CPU coolers aren’t always the most exciting PC components, but they’re often among the most striking. That’s certainly the case with Be Quiet’s new Dark Rock Pro 3 air tower, which wouldn’t look out of place inside Darth Vader’s PC.

The view from the back is even better:

This monster stacks dual radiators on top of a copper base. The cooling fins are aluminum, and there are 90 of them split between the two towers. Each tower is mounted on seven heatpipes that snake through the CPU slug at the bottom of the cooler. Nickel plating provides the dark finish, making the whole thing look particularly sinister.

A pair of fans moves air across the radiators. The one in the middle is a 135-mm unit, while the other measures 120 mm. Both have four-pin PWM connectors, fluid bearings, and "Silent Wings" blades. Be Quiet claims the tandem delivers the "best performance-to-noise ratio and the highest possible reliability." The spinners generate 13.2 dBA at 50% power and 26.1 dBA at full tilt, according to the company, and they’re said to be good for 300,000 hours of operation.

With 4.8" x 5.2" x 6.4" dimensions, the Dark Rock Pro 3 is fairly massive. At 2.6 lbs, it’s also a heavyweight. All that metal provides enough surface area to dissipate up to 250W, though. This beast should be capable of cooling even AMD’s 220W FX-9590, which is basically an overclocked Vishera chip with a 5GHz peak Turbo frequency.

Be Quiet says the Dark Rock Pro 3 will be available starting January 14. The German firm quotes an asking price of 79€, which works out to $107 USD with a straight exchange rate conversion. U.S. street prices don’t always track with exchange rates, but I wouldn’t expect the cooler to drift too far south of the $100 mark. This puppy’s predecessor, the Dark Rock Pro 2, retails for around $100 in North America. The gen-two unit actually looks very similar to the new model, but the specifications indicate that it’s a little bit heavier and slightly louder. You can see more of the Dark Rock Pro 3 in the image gallery below.