Keep silent! Review of the Pure Loop 240mm CPU liquid cooler: Taking on the i9 Alder Lake

It is impossible to overstate the significance of adequate cooling for your gaming PC. Maintaining a cold component not only maximizes performance but also gradually lowers thermal stress. Lower temperatures may even assist to prolong the life of your CPU and prevent performance deterioration. This explains why liquid coolers are often promoted. Lower temperatures than air conditioning options are promised, along with a few other advantages we'll discuss later. Be silent! is covered in this review. For gaming purposes, the Pure Loop 240mm CPU liquid cooler takes on Intel's potent 12th generation Alder Lake i9-12900K.

For gaming PCs, 240mm CPU liquid coolers are a popular option. This is due to the radiator's 240mm surface area, which is often sufficient for the majority of gaming systems, its size fitting most cases, and its yet relatively reasonable price.

But over the last several years, AMD and Intel have been steadily increasing their power consumption, raising the issue of whether a 240mm radiator is sufficient for a processor like the i9-12900k. If you allow it to, it can draw up to 240W in certain scenarios. So let's see how the silent contribution turns out! Gives a performance with this beast.

In this be silent! review, We'll go over the overall specifications and features of the Pure Loop 240mm CPU liquid cooler, our opinions on the installation procedure, and how it worked with our system. We'll conclude with a purchasing suggestion.

Picture from Keep Calm!

Overview of specifications and features

These are the main specifications of the be silent, along with some extra information you should know! The Pure Loop collection.

be quiet! Pure Loop 240mm
Feature	Description
Radiator type	240mm aluminum
Radiator dimensions	277mm (H) x 120mm (W) x 27mm (D)
Pump speed	5500 RPM, non-variable
Pump location	Decoupled, inline
Cooler design	Serviceable, refillable CLC
Tube length	400mm
Included fans	x2 120mm PWM Pure Wings
Software support	No
Fan control	Default, programmable via BIOS
Lighting	White LED on CPU contact block
Socket compatibility	LGA 1150/1151/1155/1200/1700*, AM4, AM5
Weight	1.05kg / 2.3lbs
Warranty	Five years
Price	$94.90 USD

This liquid cooler is a great option if you're looking for something straightforward, inexpensive, dependable, and not too showy. Given that the majority of gamers are drawn to such features, this may be a fantastic choice for a gaming PC. But since liquid coolers are far more complicated than air coolers, a product cannot be suggested based only on these considerations.

The majority of the information is provided in the specification table above, however there are a few points we want to highlight and make special note of. To begin with, this evaluation is limited to the 240mm version. Radiator length options of 120mm, 280mm, and 360mm are also offered for the Pure Loop series. Additionally, an upgraded range including RGB cooling components is also available.

The color palette for each design is silver and black. That may not be to everyone's taste, but when combined with a graphics card such as an Nvidia FE, it might look fantastic.

In terms of compatibility, if you want to use the cooler with an Intel 12th or 13th generation CPU, you will need to acquire the LGA 1700 bracket. To keep silent, just submit evidence of purchase! and within a brief time, you'll get the bracket upgrade for free. AMD's Ryzen AM4 and AM5 processors work with the same current hardware. This cooler works with any contemporary CPU, and if you're still using an older AMD or Intel CPU, it's also compatible with those models as well.

The be quiet is established by the distinctive pump design! set the Pure Loop liquid cooler line apart from competing products. The pump is easily seen on the liquid lines since it has an inline design and is disconnected. It's said that this makes things a little quieter. Remarkably, in comparison to other liquid cooler designs, this also permits a few more configuration possibilities.

The reservoir access screw on the side of the CPU contact block is a fantastic feature of this design. Because the fluid may be refilled later, this distinguishes an all-in-one (AIO) from a closed liquid cooler (CLC). Since fluid has a tendency to evaporate with time, you can really use this cooler until the pump breaks. Although we advise sticking with thermal paste, there is a nickel coating on the CPU contact plate if you would want to try using liquid metal.

To learn more about the specifications and compatibility, see the be silent! both the product page and website.

Picture from Keep Calm!

A little unsettling about the installation procedure

Installing a liquid cooler for a CPU is usually a more involved task than installing an air cooler. When installing the be silent, it was undoubtedly the case! Pure Loop, yet the primary source of annoyance was the absence of instructions. Liquid cooler manufacturers have an odd habit of making you scan the QR codes on the inside of the box in order to access further support information. You'll become confused very soon if you're not paying attention.

We advise you to scan the aforementioned QR code, since it leads to comprehensive installation guidelines and an additional video that are both significantly more helpful than the brief explanation included in the box instructions. Having said that, we've also included additional documentation to this review to help you understand the installation procedure even better.

Two cables that emerge from the main unit are instantly visible when you take items out of the box. The white LED cable is coming from the CPU contact block. If you want no lights on your construction, you can just leave this unplugged. The other wire exits the liquid pump, which is visible on the liquid lines and is decoupled. That is what you will connect into the SATA power adapter.

You must set up the framework for all of the attachments before you go ahead and insert your cooler into the Computer. This has to do with setting up the mounting hardware on the motherboard and aligning and fastening the fans to the radiator. Recall that if you want to cool an Intel 12 or 13 gen CPU, you must acquire the complimentary LGA 1700 adaptor bracket update.

The bracket arrangement for fastening the block is the only aspect of the installation that requires significant confusion. To see how it's piled on, go to the picture above. As you can see, the motherboard backplate is put in first, then the column screws and stand-offs, and finally the brackets, which are screwed in twice apiece. In order to impart mounting pressure via the cooler block, finally tighten the two screws.

AnyBet365 created the image.

A word of advice: try to tighten each layer as much as you can without stripping the screw heads. My first installation wasn't as tight, which resulted in less favorable contact with the CPU heat spreader. After turning back and properly fastening everything, the temperature decreased by 2C. If you have previously installed liquid coolers, the remainder of the setup should be quite simple and familiar.

Construction quality and upkeep

Be quiet, given the price! From the looks of it, Pure Loop is a rather well-built cooler. In contrast to other brands, it is noticeably superior than low-cost items. Some build quality features, such as the noise level of the pump and the tubing, are comparable to those of goods that cost more money. It looks fantastic once fitted and doesn't feel cheap at all.

The contact block's mounting arms' tacky plastic appearance is the sole significant criticism. It's challenging to tell whether the arms are made entirely of plastic or if a metal structure is contained to withstand the pressure that builds up. It would be lot better if the metal arms were clearly seen.

Given that the majority of people anticipate a four-point design to provide superior mounting pressure, the two-point mounting arrangement does seem odd. Although it seems to function well, the temperature data raise the possibility that the two-point design performs somewhat worse than the four-point mounting pressure designs.

Then be silent! In terms of upkeep, Pure Loop is good. It is pre-filled and sealed to provide years of maintenance-free operation, and when the time comes, a bottle of coolant may be used to replenish everything. To remove the old coolant, just turn the screw on the side of the pump.

System specifications and testing methodology

We evaluate CPU coolers using uncapped in-game benchmarks, just as we do with CPUs. We evaluate coolers in gaming and multitasking/streaming workloads since streaming games is become quite popular and widespread these days, and current CPUs have enough cores to handle gaming and streaming with ease.

The first set of testing consists only of gaming workloads with the data collection program, Chrome, and Discord running in the background. The multi-tasking/streaming workloads—Chrome, Discord, Steam, Origin, the Epic Games Store, Affinity Photo Editor, Slack, and OBS—are then applied. More strain is placed on the cores by the x264 video encoding, which also aids in illustrating extreme situations when temperatures and cooler/fan noise peak. In this manner, you may determine if the cooler can accommodate your requirements and operation style.

Test system specifications

Case	Corsair iCUE 5000X
CPU	Intel Core i9-12900K
Motherboard	ASUS ROG Z690 Strix-E Wifi
Memory	Corsair Vengeance DDR5 4800 64GB
Graphics card	EVGA RTX 3070 Ti FTW3 8GB
PSU	be quiet! Pure Power 11 FM 750W
SSD Storage	PNY CS1030 PCIe 3.0 (OS), WD Black SN850 PCIe 4.0, Samsung 870 QVO SATA
CPU cooler	be quiet! Pure Loop 240mm CLC (with Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut thermal paste)

We conducted tests on Windows 11 using the most recent software and performance-enhancing configurations. Using the Asus BIOS's one-click overclocking feature, the 12900K was able to stabilize the frequency of all P-cores at 5.3GHz.Under gaming workloads, power consumption varied between around 115-140W, while in multi-tasking testing, it ranged between ~160-206W. To guarantee that the temperatures are indicative of extended gaming sessions, all data is collected after 10-minute heat soak intervals.The gameplay tests follow our low-resolution CPU testing protocol. In order to minimize GPU bottlenecks and optimize CPU load, we ran Cyberpunk 2077 and Fortnite testing using DLSS Performance mode at the lowest possible settings. Data was gathered from both the in-game benchmark in Cyberpunk 2077 and from ordinary gameplay for Fortnite.

Heat and gameplay effectiveness

We experimented using the stock fan profile that was adjusted to be silent! because it is likely to be used by the majority of users and achieves a suitable balance between temperature control and fan noise.This is the be quiet's gaming thermal performance! Combining the Pure Loop 240mm cooler with the Intel 12900K:Even Intel's i9 CPUs may benefit greatly from using a 240mm cooler when it comes to gaming workloads, provided that non-overclocked settings are maintained. Even at absurdly high framerates, lightweight competitive games like Fortnite remain well below allowable temperature levels. But when you go into the more difficult games, such as Cyberpunk 2077 , the temperatures become a bit more erratic. The graph indicates that in some settings in Cyberpunk 2077, temperatures may rise as high as the low 80s. These are just transient temperature spikes, however, and they won't even happen if you're playing this game at framerates lower than the average of 160 frames per second.This size cooler can be used for gaming with a 12900K, however if you want to push high framerates in the most demanding games without worrying about temperature rises into the low 80s, you should probably skip the overclocking. To be clear, it's OK to have an occasional surge that takes you into the low 80s, but it's also acceptable to err on the side of caution and remain in the 70s. Using this 240mm cooler on a high-end CPU should be safe in the long run. It's also more than sufficient for quietly cooling an i7 or i5.This is the be quiet's gaming and multitasking performance! Combining the Pure Loop 240mm cooler with the Intel 12900K:When talking about higher workloads on a 12900K combined with this 240mm cooler, things become more complicated. The coupling isn't feasible because of the excessive heat. A 360mm radiator is what you need to prevent performance deterioration after years of consistent usage. It is not advised to record at mid-to-high temperatures in the 80s unless you are recording seldom and do not encode on the CPU often. Using GPU encoding instead would be a wiser decision since it is more efficient on newer GPUs.Final remarks about the be quiet's thermal performance Reviews for Pure Loop 240mm aren't that great, but it's decent considering the cost. There are 240mm CPU coolers available that are more effective. In our 12900K review, for example, the Corsair H170 Elite LCD we used often maintained the CPU package temperatures 5C cooler at around the same noise levels. Additionally, this made the Corsair H170 suitable for more demanding tasks like gaming capture in h.264. As it is, this cooler is reasonably priced and of good quality, but it's not among the greatest available.

Levels of noise

Nothing about the be silent is really distinctive, despite what the marketing says! 240mm Pure Loop in comparison to liquid coolers made by other leading manufacturers. When idle, it operates rather quietly except from a little hum from the pump. Until you put a significant amount of strain on the CPU, the Silent Wings fans are completely silent.While pushing Cyberpunk 2077 under multi-tasking circumstances, we detected an average load noise level of 45db and an idle noise level of 36db. It is important to note that multitasking on the 240mm radiator generates fan air noise, which is noticeable and should be taken into consideration while using sensitive microphones. During simple games, it stays rather quiet and shouldn't cause any concern.Pump wasn't too much of a problem either. With the exception of being forced to play CPU-intensive games at uncapped 1080p framerates that pushed hundreds of frames per second, the sample we tested didn't complain when playing games normally. However, it is what happens to every pump that tries to control higher heat output. Pump whining shouldn't be a problem if your framerates are capped at 120, 144, 165, or 240 frames per second.Is it wise to purchase the stay quiet? 240mm liquid cooler for CPU Pure Loop?To sum up this analysis, just keep silent! For the money, the Pure Loop 240mm CPU liquid cooler isn't a terrible product. To obtain the full performance you paid for, however, it's worth paying a little bit more for a CPU with superior cooling if you're purchasing an Intel i9 or Ryzen 9 class CPU. Due to worse contact with the CPU IHS, the thermal performance most likely collapses, making the be silent! Midrange CPUs that are easy to cool in the first place are better suited for the Pure Loop series.If you have the room, you might choose the 360mm radiator if you prefer the cooler's look and brand. The additional fee is merely $15 USD. It would contribute to higher net temperatures. You may want to consider alternative possibilities, however, if your space is restricted to 240mm and you plan to use the CPU heavily.As someone who is used to the ease of use and versatility of the Corsair iCUE software, I find it difficult to adjust to the lack of software support as well.Apart from that, the quiet's construction quality is excellent! A Nvidia FE graphics card would look fantastic with the Pure Loop liquid cooler series, which has a five-year guarantee, white LEDs that always look clean, a refillable design, and a black-on-silver appearance. You may even remove the CPU block cover plate to paint it if you'd like. Considering these factors, this is a fantastic cooler choice for the appropriate kind of consumer, but we are unable to suggest it for anybody else.

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