be quiet! Silent Loop 2 AIO Cooler Review

Installation

Starting with the instruction manual, because we always feel this is a vitally important component of any AIO cooler, what be quiet! provides you with is both excellent in terms of quality and the information presented. They have clearly put a lot of time and effort into making sure the installation experience is as stress free as possible.

That doesn’t, however, mean to say that it’s perfect. For example, in the diagram below where you install your cross mounting bars, the diagram is exceptionally unclear as to which way around they go. Now, as I’m experienced in coolers, I already had a pretty good hunch, I will, however, be more than a little surprised if some inexperienced hands don’t get this wrong. Albeit, it is an error that will quickly be identified when it comes to fitting the pump head.

Mounting

In something of a full disclosure, we should mention that be quiet! coolers do have something of a reputation among eTeknix staff. Put simply, they are well known for often being more complicated when compared to alternative manufacturers. – Fortunately though, while the Silent Loop 2 isn’t overly difficult, there are certainly some aspects that are problematic.

One such gripe is the packaging in which you are provided the mounting parts. These come in completely sealed packets and, if you hadn’t guessed by now, can’t be resealed once opened. Given that this cooler does incorporate some exceptionally small and vital components, some great care is necessary to ensure that you don’t accidentally drop or lose any. And no, there are no spares provided! – If you lose something, you might not be able to fit your cooler! Well, not 100% correctly at least!

Fortunately though, as long as you’re careful, the installation process isn’t overly challenging and, once fitted, you are certainly rewarded with a nice looking AIO!

Overall Thoughts

From out of the box and onto our test bench, the be quiet! Silent Loop 2 took us roughly 15-minutes to install which, by 240mm AIO standards, is about the usual amount of time. Most of the time regarding the installation was largely occupied by fitting the exceptionally fiddly screws and similar components which, on the whole, would make us politely suggest that this cooler is not well suited to the more pudgy fingered variety of consumer.

Another factor of note was that while you are provided with a manual ARGB hub controller, in truth, it doesn’t operate very well. Well, that’s not technically correct, but it’s more awkward to work that it needed to be.

So, such a statement clearly requires a little explanation. So, after mashing the buttons for about 2-3 minutes with no joy other than changing the speed of the RGB, I had to resort to checking the manual to ascertain how to (clearly) correctly operate this. And on page 25 I finally found how it works! Put simply, while it’s not exactly rocket science in how you do manually cycle through the lighting patterns, I don’t think I’ve ever encountered a hub controller that actually required some relatively extensive operational knowledge before. I actually ended up plugging it into another hub controller I had just because I found the cycling options via the provided one such a chore. In short, if you don’t have an ARGB sync compatible motherboard, you might want to consider buying a different manual controller or at least be sure you thoroughly read and check the manual to completely understand how this one works. I can’t complain too much though as if this (again, to my best knowledge) the first time be quiet! has tinkered with ARGB lighting.

So, overall, the be quiet! Silent Loop 2 looks fantastic both on and off our testing bench. How does it perform though? Well, there’s only one way to find out! Let’s fire up our system and see what happens!