News be quiet! SILENT LOOP - AIO watercooling solutions

be quiet! might not ring a bell for most non-European people, but for those who happen to live in this cornucopia of cultures and countries, you've probably seen their products. After releasing only air-cooled products, they have now released a line of water-cooled All-In-One sets called the SILENT LOOP: a push-pull 120mm radiator set, a 240mm radiator set and a 280mm radiator set.
All three feature copper radiators, copper blocks, a decoupled reverse-flow pump which is claimed to be less noisy and what seems like G1/4" threads with quality tubing.

Eteknix has reviewed the 280mm unit and had this to say:

be quiet! don’t get their name for the best cooling in the business, they get it for being quiet, ain’t that a shocker! The Silent Loop isn’t just quiet, it’s virtually silent and by far the quietest water cooler we’ve ever tested. To get good temperatures at such a low acoustic level just shows the quality of the components be quiet! has chosen for this cooler and that’s going to be a serious factor for anyone building a high-end and overclocked gaming system, who also wants their rig to be as quiet as possible.

Build quality is as good as it gets, as everything feels robust and has a good weight to it. The tubing is flexible, but feels very strong and comes fitted with premium quality screw mounts on both the pump and radiator ends. The Pure Wings 2 fans are already known to be a great quality component and we’ve proven that much today with their excellent performance. What really impresses the most, however, is how quiet the pump was. be quiet! are proud to shout about their pump design, but at the end of the day, it does the job, it makes very little noise and that’s what really matters to the consumer.

Product link: http://www.bequiet.com/en/watercooler/732

 

[EdZ]

The block/pump looks unusually thin, but the fixed top-exit barbs prevent that being useful in practice.

 

[cmyk78]

The 120mm radiator is 45mm thick

 

[Phuncz]

The 240mm en 280mm are only 30mm thick, I guess they've done this to not make it redundant for a mid-range tower or top-down air-cooler. If it was 30mm thick and only had one fan, I'd guess it would perform (noise and thermals) somewhere along the lines of a Noctua NH-L12, after half an hour.

 

[Mackan]

Well, I got this AIO in hope that the pump would really be quiet. However, I can hear the pump up to 80cm, although the noise is a bit directional. It's a buzzing noise, like an angry bee. It's very similar to certain coilwhines on PSUs, that I have returned for that very reason.

It's possible it is quieter than other pumps, but I don't know since this was my first AIO experience. I've read reviews saying you would only hear it from within a few inches, but I think it is farther than that, and also not a humming noise, more a buzzing coilwhiney one. So beware... Unless I got a defect one. Who knows, sigh.

 

[Phuncz]

I'm sad to hear that. Are you going to exchange it ?

 

[Mackan]

I will try to return it, if possible. My gut tells me this is how they all sound. It uses the DC-LT 12V pump that Alphacool provides in this product.

It's noise profile is of a buzzing nature, and I think it's only us noise aware people that will get annoyed by it. Normal reviewers so far will just deem it quiet, when in reality the buzz is clearly heard in a silent environment. Though, inside a noise dampened case, you will not really hear it. Tried to lower the voltage as well, and it made no big difference.

 

[PNP]

Just like Fractal's Kelvin line, this product will not be released in the Asetek/CoolIt Empire North America .

 

[Josh | NFC]

I'm glad they are moving in the right direction, but with how hard it is to get a quiet loop with $500 I don't think we will find a quiet AIO for a while.

 

[EdZ]

Well, I got this AIO in hope that the pump would really be quiet. However, I can hear the pump up to 80cm, although the noise is a bit directional. It's a buzzing noise, like an angry bee. It's very similar to certain coilwhines on PSUs, that I have returned for that very reason.

It's possible it is quieter than other pumps, but I don't know since this was my first AIO experience. I've read reviews saying you would only hear it from within a few inches, but I think it is farther than that, and also not a humming noise, more a buzzing coilwhiney one. So beware... Unless I got a defect one. Who knows, sigh.

If it's anything like my H75, you may be able to alleviate the buzzing: AIOs contain some trapped air (to allow for thermal expansion/contraction during shipping). If you happen to start the loop when there is some air in the pump section, it will make a loud buzzing. If you place the loop such that the pump is at the bottom, the rad at the top, and rotate the pump around for a while (to let trapped gasses escape the internal galleries) you can persuade the gas to move into the radiator. As long as you don't have the inlet/outlet ports at the top of the radiator when installed, the air will stay there and the pump will operate much more quietly.

 

[Mackan]

I did fiddle around with the pump and radiator position, and managed to trigger the louder gurgling noise when air got into it. So that isn't the original noise problem.

Be Quiet support also told me the very arbitrary statement: "if you can hear the pump inside the case when case fans and GPU fan is running, it is defective." I guess that would be highly dependent on the fan rpms used, doh. I run my case fans at 700rpm, and the pump noise easily exceeds any noise from those. I think a reviewer also commented that you can hear the pump slightly outside the case if you open the case panel.

All in all, I suspect the pump isn't defective. For potential buyers, just be aware that it definitely isn't silent. Depending on the noise isolation of your case, you may hear some buzzing, which I think will be disturbing for people wanting real silence. Perhaps it's quiet compared to other AIO, I don't know.

Correction about undervolting: When I set to 70% DC duty cycle for the pump, it gets noticeably quieter, but the buzzing noise characteristics remain. I don't know if that corresponds to around 8-9V or similar.