For every flagship is a flanking vessel that rides shotgun to protect against predators--or, in this case, competitors. Along with its top-shelf Dark Rock Pro 4 CPU cooler, be quiet! sent us for review its newly designed "non-Pro" Dark Rock 4 CPU air cooler. The Dark Rocks represent the pinnacle of the be quiet! cooler line, all of them adorned with sleek industrial designs. The Dark Rock 4 slots in just below the Pro 4 in the company's pecking order.

This cooler comes topped with an anodized, brushed-aluminum cover plate. Each of the cooler's 6mm-diameter heatpipe ends pokes through the plate, covered by a black aluminum cap. A closer look at the aluminum fins themselves reveals that they are a bit thicker than the kind you will see on most heatpipe tower coolers, further emphasizing that be quiet!'s product engineering didn’t take shortcuts with this line. Once the cooler is installed, the top of the Dark Rock 4 is highly visible. Considering that the black plate is the one face that’s always going to be seen in a transparent-sided PC, we consider this a good thing.