A full review of the be quiet! Pure Rock LP cooler is difficult to conduct for one important reason: it’s nearly impossible to find in our country—at least officially. At the time I began testing it, I wasn’t yet sure about the future of this form factor. This cooler is designed for SFF cases and, overall, for tiny builds.
Technical specifications
- TDP: 100W
- Total weight: 360 g
- Compatible with Intel 1700 / 1200 / 1150 / 1151 / 1155 sockets
- Compatible with sockets: AMD AM5 / AM4
- Noise level at 50/75/100% PWM: 13.3/23.8/30.6 dBA
- Dimensions: 92×92×30 mm
- Plate material: aluminum
- Base material: copper
- Contact plate surface: CNC machining
- Number of heat tubes: 3 by 6 mm
- Fan model: BQ QF-9215-MR-PWM
- Fan dimensions (mm): 92×92×15 mm
- Fan speed: up to 2500 RPM
- Airflow at 100% PWM / 12V (CFM / m3/h) 33.0 / 56.1
- Air pressure at 100% PWM: 1.79 mm/H2O
- Bearing technology: threaded
- Motor technology: 4-axis
- Rated DC voltage: 12 В
- Current at rated voltage: 0,13 А
- Safe current level: 0,35 А
- Power consumption: 4.2 W
- Connector: 4-pin PWM
- Cable length: 260 mm
- Operating time: 80,000 hours at 25°C
Video review of be quiet! Pure Rock LP
A bit about SFF
Which, in itself, is quite interesting, wouldn’t you agree? A few years ago, there was a lot of hype around this—popularity surged, and well-known YouTubers were putting out reviews. Then, enthusiasm seemed to die down a bit, as both processors and graphics cards started consuming significantly more POWER, and thus required much better COOLING.
And as you know, SFF (Small Form Factor) systems face two major constraints: the size of the power supply unit and the size of the cooler.
Additionally, the cost of components for mini-builds has always been high. For instance, producing small-sized motherboards is more expensive than larger ones because the demand is lower, and different technologies are needed. The layout has to be more precise—there’s less space to work with, and you can only really cut back on PCIe slots. That’s why it’s often easier to find a flagship motherboard for SFF than a budget one.
And when it comes to graphics cards, that’s a whole other story. You essentially have two options: either something budget-friendly, sometimes even without additional power connectors (the most powerful card without a 6+2 pin connector being the RTX 3050 6GB), or something significantly more powerful with custom liquid cooling—which will greatly increase the cost. Then there’s the power supply. For instance, be quiet!’s SFX L 600W model costs around 7,000 UAH, and it doesn’t even fit in all cases.
Market position
Cooler be quiet! The premium price is also partly related to the Pure Rock LP – it even unofficially costs $60. Which may not seem like much. But this is, sorry, a 100W cooler with heat dissipation.
In other words, the maximum it could handle just a few years ago were lower-tier Core i5s and Ryzen processors without the X designation.
Briefly about the cooler
It’s tiny, standing at just 45 mm tall. For comparison, my G.Skill Trident Z5 is 42 mm tall. The cooler’s fan is the BQ QF-9215-MR-PWM, meaning it’s 92 mm wide, 15 mm tall, and supports PWM speed control.
The fan speed reaches up to 2500 RPM, with an airflow of up to 33 m³/h.
The motor is 4-pole, and the bearing is of the screw thread type, not hydrodynamic. As a result, the lifespan is not 300,000 hours like in 120 mm flagship models, but only 80,000 hours. The fan is NOT quiet—it’s loud, but that’s to be expected. You shouldn’t anticipate silence from 92 mm models.
In terms of efficiency, it offers 100W of heat dissipation. As I understand it, this means that at maximum fan speed, the be quiet! Pure Rock LP can cool a processor that consumes up to 100W of power.
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Anything beyond that will lead to overheating and throttling. This is one of the reasons I decided to review the Pure Rock LP. New AMD Ryzen processors, I remind you, consume 40% less power than their predecessors right out of the box, without sacrificing performance. Yes, I know it would be more logical to enable PBO (Precision Boost Overdrive) by default to achieve the promised 20% performance boost—assuming, of course, you have the updated version of Windows.
However, I have always believed that energy efficiency is more important. It puts less strain on the power supply, the cooler, and the surrounding components, allowing for the selection of a cheaper case. Yes, I may be going against the industry, and even AMD is against this. But I share what I believe, and that’s all there is to it.
Fasteners
The biggest issue I have with the be quiet! Pure Rock LP is the need to remove the base rear AM5 plate to install the cooler. This isn’t a problem for gaming PCs, for instance, which you won’t be reassembling for 5-6 years.
However, for me, using this cooler on a test bench poses a significant problem. To replace it with, say, liquid cooling, I would need to remove the motherboard. Doing this on the Gorilla Custom X stand is considerably more challenging than it should be. But that’s a bit of a spoiler.
Assembly Recommendations
If you’ve decided to build a PC in SFF format, I have three recommendations for you. First, don’t chase flagship power. Yes, it’s theoretically possible to fit an RTX 4090 and a Core i9-14900K into an SFF setup. However, the cost of such a build will be significantly higher than a standard setup with those components. We’re talking over $2000 just for these two parts.
Secondly, maintaining such a system will be an absurdly challenging task. Even the systems built by Linus or those assembled by the best experts in the field are so packed with fans, cables, and liquid cooling tubes that reaching, for example, the cooler requires completely dismantling the entire setup.
Read also: AMD Ryzen 5 7600 Processor Review: Is It Enough?
Therefore, my second recommendation is that even if you’re building with well-chosen components for Full HD gaming and moderate noise levels, don’t stick with the stock thermal paste on the coolers. The graphics card can be overlooked, but for the processor, you should use something better than the stock paste that comes with the be quiet! Pure Rock LP. I can’t say anything bad about be quiet!’s included paste; I’ll just say that custom options are always superior.
In fact, right at the time I was shooting this video, I received a bunch of goodies from Thermal Hero. They’re also Germans but are completely focused on thermal pastes. They cover industrial, commercial, consumer-grade, and even liquid metal options—not just pastes.
I was particularly intrigued by the Gamma thermal pads with phase change. They’re just as impressive as the premium thermal pastes from Thermal Hero, but they don’t dry out over time—similar to liquid metal—so system maintenance will be required much less frequently. Plus, the risk is minimal. Unlike pastes, these pads are reusable. I plan to use one of these pads in my upcoming PC build for S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2, and I’ll share more about that separately.
And my third recommendation is, if you can’t build an SFF case on your own, consider asking professionals for help. This could be any integrator that specializes in premium builds. On one hand, a premium integrator will do it exactly how you need it, without any rookie mistakes, and so on. On the other hand, I’m sure many of you enjoy building PCs as a challenge to yourselves.
The SFF format itself isn’t particularly groundbreaking or shocking. If you have friends who are PC building enthusiasts and understand the difference between AMD Ryzen and AMD Ryzen X3D, then a tiny build will undoubtedly impress them. However, 99% of people, especially now, just want to play. They want to relax, and with alarms going off outside, their PC needs to be quiet. This is yet another reason why I was hesitant to review the be quiet! Pure Rock LP.
Conclusions
In conclusion, no matter how much I want to popularize the SFF format among the masses, I can’t eliminate the reasons for its lack of popularity. PC builds with the be quiet! Pure Rock LP will be great for a specific demographic that is willing to assemble a PC with mid-range components—without focusing on maximizing FPS—while wanting a compact system that minimizes fan noise. Moreover, this demographic is keen on doing as much of the assembly themselves as possible.
If you belong to this segment of the population and prioritize compactness above all, the be quiet! Pure Rock LP will be an excellent choice for you. This cooler is compact, looks great, and delivers impressive performance for its size. So yes, I recommend it!
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Hey! I’ve got a SFF. It’s one of the Dell Optiplex that I got before they became a “thing”. Swapped out the CPU FAN with an Arctic 92mm. No noise issue there. Your fan is noisy because 15mm fans are noisier than the thicker variants.
Replaced an ancient Intel processor with a 28nm four core 3,2 GHz throttled down down to 2.9 GHz.
Initially I put in an inexpensive Radeon 550 low profile, but that card is just noisy and the fans break, so instead got a single slot Radeon 6400.. Works like a charm! The caveat is you may have to leave the case open most of the time, but with the quiet operation overall, it’s not a problem at all.. You can play Fallout 4, NBA 2k, Civ 6 on high no issues.
The lovely thing about SFF is each time the fab process gets smaller in video cards, you can upgrade to better stuff with no increase in power or noise. The other is , you can pack it in your suitcase and take it with you on a flight to anywhere, while not requiring a $2000 laptop.
Overall, It’s a compromise, yes, A meditation to not have all the best power that you don’t need. In my view, maintenance is minimal since component selection is shrunk.
Cheers
The overall problem with SFF is the fact, that each time You upgrade fab – games demand more. Screens can show more frames. And the small VGAs are not always primo stuff.
So, either You are baller with more money than even a whale PC buyer – and You can buy ultra-expensive water-coolable flagships, or You play low settings in 60 FPS. Which is fine by me personally – but to each it’s own.
The only thing I will disagree – do not compare laptops with SFFs in terms of portability. Unless Your SFF can be as thick as a gaming laptop, WITH screen, and unless it can be powered via 65W USB-C (which even gaming laptops can do) – it’s not the same thing.
I’ve bought my current ROG Scar 16 with 16GB 3080 for $1500, and I will never chose PC over it. Because of portability. I can run into the shelter either with SFF without screen or power unit, or! – with my laptop, and with my camera, 2 lenses, 2 powerbanks and will have a free space for food.
Cheers to You to!