Be Quiet Pure Rock 2
Affordable and quiet air cooling.
Don’t forget air cooling! These days there’s a lot of emphasis on closed loop water coolers but in many use cases these are overkill both in terms of unnecessary complexity and expense. The Be Quiet Pure Rock 2 is a costoptimised single tower cooler that can dissipate up to 150W, making it a capable option for all but the highest-end mainstream 2020 processors.
Be Quiet! is a German manufacturer, and as the name suggests, it offers products including cases, coolers and power supplies designed with an emphasis on low noise levels. Low noise optimisation and marketing is perhaps one of those things that has retreated a little in recent times with the trend towards the need to cool high TDP processors, the emphasis on RGB bling and the explosion of more complex AIO cooling. It’s nice to have coolers aimed at users who want to enjoy, but not see or hear their PC. The Pure Rock 2 is one such cooler. In a darkened case, it’s all but invisible. Having said that, it is an attractive cooler with its black fins and fan. It will appeal to those users who are turned off by RGB light shows that are common among 2020 fans and coolers.
The bundled Pure Wings 2 fan is a 120mm PWM model that really is silent in its operation. It does spin up and become audible under full load but at no time was it even remotely intrusive. In fact it’s one of the quietest fans we’ve ever heard.
Installation is straightforward, being similar to other air coolers. It can be oriented in both directions depending on your case design. We weren’t big fans of the fan installation with the wire retention clips requiring a bit of fiddling to get installed correctly. We ended up denting a few of the cooler’s fins before getting it right. It’s just a niggle though, as once it’s done, it’s done.
We tested the Pure Rock 2 with an AMD 3900X twelve-core CPU. We chose it because it’s a good match for the 150W TDP rating of the cooler, whereas something like a 10900K is a step beyond it. Remember this is not some $250 plus cooler, but a $69 one. You can’t expect too much. Under full load we saw a peak temperature of 75c during loops of Cinebench. Not bad for an affordable air cooler tasked with cooling a 24-thread load! This is about the limit of the cooler though. If you’re interested in overclocking or running 10th Generation Intel 8 or 10-core CPUs we’d go for something designed with a little more capacity. A 65W CPU will be right at home when paired with a Pure Rock 2.
We’re very pleased with the Be Quiet Pure Rock 2. It’s not designed to be an overclocker’s dream cooler but at its affordable price, it’s highly recommended and a good step up from bundled coolers. Just make sure you pair it with an appropriate CPU. If paired with a 65W Intel or AMD CPU, we’re positive that this is a cooler that’s perfect for the job. Unseen and unheard. CHRIS SZEWCZYK
The Be Quiet Pure Rock 2 is an affordable and effective cooler that really is quiet.
“It’s nice to have coolers aimed at users who want to enjoy, but not see or hear their PC”