Myself being a skeptical and critical reviewer I have start off  with a small word on these Silent Loop AIO series. Be Quiet has teamed up with another German watercooling manufacturer, known by the name Alphacool. The latter has been producing all sorts of water cooling products over the years; their range goes from processor to high end full block graphic cards, in-house designed radiators, to pumps and even tubing. Alphacool has developed AIO products in the past for Cooler Master and Fractal Design, though the co-op with Cooler Master wasn't that successful. The pump unit was way too noisy especially with the early revisions of these Cooler Master Eisberg series. Powerful is one thing, silent operation is another side of the story. The Fractal Design AIO Kelvin series was a better step in the right direction: good cooling performance at an acceptable noise level, even while our two Kelvin review samples are still up and running, we heard rumors about reliability issues, so fingers crossed that these brand new Be Quiet Silent loop series can live up to the expectations and maintain reliable too.

 

 

As mentioned in the introduction, Be Quiet has decided on including three models in their brand new AIO lineup. The Silent Loop 120 with a thick 45mm copper radiator and a push and pull fan configuration. The 240 and 280 models also feature a copper radiator but this time the thickness is limited to 30mm, this to achieve maximum case compatibility. All three models are equipped with two Be Quiet Pure Wings 2 PWM fans.

Due to the usage of a full copper radiator there is no risk of corrosion or oxidation due to the usage of different alloys in the closed loop; secondly the heat dissipation of copper is also a tad better than the cheaper aluminum variants.

Be Quiet never goes cheap on packaging: they really want to outline that the hardware you buy from them is top notch, not just what is on the inside counts. All or nothing is their mindset, could you blame them?

Superior, premium are just a few of them word catchers on the box, they really mean business.

 

Time to have a closer look on what is actually included...

 

 

 

 

Biggest novelty must be the reverse-flow pump design in Be Quiet's first AIO line-up: to reduce vibrations and noise to the max the fluid flow has been inverted. Instead of pushing the water onto the cold plate, the fluid flow is directed from the outer cavity, going upwards over the cold plate and the warmer fluid exists through a second level. The drawing below tells more than a thousand words ever could do.

 

 

 

Since these Silent Loops are expandable, which is a big plus over the real closed solutions from e.g. Corsair and Antec, a refill port is a must.  The new pump design is really small in design, with the hoses coming out of the top off the pump unit. Instead off using swiveling versions like the ones of the Kelvin version (pictured on the left) less parts prone to fail, reduced cost and less socket interference, win win in my book.  On top of that the used tubing is so flexible that the strain on the pump is minimized and tubing bending is no problem either thanks to the coil springs.

 

 

The cold plate is nickel plated making it a bit more scratch resistant. Below are the non nickel plated ones from the Cooler Master Eisberg on the left and the Kelvin S series on the right. The resemblance seems pretty clear :) All have the same origin at the Alphacool R&D team.

 

 

Let us take a look at the radiator, fans and accessories on the next page.

The Be Quiet Silent Loop AIO radiators are all full blown copper ones, no coated aluminum heat dissipation here, top notch material or bust. Be Quiet can warrant maximum heat transfer this way. The Silent Loop 120 radiator is 45mm thick, while both the 240 and 280 radiators are just 30mm thick. Thicker versions would negatively affect the enclosure compatibility, so a wise move by Be Quiet. Watercooling purists will recognize the Alphacool nexXxos radiator for sure. Since this radiator is made out of copper , the weight of the radiator by itself is already over 1.3KG.

 

 

We already mentioned this loop is ugradeable? Sure we did and thus we find them typical Alphacool fittings on the pump and radiator. One can change tubing, fluids, maybe even add an extra waterblock, though consider the performance of your little pump before adding extra loops...

 

 

Be Quiet includes two 120 or 140 beefed up PWM versions of their renown Pure Wings 2. We are mentioning beefed up as the 120mm PWM versions included with our Silent Loop 240 have a maximum rotational speed of 2000RPM; a Standard Be Quiet version is limited at a mere 1500RPM. This means in our case more airflow and a higher static pressure, but also resulting in more noise. The original Pure Wings are rated for less than 20dBA. these are rated up to +/- 37dBA. Both fans are hooked up to the motherboard via a splitter, thus fan adjustment has to be achieved via the motherboard BIOS or software. Maybe not a bad idea as many people are getting tired of buggy software to control the fans; maybe a minor point of criticism where Be Quiet could miss out. All hardware is getting the RGB treatment, in fact the last Computex was more about add RGB to existing hardware than to develop new material. Seems more is better, not my personal taste as I rather prefer a clean, elegant and sleek design. 

No surprises with the mounting mechanism, as it is pretty identical to the Kelvin series: why change something that is easy to install and which is build to last? The Be Quiet Silent Loop series are compatible with the following platforms:

• Intel: LGA775/ 1150/ 1151/ 1155/ 1156/ 1366/ 2011(-3)
• AMD: AM2(+)/ AM3(+)/ FM1/ FM2(+)

Installation is a simple and effective. Just pick the screws compatible with our socket, position the tension spring, the washer and secure it to the mounting plate via the nut. Slide the two mounting plates onto the pump unit and just secure it firmly. All Intel sockets below LGA 2011 need to use the plastic back plate, AMD users need to use the stock motherboard back plate.

 

 

Classy touch, the double adhesive on the Intel Backplate, to secure it firmly to the motherboard. Pretty handy if you still own one of them cases without a big cutout behind the motherboard.

 

 

Also included is a thermal paste syringe with some good Be Quiet paste. This one can be easily spread out over the processor's heatspreader. We followed the detailed installation guide and applied the thermal paste as foreseen. Now there is enough paste to do a few re-mounts, even for our large LGA2011 heatspreader.

 

 

You can see there's pretty awesome contact between the heat spreader of the processor and the cooling plate, note the fluidity of the thermal paste. This shot was taken after the first stress test session which lasted approximately two hours.

 

 

 

Before continuing with the temperature results a brief word on the MadShrimps testbed which comprises of the following parts:

• ASUS Rampage IV Black Edition X79 motherboard
• Intel i7-3960X stock and OC'ed at 4500MHz 1.35Vcore
• Corsair Dominator 16GB 2666C10
• Western Digital 1TB Green Caviar HDD
• ASUS R280X graphics card
• Seasonic Snow Silent 750W
• SilentiumPc Aquarius X90 case
• Ambient air temperature is 20°C

 

Since there is no software included with the Silent Loop, we have to adjust the Fan header's power settings via either the Bios or the ASUS AI Suite. If we ran the PWM AUTO profile the RPM of the fans at Idle was around 865 RPM, picking up rapidly to full blast when the processor was loaded with the Prime95 stability test benchmark. Therefore we include three readouts in this article when we tested the Overclocked setup:

• Silent Loop with the fans at full speed +/- 2000 RPM (1)
  
• Silent Loop with auto adjusted fixed fan speed at 70%: +/-1525 RPM (2) (barely audible)
• Silent Loop with adjusted fan speed at 50%: +/- 1125RPM (3) (inaudible)

However before we start off with the heavy pounding, a quick test at stock speeds of the hexacore i7-3960X. Keep in mind that on the ASUS Rampage IV Black Edition motherboard,  the Intel i7-3960X is not running according the stock Intel Turbo, but runs at 3900MHz on all the cores when being loaded.

 

 

Without a surprise the Be Quiet Silent Loop goes straight head to head with the best of the pack. For the stock CPU tests we left the two fans hooked up to the CPU PWM and observed no rpm higher than 1500rpm in the AIDA64 software, meaning the Silent Loop 240 has no issue cooling down our little hexacore 3960X monster and still has room for a higher OC. This while remaining barely audible, which is great for daily gaming usage.

 

Time to let the i7-3960X rip at 4500MHz through the Mersenne Prime95 benchmark. The included air coolers have a hard time keeping the temperatures of the processor near the 80°C mark. Depending on the fan profile chosen most AIO's are near the 72-75°C when the Silent or Quiet profile is selected. At Idle we don't observe much between the different fan profiles, the Be Quiet Silent Loop does a great job. We didn't expect anything else from a copper radiator did we?

 

 

 

Even with the 3960X overclocked to 4500MHz the Be Quiet remains well in control of the six cores crunching at Prime95. Even with the copper radiator it can't match the performance of the bigger 280 powerhouses from Cooler Master and Corsair, but it has to be stated the former generate a lot more noise. There's a 6°C difference between the fans at 1100rpm or running flat out at 2000rpm. For the tweakers and benchers, these might be vital though for a daily gaming or encoding rig it is negligible. Looking at the noise measurement we can spot that the Pure Wings 2 are barely audible at 1500rpm and below, so they truly live up to the name of Be Quiet, providing a good mixture of good cooling performance yet at a balanced noise level. Them extra 2-3°C better cooling performance isn't worth the extra 8dBA in my book. Coolness assured at quiet sound levels, that is what these Silent Loop AIOs are all about !

 

 

The Be Quet Silent Loop 240 has impressed me! I've seen great cooling performance before with other 240  AIOs. However besides the Kelvin Series, most of them were quite noisy if one tried to max out their performance, Meaning most of them perform only at their best if combined with high speed, thus noisy fans.

Performance wise the Silent Loop 240 might not the best, but it is without any doubt a great and powerful combo. Good cooling potential in perfect harmony with the generated noise. In fact this is what most Do It Yourself water cooling setups are really all about: great cooling and this at the lowest noise level possible.

This brings us straight to the next point: the Silent Loop is considered as upgradeable. One has the chance to change tubing, cooling fluid, add maybe a graphics card water block, etc. For the latter a small warning though. One has to take into account the small reverse-flow pump, which  might be the limiting factor. The radiator is ready for the task, tubing is fine too, but the pump might not be able to handle an extra waterblock. If ever you want to try it out, I would advise to stay well clear of any high restrictive block.

 

 

Installation is a breeze, thanks to the included manual and idem ditto instructions.  The amount of parts is quite limited thus assembly is simple and straightforward. Nothing more and certainly nothing less, it is even great that there are some spare screws included.

While some might not like the lack of any possible software control of the pump speed or fans. Modern motherboards are well equipped with Fan profiles or other settings to adjust the fan speed according the user's needs. For optimal performance jJust verify the pump unit is working at the rated +2100rpm.

The Be Quiet Silent Loop 240 is a great product, the build quality is high, the installation is child's play and the performance is on par too. The noise level is way more than acceptable; at a mere 1500rpm it is hard to judge if your setup is switched on or off. The pump remains at all costs at near silent operation, so the reverse-flow tech works! In fact it can be stated that the noise level is similar to a good mainstream DIY kit.

The prices are 109.9 Euros for the 120 model, 129.9 for the tested 240 version and 149.9 for the 280 model. While this is a steep price tag it might put off some future users. Nevertheless one just has to take into account the extra cost of the full copper radiator. Which offers great cooling performance and reduces the risk of fluid problems. The included Pure Wings 2 PWM fans are great in performance at a very acceptable noise level. The fill port allows you to maintain the fluid level even after years of usage. Add to that the German engineering, featuring a high build quality, plus Bequiet backs you with a 3 year warranty.

Madshrimps happily awards the novelty award to the Be Quiet Silent Loop 240, mainly due to the super silent reverse-flow pump. This Silent Loop 240 is a great product, offering good cooling performance at very low noise level.

 

PROS:

• Easy installlation
• Great cooling versus noise ratio
• Copper radiator
• Silent fan ops at 1500rpm
• Sleek design and build quality
• 3 year warranty
  

 

CONS:

• No fluid for refill included
• Pricing a bit to steep to be competitive

 

 

We would like to thank Xander from Technik.PR for the Be Quiet sample. Kuddos sir appreciated!!