Performance
Our benchmarks begin with the 105W AMD Ryzen 9 5950X CPU operating at stock speeds. We run the popular Cinebench R23 multi-core benchmark for an extended period and chart the average CPU temperature from the last five minutes of 100 per cent load.
There's really not a lot in it, with the two budget coolers understandably slotting in at the bottom of the chart. be quiet!'s Shadow Rock Slim 2 was tested on a slightly warmer day - hence the NH-U12S redux-beating delta temperature - but the key takeaway here is that a £44 cooler is perfectly capable of sub-70°C temperatures on a 16-core chip running at full tilt.
Better yet, be quiet!'s budget proposition doesn't skimp in the acoustic department. True to form, the Shadow Rock Slim 2 is barely audible when idle and extremely quiet under load.
Upping the ante while maintaining complete stability, we raise the CPU multiplier to 45x on all cores and increase voltage to 1.25V. The modest overclock pushes CPU power up to 200W and represents a sterner challenge for coolers of this ilk.
Despite being advertised as a 160W solution, Shadow Rock Slim 2 has no trouble maintaining stability with the Ryzen 9 5950X pulling 200W. Still, 84°C is getting warm, and we're of the opinion it is only when overclocking that the premium all-in-one liquid coolers begin to make sense.
Keeping quiet is easier said than done with the overclock in place, yet as the name suggests, be quiet! coolers typically end up in the top half of the chart.