be quiet! Pure Loop 2 CPU Liquid Cooler Review

Table of Contents

Introduction

be quiet! is launching a successor of the Pure Loop series of liquid coolers named Pure Loop 2. Wait, did they not launch Pure Loop 2 FX series of coolers already? Yes, they did but it was never a successor of the main series. The FX series of products are mainly for digital RGB lighting-enabled products. Anyhow, coming back to the topic of the discussion, the new coolers are coming with brand new Pure Wings 3 PWM high-speed fans that will not be available in retail at the time of the Pure Loop 2 series of coolers’ launch. This series of coolers is available in sizes:

120mm
240mm
280mm
360mm

We have got Pure Loop 2 360mm for testing. The main difference between this cooler and the FX 360 variant is the Pure Wings 3 PWM fans. These fans feature a closed-loop motor Control and they also feature a closed or sealed-off exhaust square design. Be quiet! is calling the Pure Loop 2 a muted version of the Pure Loop 2 FX series. The salient features of the Pure Loop 2 series of the coolers are:

High cooling performance
Up to 3 Pure Wings 3 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 all-black design and aluminum-style for 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
Product conception, design and quality control in Germany

The be quiet! Pure Loop 2 360 is compatible with Intel LGA 115x, 1200, and 1700 sockets. This unit is compatible with AMD AM4 and AM5 sockets.

Product: be quiet! Pure Loop 2 360

Price: MSRP $139.90 / €129.90 / £125.99

Pure Loop 2 Specifications

Packaging and Unboxing

In terms of shipping this cooler, there is no difference in the packaging departments. There is a paperboard-made outer packing box that is finished in a black color. The model of the unit is printed here along with a picture of the unit. As we can see this series of coolers does not have A-RGB fans.

be quiet! has mentioned key features of this cooler on the backside of the outer packing box. We will cover these later in the Closer Look section.

There is a container inside the main packing box. The cooler and its accessories are placed inside this container for safe and sound shipping. This is a standard design.

Accessories

Let’s take a look at what accessories are provided.

There are:

1x Warranty Paper
1x User Guide
1x 100ml Coolant Bottle
1x Accessory Box.

Be quiet! has provided the following mounting hardware:

1x Backplate
1x set of Mounting Brackets for Intel Sockets
4x Intel Spacer Nuts
4x Mounting Brackets Fastening Screws
4x Intel Backplate Screws
4x O-Rings
1x set of AMD Mounting Bracket
4x Backplate Screws
4x AMD Spacer Nuts
12x Radiator Screws
12x Fan Screws
1x Thermal Paste Tube
3x Zip Ties
1x 3-way PWM Splitter cable

There is no A-RGB Hub included in this cooler because the fans are non-RGB. This is another difference between the Pure Loop 2 and Pure Loop 2 FX series. Be quiet! has also simplified the mounting bracket for Intel sockets. Meanwhile, this unit is not compatible with the Intel LGA20xx socket so the users should keep this in mind when purchasing.

Closer Look

Here is what be quiet! is saying about this unit. “Pure Loop 2 is an impressively high-performing and silent all-in-one water cooling unit with subtle ARGB lighting. With Pure Loop 2 FX, be quiet! has dispatched a precursor in 2022 for what the next generation of Pure Loop has to offer. Pure Loop 2 is the successor to Pure Loop and improves in areas many customers and media wished for. For example, the decoupled pump can be controlled via a PWM signal and the LED ring around the cooling block now features an ARGB LED instead of a single-color white LED. The fans have also been upgraded to Pure Wings 3 PWM high-speed. These fans are not available for retail purchase at the time of Pure Loop 2‘s release and introduce the closed loop motor technology to the be quiet! fan family.”

There is practically no difference in terms of radiator and pump design when we compare the Pure Loop 2 360 and Pure Loop 2 FX 360 coolers. This cooler has the same design radiator. The radiator has a dimension of 397x120x27mm. After installing fans on the radiator, the overall dimension would be 397x120x53mm including the heads of the screws. The fins density stands at the same 20 FPI and there are 12 channels for coolant flow. Be quiet! has done a nice job with finstacking. There is no bend or broken fin.

The far block has a rectangular design. There is port on the top that is covered with a screw plug. This is a refill port. Be quiet! has provided a 100ml coolant bottle to refill this cooler making it serviceable for a long duration. You would know when more coolant is needed if you:

Experience a noticeable performance drop
Hear bubbles in the unit make noise

Looking at the tube side of the radiator or what we call a near block, we can spot a serial number sticker label pasted here. The tube connection with the barb fittings is well concealed using black color clamps. The pump is integrated into the tube of this unit. This is one way of bypassing the ASETEK patent in North America. This is a doubly-decoupled PWM pump. The first decoupling is at the pump’s housing and the second decoupling is at the level of the pump’s integration into the tubes. The speed of this pup is 4000 RPM to 5500 RPM. The damping on the pump housing would reduce the vibration and noise, as per be quiet!

The pump of Pure Loop 2 360 is PWM controlled which is a wise design.

Looking at the side of the housing, we can see PURE LOOP 2 in white written in an inset area of the side frame. This cooler is using low-permeability rubber tubes. These tubes have nylon braided mesh sleeves. The length of these tubes is 400mm approximately.

There is a certain gap between the side frame and the fin stack. This means that the actual thickness of the fin stack is less than 27mm. Also, there is no protective plating under the screw mounts.

The block retains the same tooling and design as we saw on the Pure Loop 240 that we looked back at for our 240mm size AIO round-up content. The overall housing is made of ABS plastic material. There is a brushed aluminum top plate that is also sandblasted. This plate has be quiet! branding in the center. This housing has a dimension of 94.5x83x42mm. There is an A-RGB backlit ring running on the border of this top plate.

We are showing the A-RGB lighting effect on the block during action.

The tubes are installed at 90° angle on rotary barbs. This connection is well concealed using black color clamps. There is a 3-pin cable coming out from here.

We are showing a standard 3-pin, 5V female connector to power and control the A-RGB LEDs.

We have a nickel-plated copper base measuring 54x54mm with a mirror finish. Be quiet! is using a two-point mounting mechanism. I would prefer a 4-point mounting for better and even mounting pressure on the CPU.

Now we are coming to the component that is the key difference between the Pure Loop 2 FX and the Pure Loop 2 series coolers. Be Quiet! has introduced Pure Wings 3 PWM High-Speed fans with the Pure Loop 2 series of liquid coolers. The FX series has Light Wings fans. The main concept behind the Pure Wings 3 PWM fans is the closed-loop motor control which is different than the mainstream PWM regulated fan control. In PWM fan control, the speed of the fans is regulated using %age that we mention as the PWM Range. There is always a variance in PWM range. This variance could affect the actual speed of the fans. Since speed and airflow are linked directly, the airflow would also be affected accordingly. This variation could become more significant in the long run. We are compensating speed. Be Quiet! has taken a different approach with the Pure Wings 3 PWM fans. These fans are still PWM but they are regulating the speed using the Tachometer signal from the fan itself. This way we have a closed-loop whereby the motor gets regular feedback on the speed of the fan instead of the PWM range factor and adjusts the current and RPM of the fans ensuring that the fans would continue to spin at the set speed for its target. This way we can ensure the same performance and the same airflow regardless of the resistance to the airflow.

These fans have 9x black color blades with a layered design for even and enhanced airflow and reducing air turbulence. There is a ring structure surrounding the blades. Be quiet! has used a sealed-off design in these fans to ensure that no air is leaked from the border or frame of the fan.

There are two arrow symbols. These are there to provide a visual aid for novice users in identifying the direction of airflow through the fan and the direction in which blades will spin. The frame is designed in such a way that maximum exposure is provided to this ring.

There is a 4-arms assembly with one arm having an inset on which the wires are routed. The power rating of these fans is also mentioned here. They are made in China. HS stands for High-Speed. These fans have a life span of 80,000 hours. Their current rating is 0.45A at 12VDC. The maximum speed at 100% PWM is 2100.

Each fan is PWM controlled for which a 4-pin PWM connector is provided.

Installation

We are not covering the details of installation. Installation is the same as we have seen on others be quiet! coolers and we did not observe any peculiar issue to report here. Please refer to the user guide for more details.

D-RGB Lighting

The block of this cooler is the only element that has A-RGB lighting effects. Be Quiet! has provided a standard 3-pin, 5V RGB connector hence it is compatible with RGB sync technologies of motherboard manufacturers. We have tested it using a GIGABYTE Z690 AERO G DDR5 motherboard. The D-RGB lighting is working fine with RGB FUSION 2.0 on this motherboard. Here are a few pictures.

Testing

We have used the following configurations for testing:

Intel core i7 12700k
GIGABYTE Z690 AERO G D5
Sabrent Rocket 32GB DDR5 Kit @ 4800MHz CAS 40
GIGABYTE GeForce RTX 3060 VISION OC
Sabrent Rocket Q 500GB NVMe SSD [For OS]
Be quiet! Straight Power 11 850W Platinum PSU
Thermaltake Core P6 TG Snow Edition in an open frame layout

The test table is:

Clocks	P-Cores 4.8GHz E-Core 3.8GHz
Voltage	1.20V
C-States	Disabled
Speed Step	Disabled
Rest of settings	Stock, Auto
XMP	XMP Loaded where available
Thermal Paste	Noctua NT-H1
Thermal Paste Application	X lines method
Headers	CPU_FAN, CPU_OPT, and PUMP Headers
Stress Software	CINEBENCH R23.2
Stress Run Time	30 minutes
PC Idle Time	5 minutes
Monitoring Software	HWInfo64
OC Tool	Intel XTU

A bit of note about the new platforms. We have seen AMD AM5 and Intel Alder Lake S CPUs taking more power and this time both sides have aimed at reaching the maximum clocks regardless of thermal limit. In fact, the AM5 SKUs will run into thermal limits right away depending on the cooling solution and the clocks being used. This has made testing of CPU coolers challenging because viewers/readers are not used to a new nomenclature which is what clocks are sustained under a given load using a particular cooler. That is if the cooler is capable of providing enough cooling head to sustain the high frequencies. Traditionally we are used to going the other way around that is which cooler is better in terms of thermal capacity. Despite this, we are using temperatures as a base for measuring this unit. Among other reasons is the high thermal density of these new CPUs.

The ambient temperature was in the range of 25°C to 25.5°C. Since the variation in the ambient temperature is within 1°C, we are reporting absolute temperatures in the graph. The testing is done on an open-air bench system. Once inside the chassis, the temperatures are expected to rise and would largely depend upon the optimal airflow inside the chassis.

Disclaimer: Every silicon is different hence no two same SKUs are likely to take same voltage to yield same performance at same thermals per se but margin would be close. Not every stress test run may yield the same result which could be due to various reasons like thermal paste application, ambient temperature variation, the mounting pressure of the cooler, etc. This is why we have listed our variables and their settings. Let’s take a look at the results.

Result

This cooler has performed quite well. We can see that be quiet! has uplifted the performance when we compared the Pure Loop 2 FX 360 and Pure Loop 2 360 cooler with Pure Loop 2 has the CPU run 2ᵒC cooler than the Pure Loop 2 FX 360 cooler. This cooler now stands at a second slot in our graph.

Noise

I am not measuring the noise output due to repair and maintenance work going on in the neighborhood. Subjectively speaking, this cooler is not that loud when sitting close to it.

Conclusion

We are geared towards our next mega undertaking in which we will test up to 24x 360mm size AIOs for round-up content. Be Quiet! Pure Loop 2 360 is among the contenders here. Back in 2022, they launched the Pure Loop 2 FX series coolers which were the precursor to the ultimate Pure Loop 2 series of the coolers released now. Be quiet! has changed the fans to Pure Wings 3 PWM High-Speed in the new Pure Loop 2 coolers. This is a key change between the FX and non-FX versions. The rest of the design remains the same and they have retained the same A-RGB backlit block in the Pure Loop 2. Since these coolers don’t have RGB fans, there is no RGB hub in the accessories which is obvious. Be quiet! has also revamped the mounting bracket for the Intel sockets. These coolers are not compatible with Intel LGA20xx so there is to that. We have the same mounting bracket set for LGA115x/1200 and 1700 sockets which is a wise design. From the AMD side, this cooler supports AM4 and AM5 sockets.

We have tested the Pure Loop 2 360 cooler. This cooler is also available in 120mm, 240mm, and 280mm sizes. The 120mm size is another difference between the FX and non-FX series. There is no change in the radiator design between the two series. Technically, we should be comparing Pure Loop 2 with Pure Loop series of coolers as this generation is expected to replace the previous generation. In this regard, we have two key changes:

4-pin PWM Control of Pump
A-RGB LED Ring on the block

The Pure Loop series of coolers has a 3-pin DC-based control for the Pump whereas there was a static white color LED backlighting on the block. Obviously, the fan is another key difference.

The Pure Loop 2 360 has a same aluminum-made radiator with a dimension of 397x120x27mm. This dimension would be 397x120x53mm after installing the fans. The fin density is the same that is 20 FPI and there are 12 channels for the coolant flow. There is a standard gap of 105mm between two opposing mounting holes on the frame. This unit has a refill port integrated into the radiator and be quiet! has provided a 100ml coolant bottle as well. This would help service this cooler ensuring its longevity and durability. For those novice users who would want to know when to know if coolant is needed, the following two measures would help:

If you notice a significant thermal performance drop
If you can hear bubbles sound in the loop [after quite some time]

Be quiet! is using low-evaporation low-permeation rubber tubes on this unit with a nice touch coming from a nylon braided mesh sleeve. The PWM, a doubly decoupled pump is integrated into the tubes. These tubes have a length of 400mm. This pump is powered by a 4-pin PWM connector and the speed range is 4000 to 5500 RPM.

This unit has the same block design as the first-generation units. However, instead of a static white color, this unit has A-RGB backlighting this time giving a more profound look to the unit. The housing is made of ABS material with a pump top made of sandblasted brushed aluminum material. There is a nickel-plated mirror finish copper base having a dimension of 54x54mm.

Be quiet! has changed the fans on the second generation by using a new generation of fans named Pure Wings 3 PWM High-Speed fans. Those who love the looks of Light Wings fans, the Pure Loop 2 FX series is there for you. This fan has one key feature that is different than the working of other fans in the market. Instead of PWM regulation, these fans use a tachometer to provide an RPM of the fans to the motor hence the name closed-loop motor control. The smart motor then adjusts the current so that the same speed can be ensured at the set target by the users. Tachometer or tach in short is nothing new and be quiet! has changed the mapping of speed regulation. By focusing on the speed of the fans, they have ensured that fans would continue to spin at the same speed and generate the same airflow regardless of the surface of use and its resistance to airflow. This way the variation in PWM regulation is also addressed. Each fan is powered by a 4-pin PWM connector. These fans have a dimension of 120x120x25mm. They have a maximum speed of 2100 RPM at 100% PWM. We are not aware of the airflow and certain other ratings of these fans. The power rating is set at 0.45A using 12VDC. These fans have a life span of 80,000 hours. There is a 3-way PWM splitter cable provided with the cooler so that all fans can be controlled from a single source.

The installation mechanism remains the same as we have seen on the other be quiet! coolers. We have tested the cooler on the GIGABYTE Z690 AERO G DDR5 motherboard using Intel LGA1700 socket. We need 19 items to install the block on the CPU. If these could be reduced in next design, it would be a better and more user-friendly mounting. The use of standard RGB connectors ensures maximum compatibility with supported motherboards. We have tested on GIGABYTE Z690 AERO D5 motherboard using RGB FUSION 2.0 app. The A-RGB lighting was found working flawlessly.

Be Quiet! has mentioned that the Pure Loop 2 360 would retail at $139.90 / €129.90 / £125.99. This is a lower price tag compared to the Pure Loop 2 FX 360 cooler and performance-wise, this cooler has a better performance. Not only your CPU runs cooler but also this cooler runs at a better speed-to-noise ratio. Be Quiet! is offering a 3-year warranty which in my opinion should be competitive. The be quiet! Pure Loop 2 360 comes recommended by us.

Pros: