The German cooler brand be quiet! recently unveiled the third generation of the Shadow Rock Tower cooler – we took a closer look at the CPU cooler.
Unlike its predecessors, the Shadow Rock 3 is not symmetrical. The asymmetrical design is said to have improved compatibility with high memory modules. The fan has also been improved, a Shadow Wings 2 in the high-speed version is now included. But there are also some shadow sides which the new version brings along.
For example, the number of cooling fins has been reduced from 51 to 30, and the entire heat sink has also become more compact. The resulting reduced weight should relieve the mainboard – is that really necessary? We doubt it. For us it sounds more like economy measures, just like the modified heatpipes: on Shadow Rock 2 there were four 8mm heatpipes, on Shadow Rock 3 there are five 6mm heatpipes. In addition, be quiet! saves on the copper base plate and now uses direct touch.
All in all, the „improvements“ sound rather...
