Conclusion

...be quiet! lives up to its name with a wonderfully muted pump that remains calm and composed at all times.

As we head into a series of CPU cooler reviews - models from the likes of Arctic, G.Skill and Noctua are all on the horizon - we're able to christen our new Ryzen 9 5950X setup by stating that the be quiet! Silent Loop 2 280mm is an excellent choice for a high-performance build.

Standing out in a market crammed full of familiar all-in-ones is easier said than done, but be quiet! manages to do so by paying attention to the finer details. The CPU block is arguably the most elegant we've seen thus far, bundled Silent Wings 3 fans exude quality, and all-black fixings, spare coolant and a small tube of thermal paste round out a comprehensive package.

Cooling performance is on a par with some of the best air- and liquid-coolers on the market today, and be quiet! lives up to its name with a wonderfully muted pump that remains calm and composed at all times. There isn't a great deal to criticise, and the only obvious lapse is a three-year warranty that falls short of what's on offer from the competition.

Bottom line: a high-performance all-in-one cooler that oozes class and refinement, be quiet!'s Silent Loop 2 is well worthy of recommendation.

The Good		The Bad
Sleek CPU block Bundled Silent Wings 3 fans High-end cooling performance Spare coolant and paste provided No superfluous software Low noise output		Only a three-year warranty

be quiet! Silent Loop 2 280mm

HEXUS.where2buy*

The be quiet! Silent Loop 2 280mm CPU cooler is available to purchase from Scan Computers.

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At HEXUS, we invite the companies whose products we test to comment on our articles. If any company representatives for the products reviewed choose to respond, we'll publish their commentary here verbatim.

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I'm glad bequiet! live to their name in all their products. May they forever continue to do so

About the same as a Noctua cooler, adds more failure points, liquid, and costs more. I'll never understand these.

Would be interesting to see the numbers against a D15 too. Although it seems the U12A does D15 levels of performance in a smaller package

Tunnah
About the same as a Noctua cooler, adds more failure points, liquid, and costs more. I'll never understand these.

Would be interesting to see the numbers against a D15 too. Although it seems the U12A does D15 levels of performance in a smaller package

It's all about the looks, innnit. Having an AIO is just sooo much sexier than a plain old fashioned tower cooler.

My 9900K @ 5GHz has been kept well under control with a £50-$60 Dark Rock 4 air cooler for the last 2yrs with no thermal issues whatsoever and I need never worry about a coolant leak.

It's a complete myth that you need an AIO for top end CPU's.

All you need is a decent air cooler and good airflow management.

Tunnah
About the same as a Noctua cooler, adds more failure points, liquid, and costs more. I'll never understand these.

For me personally it's about ‘internal case temps’ when rendering more than looks and not potentially breaking the motherboard.

To get good temps from an air cooler they're usually pretty beefy (the noctua NH-U12A is 1.2KG…. more than a bag of sugar) and with the tractors/lorries (I'm near farms and some use the double treaded caterpillar tractors) that go by they can shake the entire house so I'm not so keen on putting that much weight on my motherboard, actually I'm not that keen on the idea even without the tractors lol.

From the article: “Bottom line: a high-performance all-in-one cooler that oozes”

…hmmm, maybe I'll skip this particular model then :-D