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Installation is conventional be quiet! for AMD; the conventional AM4 backplate is retained once the standard plastic fittings are removed.
My comments from previous be quiet! reviews stand true, so I will repeat them word-for-word here. In typical be quiet! fashion, you need 3 hands to position the plastic spacers and secure the metal retention clips to the unsecured AMD backplate. This is a particularly difficult process when attempting to install the cooler inside an already build chassis with limited space (such as most SFF cases where a down-draft cooler will be used).
be quiet! really needs to make the process of installing the plastic spacers, metal retention clips, and screws more straightforward.
Once the retention clips are in place and thermal paste has been applied, the cooler can be sat in position.
Screwing down the cooler is easy as there are relevant gaps in the heatsink. You also get some degree of flexibility as to mounting orientation with respect to the heatpipes.
At this point, there is still plenty of space remaining below the heatsink to install sensibly tall modules such as Corsair Vengeance LPX.
The next step is to install the bottom fan. This is another procedure that I found to be slightly trickier than it needed to be. Primarily because the fan clips are difficult to pull into place without the fan seated correctly. And it is difficult to seat the fan correctly when the two rubber damping strips are not easily visible.
Once the bottom fan is in place, clipping the top fan into position should be a straightforward process. The 4-pin PWM cables can then be connected to the included splitter as required.
The final mount is sturdy and the installed product certainly looks good.
As usual, I would like be quiet! to make the backplate and retention bracket installation procedure a little more straightforward for AMD users. One of our audience members suggested using a piece of electrical tape to stick the backplate in position, and this seems like a reasonable solution.
I also found the bottom fan securing procedure to be a little complicated, but this is not out of the ordinary for coolers with fans in non-standard positions or orientations. So, I will certainly cut be quiet! some slack here, especially when the final mount – onto those rubber noise damping strips – feels good.
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