be quiet! Pure Loop 2 240mm AIO Review

be quiet! has always lived up to its name, creating products that are quite literally quiet. Their high-performance cooling products, cases, power supplies, fans and more, are all some of the best in their respective classes. While I've already put a fair few of the be quiet! AIOs through their paces over the years, and most recently their new 280mm cooler (review here) and their latest 360mm (review here). However, today I'll be taking a look at the smallest of the bunch, with the be quiet! Pure Loop 2, a 240mm AIO that should offer the most compatibility with mid-tower, micro and mini-iTX cases. Features Pure Loop 2 240mm is the impressively high-performing and silent All-in-One water cooling unit with ARGB illumination for users with slightly overclocked systems. Very high cooling performance for all consumer CPUs 2 Pure Wings 3 120mm PWM high-speed fans offer high static pressure with very quiet operation Doubly decoupled PWM pump reduces vibrations to an absolute minimum ARGB illumination on the cooling block, combined with an all-black design and aluminium style for an unmistakable and stylish look Easy-to-access refill port and included coolant bottle guarantee a long lifespan Flexible-sleeved tubes and a convenient mounting ensure easy handling 3-year manufacturer’s warranty Packaging & Accessories The box is nicely designed, with an all-black finish and a large and clear photo of the cooler on the front, where we can see the fan design, tubing, and pump. Around the back, there's a break down of the key features, such as the pump design which sits in the middle of the tubing, not on the CPU block! The radiator form factor, and that it has a refillable design should levels become low after extended use. In the box, everything is protected by multiple layers of cardboard from the outer box, as well as a moulded interior tray. In the box, you'll find the mounting kits for both Intel and AMD sockets, a Y-splitter fan cable, cable ties, mounting screws, two fans, and a refill bottle. A Closer Look The Pure Loop 2 is an AIO or All-in-One cooler, which means that the radiator, tubing, pump and CPU block come pre-assembled and pre-filled with liquid coolant, so it's pretty much ready to plug and play in your system. The pump uses a double-decoupled design, and by placing it in the middle of the tubing rather than on the CPU block or radiator, the tubing will act like an anti-vibration system and help further reduce unwanted noise from the setup. Moving the pump allows for a more compact CPU block design, and be quiet! has topped it with a piece of uniquely shaped brushed aluminium that looks very attractive, but also has a full ring of ARGB lighting around it that should look pretty cool once powered up. It's a simple to mount design too, with just two screws required to secure it to the desired mounting kit; Intel or AMD. On the bottom, you'll find a nice and large nickel-coated contact plate, which features a high-quality polished surface to ensure more uniform contact with your CPU. The radiator is neat and tidy enough, with a relatively standard 240mm design, but it does come with one interesting feature. Most AIO coolers are closed units, but this one has a drain/refill port, allowing you to maintain the cooler and extend its lifespan. The fans themselves are be quiet! Pure Wings 3 120mm PWM models, which are tuned for high static pressure but also promise low noise operation. They feature a 4-pole motor design, and can operate at up to 2100 RPM, which is pretty fast, but I suspect you'll not hear them run that fast on their default settings, but it's good to know you can ramp them up should you have the need. With the fans mounted to the radiator, we're good to go, so let's get this on the test bench and put it through its paces. Test System & Methodology Idle tests are recorded after 10 minutes of the system being left alone after boot with no additional background processes or software running. All load tests are performed in Cinebench R2, first using a single speed run to generate the Cinebench R23 score, then a 10-minute loop to determine the overall all-core average load temperature for the relevant cooler. Clock speeds are left at the default factory settings provided by the CPU and our NZXT Z690 N7 motherboard. Optimised settings lock the CPU P-Cores to 4.9Hz and the E-Cores to 4GHz at a voltage of 1.3v. Fan speeds for the case are set to 30% at all times. Pump RPM is fixed to 100% for liquid coolers, and CPU cooler fans are left to the motherboard "automatic" and "normal" profile unless otherwise stated. Acoustics are measured from 2ft above the NZXT H7 Flow PC case, using a decibel meter, with all side panels and filters in place on the case and as stated, the case fans are left at 30% (just to the point where they become comfortably audible over ambient), to represent a real-world usage scenario. We are no longer testing coolers on an open-air test bench for this reason. As of 20/07/2023, all coolers featured on these charts were retested to reflect our improved methodology, and as such, reviews before this date can not be fairly compared to the new results. However, we have been periodically retesting older coolers, which is why you may see their performance figures here, and why they may not align with previous test results from the same product in their respective reviews. Test system: NZXT Z690 ATX Intel Core i9-12900K @ stock and & 4.9 GHz all P-Core 4 GHz E-Core 1.3v Aorus RTX 2080 16GB Crucial DDR4 4400 MHz XMP 512GB NVMe SSD Thermaltake Tough Power 750W NZXT H7 Flow RGB Case All testing is conducted using NT-H1 thermal paste We want to thank Gigabyte, Noctua, Crucial, Intel, Thermaltake, NZXT and more for providing us with the above testing equipment and their ongoing support. Testing Methodology We always use Noctua Noctua NT-H1 thermal paste to make sure testing reveals the efficiency of the tested coolers not the efficiency of the bundled thermal paste Cinebench R23 is run for 10 minutes to calculate “load” results Multiple readings are taken with the average of the package temperatures calculated for our recorded result Fans are left to operate at default PWM profile speeds unless otherwise stated For water cooling tests, all pumps have been operated at 12 volts unless otherwise stated Ambient temperatures should be between 21-23 degrees in all our tests unless otherwise stated Acoustic measurements are taken 60cm vertically away from the CPU cooler Stock tests are performed using “out of the box” settings for the CPU All coolers were tested under identical settings unless otherwise stated. There is approximately a 1-degree Celsius margin of error in our temperature recording software CPUID HW Monitor There is approximately a 1.5dBA margin of error with our Benetech GM1351 decibel meter In all these graphs we may have a few “reference” results of particular products that do not fit within that category for comparative purposes. Software Used CPUID HWMonitor Cinebench R23 Unigine Superposition Stock Temperatures Straight away, the Pure Loop 2 delivers great performance, and actually exactly matches the cooling performance of the slightly larger be quiet! Pure Loop 2 280mm model, which was surprising. While using our optimised settings, again absolutely fantastic performance, matching that of the 280mm at load, but it ran just a tough warmer at idle, but again, that's a pretty great result. While the performance matched that of the 280mm model in regards to cooling, the smaller 120mm fans run just a little bit louder than the 280mm and its 140mm fans, which isn't that surprising really, but overall, it's about on par with most other 240mm AIO coolers, if not a bit quieter. And it's pretty much identical fan noise levels using our optimised settings, so again, pretty great all around really. How Much Does it Cost? The be quiet! Pure Loop 2 240mm AIO cooler is available right now from Overclockers UK for £99.95, not a bargain, but not overpriced either and about on par with many other high-end big-name brand liquid coolers of a similar form factor. That being said, it did perform a bit better and certainly ran a bit quieter than the competition, so be quiet! certainly have a quality product here, and it's one of the nicest AIO coolers on the market right now. Overview There's not a lot to say about this one that I haven't already said about the 280mm or the 360mm models we've tested in the last couple of months. With the 240mm model now tested, I can confidently say that all three models in the Pure Loop 2 lineup are really fantastic, and as for which is best, well, that depends on what you really need from your cooler, and how much you're willing to spend. The 240mm and the 280mm largely seemed to cool just about the same. While the 280mm version was a little bit quieter, the smaller 240mm version wasn't exactly noisy either, so for the sake of saving a few quid, I'd be inclined to buy the smaller one and turn the fans down a little bit. However, for higher TDP processors, the 280mm can handle a little more, so again, that's up to you. The 360mm version is the most powerful of the bunch by far, but with an extra fan spinning, it does run a little louder, but again it's pretty great overall. The build quality is superb on this cooler, and it's one of the few AIO coolers I've tested where the pump is utterly silent. Having it mounted on the tubing rather than on the CPU block or integrated into the radiator clearly works very well, and helps reduce the instance of vibration noises with other components. The CPU block is pretty light and compact as a result, which honestly just made it easier to install on your motherboard, making it very user-friendly. There's a little hint of RGB on the CPU block too, not too much and it's more just a highlight rather than an obnoxious RGB disco, which I much prefer, as it's simply more tasteful. Should I Buy One? It may be the smallest of the Pure Loop 2 coolers, but the 240mm version holds its own against its bigger siblings in cooling performance and is one of the quietest AIO coolers on the market. It's easy to install, easy to maintain and with a little hint of RGB and brushed aluminium on the block, it looks pretty fantastic too!