be quiet! Pure Rock Slim 2

Introduction

The cooler experts from be quiet! have presented an update of their popular Pure Rock Slim. With the Pure Rock Slim 2, the company realizes extensive improvements in almost every discipline. The company's low-budget cooler always scored with a flat, slim design. Now the compact cooler is supposed to get a bit bigger. The reason is the revised lamella tower. Thanks to this upgrade, however, the tower cooler should also be able to cope with higher TDP. Needless to say, the Pure Rock Slim 2 is not designed for high-performance, high-end systems. Although the TDP number increases by 10 watts to a total of 130 watts in the new generation, this should still not be enough for potent gaming computers. The manufacturer itself says that the tower cooler is primarily suitable for "compact multimedia systems". Due to the flat dimensions, it is probably ideal for such PCs.

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The cooler is compatible with Intel LGA1156, LGA1155, LGA1151, LGA1150, LGA1200, and AMD AM4, AM3, AM3+ sockets.

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Packaging & Contents

If you have ever owned a product from be quiet!, then the Pure Rock Slim?s 2 packaging will no-doubt look familiar to you. Look at the front of the box and you will find an image of the cooler itself, the Pure Rock Slim 2 name, and the phrase "Build for Compact Cooling". The top prominently features the Pure Rock Slim 2 product name, its 130W TDP rating, and the phrase "Quiet and Compact Cooling" this time makes another appearance.

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The back goes over the features.

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Short paragraph on the left side of the box mention the CPU cooler's features in various languages. There is a QR code, which, when scanned, takes you directly to the product page of the Pure Rock Slim 2.

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On the right side of the box, you are given some technical specification on the cooler itself.

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Upon opening the box, users will be greeted by folded cardboard insert that keep the cooler and fan in place, with some empty space around both for protection, which is a welcome sight. While there is no foam to protect the sides, there is some room rather than having the cooler or fan press right up against the cardboard sides. The heatsink and the fan are placed inside the box in a small plastic tray and are separated from each other by a thin layer of foam. be quiet!'s Pure Rock Slim 2 has all the bits and pieces you will need to install it into your system. The heatsink and fan are of excellent quality, but aside from the bare necessities, the kit is rather spartan. There is a Set of fan clips, a manual and some warranty info paper.

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The cooler uses the basic Intel mounting clips you often find on stock coolers, which aren't the most durable, but when it comes to a quick and easy installation, they simply cannot be beaten. Just pop it over the CPU and push the clips down, simple. Don't worry AMD users, cause AMD mounts come pre-installed and you're good to go. The fact that there are no extras does not surprise considering the cooler's 22.80 Euros price tag.

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A Closer Look

The dimension of the heat sink is 82x97x135mm (DxWxH) and weight is 385g with the fan. A 92 mm fan provides the corresponding ventilation. Nothing really new here, but the quality is very good for the price, so here's to hoping performance lives up to expectations.

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The heatsink comprises 44 aluminum fins. The fins, which run along the processor, are now arranged asymmetrically. This doesn't have any optical reasons, but rather practical ones. After all, the memory banks shouldn't be overbuilt thanks to the asymmetry. Thus, modules with higher heat sinks can now be used.

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Another difference concerns the lower fin levels. While the first generation of the Pure Rock Slim still relied on a recess, this is omitted in the new edition. In the course of this, the height grows from 125 mm before to 135 mm now. There are three U-shaped heat pipes that pass through the block and tower, which is a lot of heat pipe for a cooler of this size.

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The top plate has a solid aluminum top plate with be quiet!'s logo in black. The top plate has also aluminum caps over the heat pipes, giving it a premium look and feel.

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There is a new and optimized mounting bracket for AMD AM4. Also there is an aluminum heat sink on the top of the base of the cooler. The heatpipes are, as is typically the case in single-tower designs, arrayed in a U-shape. To ensure that the heat reaches the aluminium fins of the Pure Rock Slim 2 from the processor as quickly and efficiently as possible, be quiet! uses three heat pipes with a diameter of 6 millimeters each.

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As is typical for be quiet!, the generation change of the Pure Rock Slime 2 is also accompanied by the switch to Direct Touch. The three heatpipes are affected by this. They are no longer embedded in a copper plate in the Pure Rock Slim 2. Instead, they lie directly on the CPU's heat spreader. The cooler's base is far from a mirrored finish and has visible machining marks. Thermal paste isn't included in the box, but there is already a layer pre-applied to the block, meaning you can take it out of the box and it's ready to use, although that does mean you'll need to buy more should you with to remount it in the future. The base has a dimension of 39x36mm.

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The cooler comes bundled with this cute little Pure Wings 2 92mm fan, but don?t be fooled, this isn't some cheap little fan, this is one of be quiet!'s own designs, and part of their very popular and super quiet Silent Wings 2 series, so we're expecting great things from it despite its size. It comes fitted with a 4-pin PWM header, all black cables and it looks pretty smart too. No LEDs and no fancy colored rings, this is just a 120 mm fan of solid quality.

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Around the back, you can see that it operates up to 2000RPM, although it's unlikely you'll need to push it that hard, unless you're trying to OC on a tiny cooler, which isn't usually advised. The fan is using a 4-pole motor with Rifle bearings rated for 80,000 hours @ 25C.

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Installation Process

The Pure Rock Slim 2 is mounted on the matching Intel sockets with the help of push pins. Those who want to mount the cooler on AMD motherboards, on the other hand, have to use existing mounting bracket. It uses those simple push-click Intel stock cooler clips, so just put it over the motherboard and push them down to fit the cooler, it takes literally a few seconds. Thanks to the pre-applied paste, you don't need to worry about that either.

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The fan mounts using the two included clips, and that also only takes a few seconds to do. You can mount the fan on either side of the cooler as you see fit, just make sure you get the airflow going in the right direction for your system. We're using an open air test bench, so it's not important here. Due to the cooler's compact design, the installation of RAM modules with protruding heatsinks is possible without any problems. The Pure Rock Slim 2 is a good-looking cooler. Its simple black and silver design will go well with just about any system. The heatsink can even take a second fan- however, fan clips for such a setup were not included.

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Test System & Methology

Test System:

Cpu:Intel Core i7-6700K@Stock.
Motherboard:Gigabyte G1.Sniper Z170
Memory:16Gb Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4 2666Mhz
Graphics Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti 11GB SC2
Power Supply: EVGA SuperNova 1200 P2
Storage Drive: 3TB Seagate Barracuda
Boot Drive: SSD 850 PRO 2.5" SATA III 2TB
Chassis: Dimastech Bench Table Easy V2.5
Windows 10 64-bit


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Software:

Speedfan
CPUID HW Monitor 1.23
CPUID CPU-Z 1.65
Prime 95

I am testing the performance as follows:

Ambient temperatures are kept at 23C throughout my tests.
The CPU Fan is set to 100% to eliminate inconsistencies as a result of PWM control.
Idle temperatures are obtained after booting the PC and idling on the desktop for 30 minutes.
Load temperatures are obtained after running Prime 95′s for 30 minutes.



Performance

be quiet!'s Pure Rock Slim 2 did reasonable well at stock. While it did not top the charts, it did meet expectations. This isn't the biggest cooler in the world, in fact, it's pretty tiny, so to expect big performance would be ambitious, to say the least. However, given that it kept the CPU at just +70c at load is very impressive. This is not an overclocking CPU cooler, but again it beat out some compact and affordable solutions.

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This is where be quiet! show their worth. Pushing the heat did cause the fan to spin up, in fact, it topped out at 2000RPM quite quickly while at full load. However, even at full speed, this fan was quieter than we expected given its compact size, and only reached 44dBA.

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Final Thoughts

be quiet! are the creators of many of the best-performing CPU air coolers on the market today, not only do they deliver high-end cooling performance that makes them suitable for overclocking, but also some of the quietest performance you'll find. Now it looks like they've cornered the market for budget-friendly coolers too. be quiet!'s Pure Rock Slim 2 is a good entry level cooler for the budget market. Cooling performance for a single-tower, single-fan design is solid, but nothing mind blowing. Its exceptionally low noise levels make it a good option for those who value quiet computing. It doesn't hurt that the build quality is good as well, with solid fins and even and a high quality fan. The aluminum top plate and heatpipe caps further improve the cooler's quality feel due to be quiet!'s attention to detail. Users looking to gain some extra performance can also mount a second fan but the anti-vibration fan clips to do so are not included. We found that there were no compatibility issues and the installation was a breeze. It is good for a normal build and won't skin your knuckles trying to fit it either. There isn't any tube of thermal paste in box, only pre-applied.

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Thanks to its small dimensions the cooler is especially suitable for cases with limited space, while compatibility with AMD sockets has been improved over its predecessor. be quiet! is taking no chances with the Pure Rock Slim 2, giving it a fantastic MSRP of just 22.80 Euros. That makes it cheaper than all its main competitors. The Pure Rock Slim 2 is a bargain for those who have a non-overclocking CPU, or only using mild-OC. If you are looking for low noise levels and better-than-stock performance, be quiet!'s Pure Rock Slim 2 is a solid offering that doesn't break the bank.

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