be quiet! Silent Loop 3 Liquid CPU Cooler Review

be quiet! Silent Loop 3 Overview

With the AIO out of the box, you can immediately see that it has a very subdued look compared to coolers with flashy LCD displays and exotic designs. be quiet! has always taken the stance of function over form, and that continues on here with the Silent Loop 3. That isn’t to say that the company doesn’t make good looking components, they certainly do. I just don’t expect we will see any LCD-equipped AIOs from them anytime soon. As previously mentioned, our review sample is 360mm in size and is nearly all-black in design. A few hints of a dark gunmetal color can be found on the pump housing, but otherwise this is an all-black design.

The first component up in our overview is the 360mm aluminum radiator. This radiator is very straight forward in it’s design, with a black paint job and no logos to be found. The 27mm thickness is the standard as far as most AIOs go, which makes fitting this cooler into your build less about size compatibility and more about cooling.

With 20 fins-per-inch, the tight fin density is able to provide adequate surface area while still confined to a 27mm thickness. The 120mm Silent Wings 4 PWM fans included with the this kit have a static pressure rating of up to 3.96mm-H2O, which is on the high side of fan specifications we typically see in our AIO reviews, and should provide plenty of push to get air moving through the radiator fins.

Each braided cooling line exits from one end of the radiator’s end cap, and these lines are connected to the radiator via crimped connectors. One thing I did find to be a bit different with the placement of these connectors on the radiator is that they were much more centered than other manufacturer’s radiators. This may have something to do with the placement of the refill port on the endcap, but I’m not entirely sure. I found the cooling lines to be quite flexible during installation, and their length was just fine during installation.

Speaking of that refill port, it is found on the same endcap as the cooling lines, and can easily be removed with a Philips head screwdriver. Thankfully the bottle of extra coolant has a nice and pointy tip to allow for easy insertion into the refill port when it comes to that time.

Moving over to the pump housing we find a fairly plain looking setup – again, no LCD screen here. This black design incorporates some vertical strips on the top that divide the RGB lighting area below into multiple sections. Across the middle of the housing is a divider that boasts the be quiet! name in a glossy finish. Internally, be quiet! has provided a six-pole, three-phase motor along with a three-chamber design. This layout is chosen for its ability to reduce liquid turbulence in the loop on the way out, while also providing a bit of a reservoir as well.

Moving around to the sides we find the two cooling lines exiting from the right side of the pump housing. Each line is paired up with a swiveling fitting to make installation and fitment much easier than with fixed connections.

Also on this side are the 3-pin ARGB cable and PWM cable used for controlling the lighting and powering the pump, respectively.

Both the top and bottom sides of the pump housing are home to the built-in mounting arms and screws. These fittings are universal and pair up with both the AMD and Intel mounting hardware, depending on your installation needs. Here we can also see a bit of an offset regarding the cooling base in order to allow enough space between the cooling lines on the side of the pump and system RAM.

The left side of the pump housing has no features.

Taking a look at the bottom of the pump housing, we find a large nickel-plated copper base, which be quiet! tells us has 1,800 square-millimeters of fin surface area on the inside, which is up to twice as much as some other AIOs in this class. This large fin area and base size helps the Silent Loop 3 to cool your CPU, no matter the platform layout.

Regarding the fans that are included with the Silent Loop 3, be quiet! has called upon their 120mm Silent Wings 4 PWM fans. These fans could handle an article on their own, but know that they provide up to 3.96mm-H2O of static pressure at full speed, with 76.7 CFM of airflow at their full speed of 2,500 RPM.

The rubber feet at each corner help isolate any vibrations that may come from the nine fan blades, as does the unique frame design found on the Silent Wings 4 fans. Of note is that the Silent Wings 4 fans do not support any form of chaining, so be quiet! has included a 3-to-1 PWM cable that lets you connect all three fans to your fan header of choice.