To put that into some further perspective, check out the table below, comparing the Pure Rock LP with a Noctua LP design, as well as the larger but more premium / powerful LP designs from be quiet!’s Shadow Rock and Dark Rock series.
|
Cooler / dissipation |
Height (mm) |
Fan diameter (mm) |
50% PWM (dB) |
100% PWM (dB) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Be quiet! Pure Rock LP / 100W |
45 |
92 |
13.3 |
30.6 |
|
Noctua NH-L9 / 95W |
37 |
92 |
— |
23.6 |
|
Be quiet! Shadow Rock LP / 130W |
75 |
120 |
14.8 |
25.5 |
|
Be quiet! Dark Rock TF2 / 230W |
134 |
135 |
11.1 |
27.1 |
Another important factor in buying a CPU air cooler is undoubtedly the price. Be quiet! says that the new Pure Rock LP will be available for an MSRP of $49.90 / €49.90 / £46.99, starting December 13. That sounds reasonable, and is better than the Noctua LP competitor in the table in versions for modern Intel and AMD platforms, which are $56 and $58, respectively at the time of writing via Newegg (opens in new tab).
If you are currently in the market for an air or AiO cooler, and not so restricted for space that you must choose a low profile fan design, please take a look at our recently updated Best CPU Coolers 2022 featuring designs from Arctic, Deepcool, Noctua, Zalman and more.
