Moving on to the underside, seven heat pipes feed each bank of heatsink. There is also a smaller heatsink just above the CPU plate providing some localised heat transfer and removing any heat spots in the process.
You better do it!
With the protective film removed you can see a smooth and shiny surface. It is not the smoothest, and there is a quality issue with a oily smudge on the corner of the plate, not very cool.
It is still polished enough to give good performance and as the coin shows, it is very reflective. There is scope for more lapping, there always is, you can see the tell tale sign as the reflection moves away from the contact point, it appears to lose focus.
If you rub thermal paste into the contact plate before mounting, this will fill a good number of scratches or imperfections that may cause performance issues.
Next, testing and an issue.
Be Quiet! Dark Rock Pro 3 CPU Cooler Review
Package - 8.5
Performance - 9
Price - 8.5
Consumer Experience - 6.5
8.1
Back in the day you needed to research your new rig so all the parts would fit together with no physical clash issues. These days there is so much out there you will pretty much get what you need and it will fit, well not anymore! Anything higher in height than low profile memory and you will have a clearance issue with the external fan, at least in out test X99 motherboard.
